История жизни. (Anamnesis vitae). 9 страница

"Then some one from by the windows of the _Ayuntamiento_ yelled, 'They won't move! They are all praying!'

"Another drunkard shouted, 'Pull them out. Come on, pull them out. The time for praying is finished.'

"But none came out and then I saw a man coming out of the door.

"It was Don Federico Gonzalez, who owned the mill and feed store and was a fascist of the first order. He was tall and thin and his hair was brushed over the top of his head from one side to the other to cover a baldness and he wore a nightshirt that was tucked into his trousers. He was barefooted as when he had been taken from his home and he walked ahead of Pablo holding his hands above his head, and Pablo walked behind him with the barrels of his shotgun pressing against the back of Don Federico Gonzalez until Don Federico entered the double line. But when Pablo left him and returned to the door of the _Ayuntamiento_, Don Federico could not walk forward, and stood there, his eyes turned up to heaven and his hands reaching up as though they would grasp the sky.

"'He has no legs to walk,' some one said.

"'What's the matter, Don Federico? Can't you walk?' some one shouted to him. But Don Federico stood there with his hands up and only his lips were moving.

"'Get on,' Pablo shouted to him from the steps. 'Walk.'

"Don Federico stood there and could not move. One of the drunkards poked him in the backside with a flail handle and Don Federico gave a quick jump as a balky horse might, but still stood in the same place, his hands up, and his eyes up toward the sky.

"Then the peasant who stood beside me said, 'This is shameful. I have nothing against him but such a spectacle must terminate.' So he walked down the line and pushed through to where Don Federico was standing and said, 'With your permission,' and hit him a great blow alongside of the head with a club.

"Then Don Federico dropped his hands and put them over the top of his head where the bald place was and with his head bent and covered by his hands, the thin long hairs that covered the bald place escaping through his fingers, he ran fast through the double line With flails falling on his back and shoulders until he fell and those at the end of the line picked him up and swung him over the cliff. Never did he open his mouth from the moment he came out pushed by the shotgun of Pablo. His only difficulty was to move forward. It was as though he had no command of his legs.

"After Don Federico, I saw there was a concentration of the hardest men at the end of the lines by the edge of the cliff and I left there and I went to the Arcade of the _Ayuntamiento_ and pushed aside two drunkards and looked in the window. In the big room of the _Ayuntamiento_ they were all kneeling in a half circle praying and the priest was kneeling and praying with them. Pablo and one named Cuatro Dedos, Four Fingers, a cobbler, who was much with Pablo then, and two others were standing with shotguns and Pablo said to the priest, 'Who goes now?' and the priest went on praying and did not answer him.

"'Listen, you,' Pablo said to the priest in his hoarse voice, 'who goes now? Who is ready now?'

"The priest would not speak to Pablo and acted as though he were not there and I could see Pablo was becoming very angry.

"'Let us all go together,' Don Ricardo Montalvo, who was a land owner, said to Pablo, raising his head and stopping praying to speak.

"'_Que va_,' said Pablo. 'One at a time as you are ready.'

"'Then I go now,' Don Ricardo said. 'I'll never be any more ready.' The priest blessed him as he spoke and blessed him again as he stood up, without interrupting his praying, and held up a crucifix for Don Ricardo to kiss and Don Ricardo kissed it and then turned and said to Pablo, 'Nor ever again as ready. You _Cabron_ of the bad milk. Let us go.'

"Don Ricardo was a short man with gray hair and a thick neck and he had a shirt on with no collar. He was bow-legged from much horseback riding. 'Good-by,' he said to all those who were kneeling. 'Don't be sad. To die is nothing. The only bad thing is to die at the hands of this _canalla_. Don't touch me,' he said to Pablo. 'Don't touch me with your shotgun.'

"He walked out of the front of the _Ayuntamiento_ with his gray hair and his small gray eyes and his thick neck looking very short and angry. He looked at the double line of peasants and he spat on the ground. He could spit actual saliva which, in such a circumstance, as you should know, _Ingles_, is very rare and he said, '_Arriba Espana!_ Down with the miscalled Republic and I obscenity in the milk of your fathers.'

"So they clubbed him to death very quickly because of the insult, beating him as soon as he reached the first of the men, beating him as he tried to walk with his head up, beating him until he fell and chopping at him with reaping hooks and the sickles, and many men bore him to the edge of the cliff to throw him over and there was blood now on their hands and on their clothing, and now began to be the feeling that these who came out were truly enemies and should be killed.

"Until Don Ricardo came out with that fierceness and calling those insults, many in the line would have given much, I am sure, never to have been in the line. And if any one had shouted from the line, 'Come, let us pardon the rest of them. Now they have had their lesson,' I am sure most would have agreed.

"But Don Ricardo with all his bravery did a great disservice to the others. For he aroused the men in the line and where, before, they were performing a duty and with no great taste for it, now they were angry, and the difference was apparent.

"'Let the priest out and the thing will go faster,' some one shouted.

"'Let out the priest.'

"'We've had three thieves, let us have the priest.'

"'Two thieves,' a short peasant said to the man who had shouted. 'It was two thieves with Our Lord.'

"'Whose Lord?' the man said, his face angry and red.

"'In the manner of speaking it is said Our Lord.'

"'He isn't my Lord; not in joke,' said the other. 'And thee hadst best watch thy mouth if thou dost not want to walk between the lines.'

"'I am as good a Libertarian Republican as thou,' the short peasant said. 'I struck Don Ricardo across the mouth. I struck Don Federico across the back. I missed Don Benito. But I say Our Lord is the formal way of speaking of the man in question and that it was two thieves.'

"'I obscenity in the milk of thy Republicanism. You speak of Don this and Don that.'

"'Here are they so called.'

"'Not by me, the _cabrones_. And thy Lord-- Hi! Here comes a new one!'

"It was then that we saw a disgraceful sight, for the man who walked out of the doorway of the _Ayuntamiento_ was Don Faustino Rivero, the oldest son of his father, Don Celestino Rivero, a land owner. He was tall and his hair was yellow and it was freshly combed back from his forehead for he always carried a comb in his pocket and he had combed his hair now before coming out. He was a great annoyer of girls, and he was a coward, and he had always wished to be an amateur bullfighter. He went much with gypsies and with builfighters and with bull raisers and delighted to wear the Andalucian costume, but he had no courage and was considered a joke. One time he was announced to appear in an amateur benefit fight for the old people's home in Avila and to kill a bull from on horseback in the Andalucian style, which he had spent much time practising, and when he had seen the size of the bull that had been substituted for him in place of the little one, weak in the legs, he had picked out himself, he had said he was sick and, some said, put three fingers down his throat to make himself vomit.

"When the lines saw him, they commenced to shout, '_Hola_, Don Faustino. Take care not to vomit.'

"'Listen to me, Don Faustino. There are beautiful girls over the cliff.'

"'Don Faustino. Wait a minute and we will bring out a bull bigger than the other.'

"And another shouted, 'Listen to me, Don Faustino. Hast thou ever heard speak of death?'

"Don Faustino stood there, still acting brave. He was still under the impulse that had made him announce to the others that he was going out. It was the same impulse that had made him announce himself for the bullfight. That had made him believe and hope that he could be an amateur matador. Now he was inspired by the example of Don Ricardo and he stood there looking both handsome and brave and he made his face scornful. But he could not speak.

"'Come, Don Faustino,' some one called from the line. 'Come, Don Faustino. Here is the biggest bull of all.'

"Don Faustino stood looking out and I think as he looked, that there was no pity for him on either side of the line. Still he looked both handsome and superb; but time was shortening and there was only one direction to go.

"'Don Faustino,' some one called. 'What are you waiting for, Don Faustino?'

"'He is preparing to vomit,' some one said and the lines laughed.

"'Don Faustino,' a peasant called. 'Vomit if it will give thee pleasure. To me it is all the same.'

"Then, as we watched, Don Faustino looked along the lines and across the square to the cliff and then when he saw the cliff and the emptiness beyond, he turned quickly and ducked back toward the entrance of the _Ayuntamiento_.

"All the lines roared and some one shouted in a high voice, 'Where do you go, Don Faustino? Where do you go?'

"'He goes to throw up,' shouted another and they all laughed again.

"Then we saw Don Faustino coming out again with Pablo behind him with the shotgun. All of his style was gone now. The sight of the lines had taken away his type and his style and he came out now with Pablo behind him as though Pablo were cleaning a Street and Don Faustino was what he was pushing ahead of him. Don Faustino came out now and he was crossing himself and praying and then he put his hands in front of his eyes and walked down the steps toward the lines.

"'Leave him alone,' some one shouted. 'Don't touch him.'

"The lines understood and no one made a move to touch Don Faustino and, with his hands shaking and held in front of his eyes, and with his mouth moving, he walked along between the lines.

"No one said anything and no one touched him and, when he was halfway through the lines, he could go no farther and fell to his knees.

"No one struck him. I was walking along parallel to the line to see what happened to him and a peasant leaned down and lifted him to his feet and said, 'Get up, Don Faustino, and keep walking. The bull has not yet come out.'

"Don Faustino could not walk alone and the peasant in a black smock helped him on one side and another peasant in a black smock and herdsman's boots helped him on the other, supporting him by the arms and Don Faustino walking along between the lines with his hands over his eyes, his lips never quiet, and his yellow hair slicked on his head and shining in the sun, and as he passed the peasants would say, 'Don Faustino, _buen provecho_. Don Faustino, that you should have a good appetite,' and others said, 'Don Faustino, _a sus ordenes_. Don Faustino at your orders,' and one, who had failed at bullfighting himself, said, 'Don Faustino. _Matador, a sus ordenes_,' and another said, 'Don Faustino, there are beautiful girls in heaven, Don Faustino.' And they walked Don Faustino through the lines, holding him close on either side, holding him up as he walked, with him with his hands over his eyes. But he must have looked through his fingers, because when they came to the edge of the cliff with him, he knelt again, throwing himself down and clutching the ground and holding to the grass, saying, 'No. No. No. Please. NO. Please. Please. No. No.'

"Then the peasants who were with him and the others, the hard ones of the end of the line, squatted quickly behind him as he knelt, and gave him a rushing push and he was over the edge without ever having been beaten and you heard him crying loud and high as he fell.

"It was then I knew that the lines had become cruel and it was first the insults of Don Ricardo and second the cowardice of Don Faustino that had made them so.

"'Let us have another,' a peasant called out and another peasant slapped him on the back and said, 'Don Faustino! What a thing! Don Faustino!'

"'He's seen the big bull now,' another said. 'Throwing up will never help him, now.'

"'In my life,' another peasant said, 'in my life I've never seen a thing like Don Faustino.'

"'There are others,' another peasant said. 'Have patience. Who knows what we may yet see?'

"'There may be giants and dwarfs,' the first peasant said. 'There may be Negroes and rare beasts from Africa. But for me never, never will there be anything like Don Faustino. But let's have another one! Come on. Let's have another one!'

"The drunkards were handing around bottles of anis and cognac that they had looted from the bar of the club of the fascists, drinking them down like wine, and many of the men in the lines were beginning to be a little drunk, too, from drinking after the strong emotion of Don Benito, Don Federico, Don Ricardo and especially Don Faustino. Those who did not drink from the bottles of liquor were drinking from leather wineskins that were passed about and one handed a wineskin to me and I took a long drink, letting the wine run cool down my throat from the leather _bota_ for I was very thirsty, too.

"'To kill gives much thirst,' the man with the wineskin said to me.

"'_Que va_,' I said. 'Hast thou killed?'

"'We have killed four,' he said, proudly. 'Not counting the _civiles_. Is it true that thee killed one of the _civiles_, Pilar?'

"'Not one,' I said. 'I shot into the smoke when the wall fell, as did the others. That is all.'

"'Where got thee the pistol, Pilar?'

"'From Pablo. Pablo gave it to me after he killed the _civiles_.'

"'Killed he them with this pistol?'

"'With no other,' I said. 'And then he armed me with it.'

"'Can I see it, Pilar? Can I hold it?'

"'Why not, man?' I said, and I took it out from under the rope and handed it to him. But I was wondering why no one else had come out and just then who should come out but Don Guillermo Martin from whose store the flails, the herdsman's clubs, and the wooden pitchforks had been taken. Don Guillermo was a fascist but otherwise there Was nothing against him.

"It is true he paid little to those who made the flails but he charged little for them too and if one did not wish to buy flails from Don Guillermo, it was possible to make them for nothing more than the cost of the wood and the leather. He had a rude way of speaking and he was undoubtedly a fascist and a member of their club and he sat at noon and at evening in the cane chairs of their club to read _El Debate_, to have his shoes shined, and to drink vermouth and seltzer and eat roasted almonds, dried shrimps, and anchovies. But one does not kill for that, and I am sure if it had not been for the insults of Don Ricardo Montalvo and the lamentable spectacle of Don Faustino, and the drinking consequent on the emotion of them and the others, some one would have shouted, 'That Don Guillermo should go in peace. We have his flails. Let him go.'

"Because the people of this town are as kind as they can be cruel and they have a natural sense of justice and a desire to do that which is right. But cruelty had entered into the lines and also drunkenness or the beginning of drunkenness and the lines were not as they were when Don Benito had come out. I do not know how it is in other countries, and no one cares more for the pleasure of drinking than I do, but in Spain drunkenness, when produced by other elements than wine, is a thing of great ugliness and the people do things that they would not have done. Is it not so in your country, _Ingles?_"

"It is so," Robert Jordan said. "When I was seven years old and going with my mother to attend a wedding in the state of Ohio at which I was to be the boy of a pair of boy and girl who carried flowers--"

"Did you do that?" asked Maria. "How nice!"

"In this town a Negro was hanged to a lamp post and later burned. It was an arc light. A light which lowered from the post to the pavement. And he was hoisted, first by the mechanism which was used to hoist the arc light but this broke--"

"A Negro," Maria said. "How barbarous!"

"Were the people drunk?" asked Pilar. "Were they drunk thus to burn a Negro?"

"I do not know," Robert Jordan said. "Because I saw it only looking out from under the blinds of a window in the house which stood on the corner where the arc light was. The street was full of people and when they lifted the Negro up for the second time--"

"If you had only seven years and were in a house, you could not tell if they were drunk or not," Pilar said.

"As I said, when they lifted the Negro up for the second time, my mother pulled me away from the window, so I saw no more," Robert Jordan said. "But since I have had experiences which demonstrate that drunkenness is the same in my country. It is ugly and brutal."

"You were too young at seven," Maria said. "You were too young for such things. I have never seen a Negro except in a circus. Unless the Moors are Negroes."

"Some are Negroes and some are not," Pilar said. "I can talk to you of the Moors."

"Not as I can," Maria said. "Nay, not as I can."

"Don't speak of such things," Pilar said. "It is unhealthy. Where were we?"

"Speaking of the drunkenness of the lines," Robert Jordan said. "Go on."

"It is not fair to say drunkenness," Pilar said. "For, yet, they were a long way from drunkenness. But already there was a change in them, and when Don Guillermo came out, standing straight, near-sighted, gray-headed, of medium height, with a shirt with a collar button but no collar, standing there and crossing himself once and looking ahead, but seeing little without his glasses, but walking forward well and calmly, he was an appearance to excite pity. But some one shouted from the line, 'Here, Don Guillermo. Up here, Don Guillermo. In this direction. Here we all have your products.'

"They had had such success joking at Don Faustino that they could not see, now, that Don Guillermo was a different thing, and if Don Guillermo was to be killed, he should be killed quickly and with dignity.

"'Don Guillermo,' another shouted. 'Should we send to the house for thy spectacles?'

"Don Guillermo's house was no house, since he had not much money and was only a fascist to be a snob and to console himself that he must work for little, running a wooden-implement shop. He was a fascist, too, from the religiousness of his wife which he accepted as his own due to his love for her. He lived in an apartment in the building three houses down the square and when Don Guillermo stood there, looking near-sightedly at the lines, the double lines he knew he must enter, a woman started to scream from the balcony of the apartment where he lived. She could see him from the balcony and she was his wife.

"'Guillermo,' she cried. 'Guillermo. Wait and I will be with thee.'

"Don Guillermo turned his head toward where the shouting came from. He could not see her. He tried to say something but he could not. Then he waved his hand in the direction the woman had called from and started to walk between the lines.

"'Guillermo!' she cried. 'Guillermo! Oh, Guillermo!' She was holding her hands on the rail of the balcony and shaking back and forth. 'Guillermo!'

"Don Guillermo waved his hand again toward the noise and walked into the lines with his head up and you would not have known what he was feeling except for the color of his face.

"Then some drunkard yelled, 'Guillermo!' from the lines, imitating the high cracked voice of his wife and Don Guillermo rushed toward the man, blindly, with tears now running down his cheeks and the man hit him hard across the face with his flail and Don Guillermo sat down from the force of the blow and sat there crying, but not from fear, while the drunkards beat him and one drunkard jumped on top of him, astride his shoulders, and beat him with a bottle. After this many of the men left the lines and their places were taken by the drunkards who had been jeering and saying things in bad taste through the windows of the _Ayuntamiento_.

"I myself had felt much emotion at the shooting of the _guardia civil_ by Pablo," Pilar said. "It was a thing of great ugliness, but I had thought if this is how it must be, this is how it must be, and at least there was no cruelty, only the depriving of life which, as we all have learned in these years, is a thing of ugliness but also a necessity to do if we are to win, and to preserve the Republic.

"When the square had been closed off and the lines formed, I had admired and understood it as a conception of Pablo, although it seemed to me to be somewhat fantastic and that it would be necessary for all that was to be done to be done in good taste if it were not to be repugnant. Certainly if the fascists were to be executed by the people, it was better for all the people to have a part in it, and I wished to share the guilt as much as any, just as I hoped to share in the benefits when the town should be ours. But after Don Guillermo I felt a feeling of shame and distaste, and with the coming of the drunkards and the worthless ones into the lines, and the abstention of those who left the lines as a protest after Don Guillermo, I wished that I might disassociate myself altogether from the lines, and I walked away, across the square, and sat down on a bench under one of the big trees that gave shade there.

"Two peasants from the lines walked over, talking together, and one of them called to me, 'What passes with thee, Pilar?'

"'Nothing, man,' I told him.

"'Yes,' he said. 'Speak. What passes.'

"'I think that I have a belly-full,' I told him.

"'Us, too,' he said and they both sat down on the bench. One of them had a leather wineskin and he handed it to me.

"'Rinse out thy mouth,' he said and the other said, going on with the talking they had been engaged in, 'The worst is that it will bring bad luck. Nobody can tell me that such things as the killing of Don Guillermo in that fashion will not bring bad luck.'

"Then the other said, 'If it is necessary to kill them all, and I am not convinced of that necessity, let them be killed decently and without mockery.'

"'Mockery is justified in the case of Don Faustino,' the other said. 'Since he was always a farcer and was never a serious man. But to mock such a serious man as Don Guillermo is beyond all right.'

"'I have a belly-full,' I told him, and it was literally true because I felt an actual sickness in all of me inside and a sweating and a nausea as though I had swallowed bad sea food.

"'Then, nothing,' the one peasant said. 'We will take no further part in it. But I wonder what happens in the other towns.'

"'They have not repaired the telephone wires yet,' I said. 'It is a lack that should be remedied.'

"'Clearly,' he said. 'Who knows but what we might be better employed putting the town into a state of defense than massacring people with this slowness and brutality.'

"'I will go to speak with Pablo, I told them and I stood up from the bench and started toward the arcade that led to the door of the _Ayuntamiento_ from where the lines spread across the square. The lines now were neither straight nor orderly and there was much and very grave drunkenness. Two men had fallen down and lay on their backs in the middle of the square and were passing a bottle back and forth between them. One would take a drink and then shout, '_Viva la Anarquia!_' lying on his back and shouting as though he were a madman. He had a red-and-black handkerchief around his neck. The other shouted, '_Viva la Libertad!_' and kicked his feet in the air and then bellowed, '_Viva Ia Libertad!_' again. He had a red-andblack handkerchief too and he waved it in one hand and waved the bottle with the other.

"A peasant who had left the lines and now stood in the shade of the arcade looked at them in disgust and said, 'They should shout, "Long live drunkenness." That's all they believe in.'

"'They don't believe even in that,' another peasant said. 'Those neither understand nor believe in anything.'

"Just then, one of the drunkards got to his feet and raised both arms with his fists clenched over his head and shouted, 'Long live Anarchy and Liberty and I obscenity in the milk of the Republic!'

"The other drunkard who was still lying on his back, took hold of the ankle of the drunkard who was shouting and rolled over so that the shouting drunkard fell with him, and they rolled over together and then sat up and the one who had pulled the other down put his arm around the shouter's neck and then handed the shouter a bottle and kissed the red-and-black handkerchief he wore and they both drank together.

"Just then, a yelling went up from the lines and, looking up the arcade, I could not see who it was that was coming out because the man's head did not show above the heads of those crowded about the door of the _Ayuntamiento_. All I could see was that some one was being pushed out by Pablo and Cuatro Dedos with their shotguns but I could not see who it was and I moved on close toward the lines where they were packed against the door to try to see.

"There was much pushing now and the chairs and the tables of the fascists' cafe had been overturned except for one table on which a drunkard was lying with his head hanging down and his mouth open and I picked up a chair and set it against one of the pillars and mounted on it so that I could see over the heads of the crowd.

"The man who was being pushed out by Pablo and Cuatro Dedos was Don Anastasio Rivas, who was an undoubted fascist and the fattest man in the town. He was a grain buyer and the agent for several insurance companies and he also loaned money at high rates of interest. Standing on the chair, I saw him walk down the steps and toward the lines, his fat neck bulging over the back of the collar band of his shirt, and his bald head shining in the sun, but he never entered them because there was a shout, not as of different men shouting, but of all of them. It was an ugly noise and was the cry of the drunken lines all yelling together and the lines broke with the rush of men toward him and I saw Don Anastasio throw himself down with his hands over his head and then you could not see him for the men piled on top of him. And when the men got up from him, Don Anastasio was dead from his head being beaten against the stone flags of the paving of the arcade and there were no more lines but only a mob.

"'We're going in,' they commenced to shout. 'We're going in after them.'

"'He's too heavy to carry,' a man kicked at the body of Don Anastasio, who was lying there on his face. 'Let him stay there.'

"'Why should we lug that tub of tripe to the cliff? Let him lie there.'

"'We are going to enter and finish with them inside,' a man shouted. 'We're going in.'

"'Why wait all day in the sun?' another yelled. 'Come on. Let us go.'

"The mob was now pressing into the arcade. They were shouting and pushing and they made a noise now like an animal and they were all shouting 'Open up! Open up!' for the guards had shut the doors of the _Ayuntamiento_ when the lines broke.

"Standing on the chair, I could see in through the barred window into the hail of the _Ayuntamiento_ and in there it was as it had been before. The priest was standing, and those who were left were kneeling in a half circle around him and they were all praying. Pablo was sitting on the big table in front of the Mayor's chair with his shotgun slung over his back. His legs were hanging down from the table and he was rolling a cigarette. Cuatro Dedos was sitting in the Mayor's chair with his feet on the table and he was smoking a cigarette. All the guards were sitting in different chairs of the administration, holding their guns. The key to the big door was on the table beside Pablo.

"The mob was shouting, 'Open up! Open up! Open up!' as though it were a chant and Pablo was sitting there as though he did not hear them. He said something to the priest but I could not hear what he said for the noise of the mob.

"The priest, as before, did not answer him but kept on praying. With many people pushing me, I moved the chair close against the wall, shoving it ahead of me as they shoved me from behind. I stood on the chair with my face close against the bars of the window and held on by the bars. A man climbed on the chair too and stood with his arms around mine, holding the wider bars.