“Yes,” Pablo said. “With your permission.”
“I liked you better when you were barbarous,” the woman said. “Of all men the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practise in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in his own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol.”
“You are a woman and you do not understand,” Pablo said equably. “I am drunk on wine and I would be happy except for those people I have killed. All of them fill me with sorrow.” He shook his head lugubriously.
“Give him some of that which Sordo brought,” Pilar said. “Give him something to animate him. He is becoming too sad to bear.”
“If I could restore them to life, I would,” Pablo said.
“Go and obscenity thyself,” Agustín said to him. “What sort of place is this?”
“I would bring them all back to life,” Pablo said sadly. “Every one.”
“Thy mother,” Agustín shouted at him. “Stop talking like this or get out. Those were fascists you killed.”
“You heard me,” Pablo said. “I would restore them all to life.”
“And then you would walk on the water,” Pilar said. “In my life I have never seen such a man. Up until yesterday you preserved some remnants of manhood. And today there is not enough of you left to make a sick kitten. Yet you are happy in your soddenness.”
“We should have killed all or none,” Pablo nodded his head. “All or none.”
“Listen, Inglés,” Agustín said. “How did you happen to come to Spain? Pay no attention to Pablo. He is drunk.”
“I came first twelve years ago to study the country and the language,” Robert Jordan said. “I teach Spanish in a university.”
“You look very little like a professoi” Primitivo said.
“He has no beard,” Pablo said. “Look at him. He has no beard.”
“Are you truly a professor?”
“An instructor.”
“But you teach?”
“Yes.”
“But why Spanish?” Andrés asked. “Would it not be easier to teach English since you are English?”
“He speaks Spanish as we do,” Anselmo said. “Why should he not teach Spanish?”
“Yes. But it is, in a way, presumptuous for a foreigner to teach Spanish,” Fernando said. “I mean nothing against you, Don Roberto.”
“He’s a false professor,” Pablo said, very pleased with himself. “He hasn’t got a beard.”
“Surely you know English better,” Fernando said. “Would it not be better and easier and clearer to teach English?”
“He doesn’t teach it to Spaniards–” Pilar started to intervene.
“I should hope not,” Fernando said.
“Let me finish, you mule,” Pilar said to him. “He teaches Spanish to Americans. North Americans.”
“Can they not speak Spanish?” Fernando asked. “South Americans can.”
“Mule,” Pilar said. “He teaches Spanish to North Americans who speak English.”
“Still and all I think it would be easier for him to teach English if that is what he speaks,” Fernando said.
“Can’t you hear he speaks Spanish?” Pilar shook her head hopelessly at Robert Jordan.
“Yes. But with an accent.”
“Of where?” Robert Jordan asked.
“Of Estremadura,” Fernando said primly.
“Oh my mother,” Pilar said. “What a people!”
“It is possible,” Robert Jordan said. “I have come here from there.”
“As he well knows,” Pilar said. “You old maid,” she turned to Fernando. “Have you had enough to eat?”
“I could eat more if there is a sufficient quantity,” Fernando told her. “And do not think that I wish to say anything against you, Don Roberto–”
“Milk,” Agustín said simply. “And milk again. Do we make the revolution in order to say Don Roberto to a comrade?”
“For me the revolution is so that all will say Don to all,” Fernando said. “Thus should it be under the Republic.”
“Milk,” Agustín said. “Black milk.”
“And I still think it would be easier and clearer for Don Roberto to teach English.”
“Don Roberto has no beard,” Pablo said. “He is a false professor.”
“What do you mean, I have no beard?” Robert Jordan said. “What’s this?” He stroked his chin and his cheeks where the threeday growth made a blond stubble.