For Whom The Bell Tolls

"Listen to me," Agustin said, and coming close he put his hand on Robert Jordan's shoulder. Then striking a flint and steel together he held it up and blowing on the end of the cork, looked at the young man's face in its glow.

"You look like the other one," he said. "But something different. Listen," he put the lighter down and stood holding his rifle. "Tell me this. Is it true about the bridge?"

"What about the bridge?"

"That we blow up an obscene bridge and then have to obscenely well obscenity ourselves off out of these mountains?"

"I know not."

"You know not," Agustin said. "What a barbarity! Whose then is the dynamite?"

"Mine."

"And knowest thou not what it is for? Don't tell me tales."

"I know what it is for and so will you in time," Robert Jordan said. "But now we go to the camp."

"Go to the unprintable," Agustin said. "And unprint thyself. But do you want me to tell you something of service to you?"

"Yes," said Robert Jordan. "If it is not unprintable," naming the principal obscenity that had larded the conversation. The man, Agustin, spoke so obscenely, coupling an obscenity to every noun as an adjective, using the same obscenity as a verb, that Robert Jordan wondered if he could speak a straight sentence. Agustin laughed in the dark when he heard the word. "It is a way of speaking I have. Maybe it is ugly. Who knows? Each one speaks according to his manner. Listen to me. The bridge is nothing to me. As well the bridge as another thing. Also I have a boredom in these mountains. That we should go if it is needed. These mountains say nothing to me. That we should leave them. But I would say one thing. Guard well thy explosive."

"Thank you," Robert Jordan said. "From thee?"

"No," Agustin said. "From people less unprintably equipped than I."

"So?" asked Robert Jordan.

"You understand Spanish," Agustin said seriously now. "Care well for thy unprintable explosive."

"Thank you."

"No. Don't thank me. Look after thy stuff."

"Has anything happened to it?"

"No, or I would not waste thy time talking in this fashion."

"Thank you all the same. We go now to camp."

"Good," said Agustin, "and that they send some one here who knows the password."

"Will we see you at the camp?"

"Yes, man. And shortly."

"Come on," Robert Jordan said to Anselmo.

They were walking down the edge of the meadow now and there was a gray mist. The grass was lush underfoot after the pineneedle floor of the forest and the dew on the grass wet through their canvas rope-soled shoes. Ahead, through the trees, Robert Jordan Could see a light where he knew the mouth of the cave must be.

"Agustin is a very good man," Anselmo said. "He speaks very filthily and always in jokes but he is a very serious man."

"You know him well?"

"Yes. For a long time. I have much confidence in him."

"And what he says?"

"Yes, man. This Pablo is bad now, as you could see."

"And the best thing to do?"

"One shall guard it at all times."

"Who?"

"You. Me. The woman and Agustin. Since he sees the danger."

"Did you think things were as bad as they are here?"

"No," Anselmo said. "They have gone bad very fast. But it was necessary to come here. This is the country of Pablo and of El Sordo. In their country we must deal with them unless it is something that can be done alone."

"And El Sordo?"

"Good," Anselmo said. "As good as the other is bad."

"You believe now that he is truly bad?"

"All afternoon I have thought of it and since we have heard what we have heard, I think now, yes. Truly."

"It would not be better to leave, speaking of another bridge, and obtain men from other bands?"

"No," Anselmo said. "This is his country. You could not move that he would not know it. But one must move with much precautions."

4