The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway [61]
Pedro Romero said he had learned a little English in Gibraltar. He was born in Ronda. That is not far above Gibraltar. He started bull-fighting in Malaga in the bull-fighting school there. He had only been at it three years. The bull-fight critic joked him about the number of Malagueno expressions he used. He was nineteen years old, he said. His older brother was with him as a banderillero, but he did not live in this hotel. He lived in a smaller hotel with the other people who worked for Romero. He asked me how many times I had seen him in the ring. I told him only three. It was really only two, but I did not want to explain after I had made the mistake.
"Where did you see me the other time? In Madrid?"
"Yes," I lied. I had read the accounts of his two appearances in Madrid in the bull-fight papers, so I was all right.
"The first or the second time?"
"The first."
"I was very bad," he said. "The second time I was better. You remember?" He turned to the critic.
He was not at all embarrassed. He talked of his work as something altogether apart from himself. There was nothing conceited or braggartly about him.
"I like it very much that you like my work," he said. "But you haven't seen it yet. To-morrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to you."
When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bull-fight critic nor I would think he was boasting.
"I am anxious to see it," the critic said. "I would like to be convinced."
"He doesn't like my work much." Romero turned to me. He was serious.
The critic explained that he liked it very much, but that so far it had been incomplete.
"Wait till to-morrow, if a good one comes out."
"Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?" the critic asked me.
"Yes. I saw them unloaded."
Pedro Romero leaned forward.
"What did you think of them?"
"Very nice," I said. "About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven't you seen them?"
"Oh, yes," said Romero.
"They won't weigh twenty-six arrobas," said the critic.
"No," said Romero.
"They've got bananas for horns," the critic said.
"You call them bananas?" asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. "You wouldn't call them bananas?"
"No," I said. "They're horns all right."
"They're very short," said Pedro Romero. "Very, very short. Still, they aren't bananas."
"I say, Jake," Brett called from the next table, "you have deserted us."
"Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls."
"You are superior."
"Tell him that bulls have no balls," Mike shouted. He was drunk.
Romero looked at me inquiringly.
"Drunk," I said. "Borracho! Muy borracho!"
"You might introduce your friends," Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero's face was very brown. He had very nice manners.
I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking.
"Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer."
Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her.
"Go on. Tell him!" Bill said.
Romero looked up smiling.
"This gentleman," I said, "is a writer."
Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn.
"He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?"
"I can't see it," the critic said.
"Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?"
"Nothing."
"Is that why he drinks?"
"No. He's waiting to marry this lady."
"Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table.
"What does he say?"
"He's drunk."
"Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!"
"You understand?" I said.
"Yes."
I