“Yes,” Pilar said. “It was really he who planned all.”
“You for energy and resolution,” Agustín said. “But Pablo for the moving. Pablo for the retreat. Force him now to study it.”
“You are a man of intelligence.”
“Intelligent, yes,” Agustín said. “But sin picardia. Pablo for that.”
“With his fear and all?”
“With his fear and all.”
“And what do you think of the bridges?”
“It is necessary. That I know. Two things we must do. We must leave here and we must win. The bridges are necessary if we are to Win.”
“If Pablo is so smart, why does he not see that?”
“He wants things as they are for his own weakness. He wants tO stay in the eddy of his own weakness. But the river is rising. Forced to a change, he will be smart in the change. Es muy vivo.”
“It is good that the boy did not kill him.”
“Qué va. The gypsy wanted me to kill him last night. The gypsy is an animal.”
“You’re an animal, too,” she said. “But intelligent.”
“We are both intelligent,” Agustín said. “But the talent is Pablo!”
“But difficult to put up with. You do not know how ruined.”
“Yes. But a talent. Look, Pilar. To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.”
“I will think it over,” she said. “We must start now. We are late.” Then, raising her voice, “English!” she called. “Inglés! Come on! Let us go.”
10
“Let us rest,” Pilar said to Robert Jordan. “Sit down here, Maria, and let us rest.”
“We should continue,” Robert Jordan said. “Rest when we get there. I must see this man.”
“You will see him,” the woman told him. “There is no hurry. Sit down here, Maria.”
“Come on,” Robert Jordan said. “Rest at the top.”
“I rest now,” the woman said, and sat down by the stream. The girl sat by her in the heather, the sun shining on her hair. Only Robert Jordan stood looking across the high mountain meadow with the trout brook running through it. There was heather growing where he stood. There were gray boulders rising from the yellow bracken that replaced the heather in the lower part of the meadow and below was the dark line of the pines.
“How far is it to El Sordo’s?” he asked.
“Not far,” the woman said. “It is across this open country, down into the next valley and above the timber at the head of the stream. Sit thee down and forget thy seriousness.”
“I want to see him and get it over with.”
“I want to bathe my feet,” the woman said and, taking off her rope-soled shoes and pulling off a heavy wool stocking, she put her right foot into the stream. “My God, it’s cold.”
“We should have taken horses,” Robert Jordan told her.
“This is good for me,” the woman said. “This is what I have been missing. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing, except that I am in a hurry.”
“Then calm yourself. There is much time. What a day it is and how I am contented not to be in pine trees. You cannot imagine how one can tire of pine trees. Aren’t you tired of the pines, guapa?”
“I like them,” the girl said.
“What can you like about them?”
“I like the odor and the feel of the needles under foot. I like the wind in the high trees and the creaking they make against each other.”
“You like anything,” Pilar said. “You are a gift to any man if you could cook a little better. But the pine tree makes a forest of boredom. Thou hast never known a forest of beech, nor of oak, nor of chestnut. Those are forests. In such forests each tree differs and there is character and beauty. A forest of pine trees is boredom. What do you say, Inglés?”
“I like the pines, too.”
“Pero, venga,” Pilar said. “Two of you. So do I like the pines, but we have been too long in these pines. Also I am tired of the mountains. In mountains there are only two directions. Down and up and down leads only to the road and the towns of the Fascists.”