"You know what was done in that village?" Primitivo asked Robert Jordan.

"Yes. I have heard the story."

"From Pilar?"

"Yes."

"You could not hear all of it from the woman," Pablo said heavily. "Because she did not see the end of it because she fell from a chair outside of the window."

"You tell him what happened then," Pilar said. "Since I know not the story, let you tell it."

"Nay," Pablo said. "I have never told it."

"No," Pilar said. "And you will not tell it. And now you wish it had not happened."

"No," Pablo said. "That is not true. And if all had killed the fascists as I did we would not have this war. But I would not have had it happen as it happened."

"Why do you say that?" Primitivo asked him. "Are you changing your politics?"

"No. But it was barbarous," Pablo said. "In those days I was very barbarous."

"And now you are drunk," Pilar said.

"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," Agustin said to him. "What sort of place is this?"

"I would bring them all back to life," Pablo said sadly. "Every one."

"Thy mother," Agustin 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, Ingles," Agustin 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?" Andres 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," Agustin 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," Agustin 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.

"Not a beard," Pablo said. He shook his head. "That's not a beard." He was almost jovial now. "He's a false professor."

"I obscenity in the milk of all," Agustin said, "if it does not seem like a lunatic asylum here."

"You should drink," Pablo said to him. "To me everything appears normal. Except the lack of beard of Don Roberto."

Maria ran her hand over Robert Jordan's cheek.

"He has a beard," she said to Pablo.

"You should know," Pablo said and Robert Jordan looked at him.

I don't think he is so drunk, Robert Jordan thought. No, not so drunk. And I think I had better watch myself.

"Thou," he said to Pablo. "Do you think this snow will last?"

"What do you think?"

"I asked you."

"Ask another," Pablo told him. "I am not thy service of information. You have a paper from thy service of information. Ask the woman. She commands."

"I asked thee."

"Go and obscenity thyself," Pablo told him. "Thee and the woman and the girl."

"He is drunk," Primitivo said. "Pay him no heed, Ingles."

"I do not think he is so drunk," Robert Jordan said.

Maria was standing behind him and Robert Jordan saw Pablo watching her over his shoulder. The small eyes, like a boar's, were watching her out of the round, stubble-covered head and Robert Jordan thought: I have known many killers in this war and some before and they were all different; there is no common trait nor feature; nor any such thing as the criminal type; but Pablo is certainly not handsome.

"I don't believe you can drink," he said to Pablo. "Nor that you're drunk."

"I am drunk," Pablo said with dignity. "To drink is nothing. It is to be drunk that is important. Estoy muy borracho."

"I doubt it," Robert Jordan told him. "Cowardly, yes."

It was so quiet in the cave, suddenly, that he could hear the hissing noise the wood made burning on the hearth where Pilar cooked. He heard the sheepskin crackle as he rested his weight on his feet. He thought he could almost hear the snow falling outside. He could not, but he could hear the silence where it fell.

I'd like to kill him and have it over with, Robert Jordan was thinking. I don't know what he is going to do, but it is nothing good. Day after tomorrow is the bridge and this man is bad and he constitutes a danger to the success of the whole enterprise. Come on. Let us get it over with.

Pablo grinned at him and put one finger up and wiped it across his throat. He shook his head that turned only a little each way on his thick, short neck.

"Nay, Ingles," he said. "Do not provoke me." He looked at Pilar and said to her, "It is not thus that you get rid of me."

"Sinverguenza," Robert Jordan said to him, committed now in his own mind to the action. "Cobarde."