The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway [44]
"We've had a grand time, Harris."
Harris was a little tight.
"I say. Really you don't know how much it means. I've not had much fun since the war."
"We'll fish together again, some time. Don't you forget it, Harris."
"We must. We have had such a jolly good time."
"How about another bottle around?"
"Jolly good idea," said Harris.
"This is mine," said Bill. "Or we don't drink it."
"I wish you'd let me pay for it. It does give me pleasure, you know."
"This is going to give me pleasure," Bill said.
The innkeeper brought in the fourth bottle. We had kept the same glasses. Harris lifted his glass.
"I say. You know this does utilize well."
Bill slapped him on the back.
"Good old Harris."
"I say. You know my name isn't really Harris. It's Wilson Harris. All one name. With a hyphen, you know."
"Good old Wilson-Harris," Bill said. "We call you Harris because we're so fond of you."
"I say, Barnes. You don't know what this all means to me."
"Come on and utilize another glass," I said.
"Barnes. Really, Barnes, you can't know. That's all."
"Drink up, Harris."
We walked back down the road from Roncesvalles with Harris between us. We had lunch at the inn and Harris went with us to the bus. He gave us his card, with his address in London and his club and his business address, and as we got on the bus he handed us each an envelope. I opened mine and there were a dozen flies in it. Harris had tied them himself. He tied all his own flies.
"I say, Harris—" I began.
"No, no!" he said. He was climbing down from the bus. "They're not first-rate flies at all. I only thought if you fished them some time it might remind you of what a good time we had."
The bus started. Harris stood in front of the post-office. He waved. As we started along the road he turned and walked back toward the inn.
"Say, wasn't that Harris nice?" Bill said.
"I think he really did have a good time."
"Harris? You bet he did."
"I wish he'd come into Pamplona."
"He wanted to fish."
"Yes. You couldn't tell how English would mix with each other, anyway."
"I suppose not."
We got into Pamplona late in the afternoon and the bus stopped in front of the Hotel Montoya. Out in the plaza they were stringing electric-light wires to light the plaza for the fiesta. A few kids came up when the bus stopped, and a customs officer for the town made all the people getting down from the bus open their bundles on the sidewalk. We went into the hotel and on the stairs I met Montoya. He shook hands with us, smiling in his embarrassed way.
"Your friends are here," he said.
"Mr. Campbell?"
"Yes. Mr. Cohn and Mr. Campbell and Lady Ashley."
He smiled as though there were something I would hear about.
"When did they get in?"
"Yesterday. I've saved you the rooms you had."
"That's fine. Did you give Mr. Campbell the room on the plaza?"
"Yes. All the rooms we looked at."
"Where are our friends now?"
"I think they went to the pelota."
"And how about the bulls?"
Montoya smiled. "To-night," he said. "To-night at seven o'clock they bring in the Villar bulls, and to-morrow come the Miuras. Do you all go down?"
"Oh, yes. They've never seen a desencajonada."
Montoya put his hand on my shoulder.
"I'll see you there."
He smiled again. He always smiled as though bull-fighting were a very special secret between the two of us; a rather shocking but really very deep secret that we knew about. He always smiled as though there were something lewd about the secret to outsiders, but that it was something that we understood. It would not do to expose it to people who would not understand.
"Your friend, is he aficionado, too?" Montoya smiled at Bill.
"Yes. He came all the way from New York to see the San Fermines."
"Yes?" Montoya politely disbelieved. "But he's not aficionado like you."
He put his hand on my shoulder again embarrassedly.
"Yes," I said. "He's a real aficionado."
"But he's not aficionado like you are."
Aficion means passion. An aficionado is one who is passionate about the bull-fights. All the good bull-fighters stayed