For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway [82]
“Pilar,” the girl said, looking along his arm. “Surely it is Pilar.”
At the lower edge of the meadow where the first trees grew the woman was sitting, her head on her arms. She looked like a dark bundle from where they stood; black against the brown of the tree trunk.
“Come on,” Robert Jordan said and started to run toward her through the knee-high heather. It was heavy and hard to run in and when he had run a little way, he slowed and walked. He could see the woman’s head was on her folded arms and she looked broad and black against the tree trunk. He came up to her and said, “Pilar!” sharply.
The woman raised her head and looked up at him.
“Oh,” she said. “You have terminated already?”
“Art thou ill?” he asked and bent down by her.
“Qué va,” she said. “I was asleep.”
“Pilar,” Maria, who had come up, said and kneeled down by her. “How are you? Are you all right?”
“I’m magnificent,” Pilar said but she did not get up. She looked at the two of them. “Well, Inglés,” she said. “You have been doing manly tricks again?”
“You are all right?” Robert Jordan asked, ignoring the words.
“Why not? I slept. Did you?”
“No.”
“Well,” Pilar said to the girl. “It seems to agree with you.”
Maria blushed and said nothing.
“Leave her alone,” Robert Jordan said.
“No one spoke to thee,” Pilar told him. “Maria,” she said and her voice was hard. The girl did not look up.
“Maria,” the woman said again. “I said it seems to agree with thee.”
“Oh, leave her alone,” Robert Jordan said again.
“Shut up, you,” Pilar said without looking at him. “Listen, Maria, tell me one thing.”
“No,” Maria said and shook her head.
“Maria,” Pilar said, and her voice was as hard as her face and there was nothing friendly in her face. “Tell me one thing of thy own volition.”
The girl shook her head.
Robert Jordan was thinking, if I did not have to work with this woman and her drunken man and her chicken-crut outfit, I would slap her so hard across the face that—.
“Go ahead and tell me,” Pilar said to the girl.
“No,” Maria said. “No.”
“Leave her alone,” Robert Jordan said and his voice did not sound like his own voice. I’ll slap her anyway and the hell with it, he thought.
Pilar did not even speak to him. It was not like a snake charming a bird, nor a cat with a bird. There was nothing predatory. Nor was there anything perverted about it. There was a spreading, though, as a cobra’s hood spreads. He could feel this. He could feel the menace of the spreading. But the spreading was a domination, not of evil, but of searching. I wish I did not see this, Robert Jordan thought. But it is not a business for slapping.
“Maria,” Pilar said. “I will not touch thee. Tell me now of thy own volition.”
“De tu propia voluntad,” the words were in Spanish.
The girl shook her head.
“Maria,” Pilar said. “Now and of thy own volition. You hear me? Anything at all.”
“No,” the girl said softly. “No and no.”
“Now you will tell me,” Pilar told her. “Anything at all. You will see. Now you will tell me.”
“The earth moved,” Maria said, not looking at the woman. “Truly. It was a thing I cannot tell thee.”
“So,” Pilar said and her voice was warm and friendly and there was no compulsion in it. But Robert Jordan noticed there were small drops of perspiration on her forehead and her lips. “So there was that. So that was it.”
“It is true,” Maria said and bit her lip.
“Of course it is true,” Pilar said kindly. “But do not tell it to your own people for they never will believe you. You have no Cali blood, Inglés?”
She got to her feet, Robert Jordan helping her up.
“No,” he said. “Not that I know of.”
“Nor has the Maria that she knows of,” Pilar said. “Pues es muy raro. It is very strange.”
“But it happened, Pilar,” Maria said.
“Cómo que no, hija?” Pilar said. “Why not, daughter? When I was young the earth moved so that you could feel it all shift in space and were afraid it would go out from under you. It happened every night.”
“You lie,” Maria said.
“Yes,” Pilar said. “I lie. It never moves more than three times in a lifetime. Did it really move?”
“Yes,” the girl