Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl’s name.
“We’ve been thrown out,” Edna said.
“By the police,” said Mike. “There’s some people in there that don’t like me.”
“I’ve kept them out of four fights,” Edna said. “You’ve got to help me.”
Bill’s face was red.
“Come back in, Edna,” he said. “Go on in there and dance with Mike.”
“It’s silly,” Edna said. “There’ll just be another row.”
“Damned Biarritz swine,” Bill said.
“Come on,” Mike said. “After all, it’s a pub. They can’t occupy a whole pub.”
“Good old Mike,” Bill said. “Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta.”
“They’re so bloody,” Mike said. “I hate the English.”
“They can’t insult Mike,” Bill said. “Mike is a swell fellow. They can’t insult Mike. I won’t stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?” His voice broke.
“Who cares?” Mike said. “I don’t care. Jake doesn’t care. Do you care?”
“No,” Edna said. “Are you a bankrupt?”
“Of course I am. You don’t care, do you, Bill?”
Bill put his arm around Mike’s shoulder.
“I wish to hell I was a bankrupt. I’d show those bastards.”
“They’re just English,” Mike said. “It never makes any difference what the English say.”
“The dirty swine,” Bill said. “I’m going to clean them out.”
“Bill,” Edna looked at me. “Please don’t go in again, Bill. They’re so stupid.”
“That’s it,” said Mike. “They’re stupid. I knew that was what it was.”
“They can’t say things like that about Mike,” Bill said.
“Do you know them?” I asked Mike.
“No. I never saw them. They say they know me.”
“I won’t stand it,” Bill said.
“Come on. Let’s go over to the Suizo,” I said.
“They’re a bunch of Edna’s friends from Biarritz,” Bill said.
“They’re simply stupid,” Edna said.
“One of them’s Charley Blackman, from Chicago,” Bill said.
“I was never in Chicago,” Mike said.
Edna started to laugh and could not stop.
“Take me away from here,” she said, “you bankrupts.”
“What kind of a row was it?” I asked Edna. We were walking across the square to the Suizo. Bill was gone.
“I don’t know what happened, but some one had the police called to keep Mike out of the back room. There were some people that had known Mike at Cannes. What’s the matter with Mike?”
“Probably he owes them money” I said. “That’s what people usually get bitter about.”
In front of the ticket-booths out in the square there were two lines of people waiting. They were sitting on chairs or crouched on the ground with blankets and newspapers around them. They were waiting for the wickets to open in the morning to buy tickets for the bull-fight. The night was clearing and the moon was out. Some of the people in the line were sleeping.
At the Café Suizo we had just sat down and ordered Fundador when Robert Cohn came up.
“Where’s Brett?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“She was with you.”
“She must have gone to bed.”
“She’s not.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
His face was sallow under the light. He was standing up.
“Tell me where she is.”
“Sit down,” I said. “I don’t know where she is.”
“The hell you don’t!”
“You can shut your face.”
“Tell me where Brett is.”
“I’ll not tell you a damn thing.”
“You know where she is.”
“If I did I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Oh, go to hell, Cohn,” Mike called from the table. “Brett’s gone off with the bull-fighter chap. They’re on their honeymoon.”
“You shut up.”
“Oh, go to hell!” Mike said languidly.
“Is that where she is?” Cohn turned to me.
“Go to hell!”
“She was with you. Is that where she is?”
“Go to hell!”
“I’ll make you tell me”—he stepped forward—“you damned pimp.”
I swung at him and he ducked. I saw his face duck sideways in the light. He hit me and I sat down on the pavement. As I started to get on my feet he hit me twice. I went down backward under a table. I tried to get up and felt I did not have any legs. I felt I must get on my feet and try and hit him. Mike helped me up. Some one poured a carafe of water on my head. Mike had an arm around me, and I found I was sitting on a chair. Mike was pulling at my ears.
“I say, you were cold,” Mike said.
“Where the hell were you?”
“Oh, I was around.”
“You didn’t want to mix in it?”
“He knocked Mike down, too,” Edna said.
“He didn’t knock me out,” Mike said. “I just lay there.”
“Does this happen every night at your fiestas?” Edna asked. “Wasn’t that Mr. Cohn?”
“I’m all right,” I said. “My head’s a little wobbly.”
There were several waiters and a crowd of people standing around.
“Vaya!” said Mike. “Get away. Go on.”
The waiters moved the people away.
“It was quite a thing to watch,” Edna said. “He must be a boxer.”
“He is.”
“I wish Bill had been here,” Edna said. “I’d like to have seen Bill knocked down, too. I’ve always wanted to see Bill knocked down. He’s so big.”
“I was hoping he would knock down a waiter,” Mike said, “and get arrested. I’d like to see Mr. Robert Cohn in jail.”
“No,” I said.
“Oh, no,” said Edna. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do, though,” Mike said. “I’m not one of these chaps likes being knocked about. I never play games, even.”
Mike took a drink.
“I never liked to hunt, you know. There was always the danger of having a horse fall on you. How do you feel, Jake?”
“All right.”
“You’re nice,” Edna said to Mike. “Are you really a bankrupt?”
“I’m a tremendous bankrupt,” Mike said. “I owe money to everybody. Don’t you owe any money?”
“Tons.”
“I owe everybody money,” Mike said. “I borrowed a hundred pesetas from Montoya to-night.”
“The hell you did,” I said.
“I’ll pay it back,” Mike said. “I always pay everything back.”
“That’s why you’re a bankrupt, isn’t it?” Edna said.
I stood up. I had heard them talking from a long way away. It all seemed like some bad play.
“I’m going over to the hotel,” I said. Then I heard them talking about me.
“Is he all right?” Edna asked.
“We’d better walk with him.”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Don’t come. I’ll see you all later.”
I walked away from the café. They were sitting at the table. I looked back at them and at the empty tables. There was a waiter sitting at one of the tables with his head in his hands.
Walking across the square to the hotel everything looked new and changed. I had never seen the trees before. I had never seen the flagpoles before, nor the front of the theatre. It was all different. I felt as I felt once coming home from an out-of-town football game. I was carrying a suitcase with my football things in it, and I walked up the street from the station in the town I had lived in all my life and it was all new. They were raking the lawns and burning leaves in the road, and I stopped for a long time and watched. It was all strange. Then I went on, and my feet seemed to be a long way off, and everything seemed to come from a long way off, and I could hear my feet walking a great distance away. I had been kicked in the head early in the game. It was like that crossing the square. It was like that going up the stairs in the hotel. Going up the stairs took a long time, and I had the feeling that I was carrying my suitcase. There was a light in the room. Bill came out and met me in the hall.
“Say,” he said, “go up and see Cohn. He’s been in a jam, and he’s asking for you.”
“The hell with him.”
“Go on. Go on up and see him.”
I did not want to climb another flight of stairs.
“What are you looking at me that way for?”
“I’m not looking at you. Go on up and see Cohn. He’s in bad shape.”
“You were drunk a little while ago,” I said.
“I’m drunk now,” Bill said. “But you go up and see Cohn. He wants to see you.”
“All right,” I said. It was just a matter of climbing more stairs. I went on up the stairs carrying my phantom suitcase. I walked down the hall to Cohn’s room. The door was shut and I knocked.
“Who is it?”
“Barnes.”
“Come in, Jake.”
I opened the door and went in, and set down my suitcase. There was no light in the room. Cohn was lying, face down, on the bed in the dark.
“Hello, Jake.”
“Don’t call me Jake.”
I stood by the door. It was just like this that I had come home. Now it was a hot bath that I needed. A deep, hot bath, to lie back in.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.
Cohn was crying. There he was, face down on the bed, crying. He had on a white polo shirt, the kind he’d worn at Princeton.
“I’m sorry, Jake. Please forgive me.”
“Forgive you, hell.”
“Please forgive me, Jake.”
I did not say anything. I stood there by the door.
“I was crazy. You must see how it was.”
“Oh, that’s all right.”
“I couldn’t stand it about Brett.”
“You called me a pimp.”
I did not care. I wanted a hot bath. I wanted a hot bath in deep water.
“I know. Please don’t remember it. I was crazy.”
“That’s all right.”
He was crying. His voice was funny. He lay there in his white shirt on the bed in the dark. His polo shirt.
“I’m going away in the morning.”
He was crying without making any noise.
“I just couldn’t stand it about Brett. I’ve been through hell, Jake. It’s been simply hell. When I met her down here Brett treated me as though I were a perfect stranger. I just couldn’t stand it. We lived together at San Sebastian. I suppose you know it. I can’t stand it any more.”
He lay there on the bed.
“Well,” I said, “I’m going to take a bath.”
“You were the only friend I had, and I loved Brett so.”
“Well,” I said, “so long.”
“I guess it isn’t any use,” he said. “I guess it isn’t any damn use.”
“What?”
“Everything. Please say you forgive me, Jake.”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s all right.”
“I felt so terribly. I’ve been through such hell, Jake. Now everything’s gone. Everything.”
“Well,” I said, “so long. I’ve got to go.”
He rolled over, sat on the edge of the bed, and then stood up.
“So long, Jake,” he said. “You’ll shake hands, won’t you?”
“Sure. Why not?”
We shook hands. In the dark I could not see his face very well.
“Well,” I said, “see you in the morning.”
“I’m going away in the morning.”
“Oh, yes,” I said.
I went out. Cohn was standing in the door of the room.
“Are you all right, Jake?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I’m all right.”
I could not find the bathroom. After a while I found it. There was a deep stone tub. I turned on the taps and the water would not run. I sat down on the edge of the bath-tub. When I got up to go I found I had taken off my shoes. I hunted for them and found them and carried them down-stairs. I found my room and went inside and undressed and got into bed.
I woke with a headache and the noise of the bands going by in the street. I remembered I had promised to take Bill’s friend Edna to see the bulls go through the street and into the ring. I dressed and went down-stairs and out into the cold early morning. People were crossing the square, hurrying toward the bull-ring. Across the square were the two lines of men in front of the ticket-booths. They were still waiting for the tickets to go on sale at seven o’clock. I hurried across the street to the café. The waiter told me that my friends had been there and gone.
“How many were they?”
“Two gentlemen and a lady.”
That was all right. Bill and Mike were with Edna. She had been afraid last night they would pass out. That was why I was to be sure to take her. I drank the coffee and hurried with the other people toward the bull-ring. I was not groggy now. There was only a bad headache. Everything looked sharp and clear, and the town smelt of the early morning.
The stretch of ground from the edge of the town to the bull-ring was muddy. There was a crowd all along the fence that led to the ring, and the outside balconies and the top of the bull-ring were solid with people. I heard the rocket and I knew I could not get into the ring in time to see the bulls come in, so I shoved through the crowd to the fence. I was pushed close against the planks of the fence. Between the two fences of the runway the police were clearing the crowd along. They walked or trotted on into the bull-ring. Then people commenced to come running. A drunk slipped and fell. Two policemen grabbed him and rushed him over to the fence. The crowd were running fast now. There was a great shout from the crowd, and putting my head through between the boards I saw the bulls just coming out of the street into the long running pen. They were going fast and gaining on the crowd. Just then another drunk started out from the fence with a blouse in his hands. He wanted to do capework with the bulls. The two policemen tore out, collared him, one hit him with a club, and they dragged him against the fence and stood flattened out against the fence as the last of the crowd and the bulls went by. There were so many people running ahead of the bulls that the mass thickened and slowed up going through the gate into the ring, and as the bulls passed, galloping together, heavy, muddy-sided, horns swinging, one shot ahead, caught a man in the running crowd in the back and lifted him in the air. Both the man’s arms were by his sides, his head went back as the horn went in, and the bull lifted him and then dropped him. The bull picked another man running in front, but the man disappeared into the crowd, and the crowd was through the gate and into the ring with the bulls behind them. The red door of the ring went shut, the crowd on the outside balconies of the bull-ring were pressing through to the inside, there was a shout, then another shout.
The man who had been gored lay face down in the trampled mud. People climbed over the fence, and I could not see the man because the crowd was so thick around him. From inside the ring came the shouts. Each shout meant a charge by some bull into the crowd. You could tell by the degree of intensity in the shout how bad a thing it was that was happening. Then the rocket went up that meant the steers had gotten the bulls out of the ring and into the corrals. I left the fence and started back toward the town.
Back in the town I went to the café to have a second coffee and some buttered toast. The waiters were sweeping out the café and mopping off the tables. One came over and took my order.
“Anything happen at the encierro?”
“I didn’t see it all. One man was badly cogido.”
“Where?”
“Here.” I put one hand on the small of my back and the other on my chest, where it looked as though the horn must have come through. The waiter nodded his head and swept the crumbs from the table with his cloth.
“Badly cogido,” he said. “All for sport. All for pleasure.”
He went away and came back with the long-handled coffee and milk pots. He poured the milk and coffee. It came out of the long spouts in two streams into the big cup. The waiter nodded his head.
“Badly cogido through the back,” he said. He put the pots down on the table and sat down in the chair at the table. “A big horn wound. All for fun. Just for fun. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s it. All for fun. Fun, you understand.”
“You’re not an aficionado?”
“Me? What are bulls? Animals. Brute animals.” He stood up and put his hand on the small of his back. “Right through the back. A cornada right through the back. For fun—you understand.”
He shook his head and walked away, carrying the coffee-pots. Two men were going by in the street. The waiter shouted to them. They were grave-looking. One shook his head. “Muerto!” he called.
The waiter nodded his head. The two men went on. They were on some errand. The waiter came over to my table.
“You hear? Muerto. Dead. He’s dead. With a horn through him. All for morning fun. Es muy flamenco.”
“It’s bad.”
“Not for me,” the waiter said. “No fun in that for me.”
Later in the day we learned that the man who was killed was named Vicente Girones, and came from near Tafalla. The next day in the paper we read that he was twenty-eight years old, and had a farm, a wife, and two children. He had continued to come to the fiesta each year after he was married. The next day his wife came in from Tafalla to be with the body, and the day after there was a service in the chapel of San Fermin, and the coffin was carried to the railway-station by members of the dancing and drinking society of Tafalla. The drums marched ahead, and there was music on the fifes, and behind the men who carried the coffin walked the wife and two children. . . . Behind them marched all the members of the dancing and drinking societies of Pamplona, Estella, Tafalla, and Sanguesa who could stay over for the funeral. The coffin was loaded into the baggage-car of the train, and the widow and the two children rode, sitting, all three together, in an open third-class railway-carriage. The train started with a jerk, and then ran smoothly, going down grade around the edge of the plateau and out into the fields of grain that blew in the wind on the plain on the way to Tafalla.
The bull who killed Vicente Girones was named Bocanegra, was Number 118 of the bull-breeding establishment of Sanchez Tabemo, and was killed by Pedro Romero as the third bull of that same afternoon. His ear was cut by popular acclamation and given to Pedro Romero, who, in turn, gave it to Brett, who wrapped it in a handkerchief belonging to myself, and left both ear and handkerchief, along with a number of Muratti cigarette-stubs, shoved far back in the drawer of the bed-table that stood beside her bed in the Hotel Montoya, in Pamplona.
Back in the hotel, the night watchman was sitting on a bench inside the door. He had been there all night and was very sleepy. He stood up as I came in. Three of the waitresses came in at the same time. They had been to the morning show at the bull-ring. They went up-stairs laughing. I followed them up-stairs and went into my room. I took off my shoes and lay down on the bed. The window was open onto the balcony and the sunlight was bright in the room. I did not feel sleepy. It must have been half past three o’clock when I had gone to bed and the bands had waked me at six. My jaw was sore on both sides. I felt it with my thumb and fingers. That damn Cohn. He should have hit somebody the first time he was insulted, and then gone away. He was so sure that Brett loved him. He was going to stay, and true love would conquer all. Some one knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
It was Bill and Mike. They sat down on the bed.
“Some encierro,” Bill said. “Some encierro.”
“I say, weren’t you there?” Mike asked. “Ring for some beer, Bill.”
“What a morning!” Bill said. He mopped off his face. “My God! what a morning! And here’s old Jake. Old Jake, the human punching-bag.”
“What happened inside?”
“Good God!” Bill said, “what happened, Mike?”
“There were these bulls coming in,” Mike said. “Just ahead of them was the crowd, and some chap tripped and brought the whole lot of them down.”
“And the bulls all came in right over them,” Bill said.
“I heard them yell.”
“That was Edna,” Bill said.
“Chaps kept coming out and waving their shirts.”
“One bull went along the barrera and hooked everybody over.”
“They took about twenty chaps to the infirmary,” Mike said.
“What a morning!” Bill said. “The damn police kept arresting chaps that wanted to go and commit suicide with the bulls.”
“The steers took them in, in the end,” Mike said.
“It took about an hour.”
“It was really about a quarter of an hour,” Mike objected.
“Oh, go to hell,” Bill said. “You’ve been in the war. It was two hours and a half for me.”
“Where’s that beer?” Mike asked.
“What did you do with the lovely Edna?”
“We took her home just now. She’s gone to bed.”
“How did she like it?”
“Fine. We told her it was just like that every morning.”
“She was impressed,” Mike said.
“She wanted us to go down in the ring, too,” Bill said. “She likes action.”
“I said it wouldn’t be fair to my creditors,” Mike said.
“What a morning,” Bill said. “And what a night!”
“How’s your jaw, Jake?” Mike asked.
“Sore,” I said.
Bill laughed.
“Why didn’t you hit him with a chair?”
“You can talk,” Mike said. “He’d have knocked you out, too. I never saw him hit me. I rather think I saw him just before, and then quite suddenly I was sitting down in the street, and Jake was lying under a table.”
“Where did he go afterward?” I asked.
“Here she is,” Mike said. “Here’s the beautiful lady with the beer.”
The chambermaid put the tray with the beer-bottles and glasses down on the table.
“Now bring up three more bottles,” Mike said.
“Where did Cohn go after he hit me?” I asked Bill.
“Don’t you know about that?” Mike was opening a beer-bottle. He poured the beer into one of the glasses, holding the glass close to the bottle.
“Really?” Bill asked.
“Why he went in and found Brett and the bull-fighter chap in the bull-fighter’s room, and then he massacred the poor, bloody bull-fighter.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What a night!” Bill said.
“He nearly killed the poor, bloody bull-fighter. Then Cohn wanted to take Brett away. Wanted to make an honest woman of her, I imagine. Damned touching scene.”
He took a long drink of the beer.
“He is an ass.”
“What happened?”
“Brett gave him what for. She told him off. I think she was rather good.”
“I’ll bet she was,” Bill said.
“Then Cohn broke down and cried, and wanted to shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. He wanted to shake hands with Brett, too.”
“I know. He shook hands with me.”
“Did he? Well, they weren’t having any of it. The bull-fighter fellow was rather good. He didn’t say much, but he kept getting up and getting knocked down again. Cohn couldn’t knock him out. It must have been damned funny.”
“Where did you hear all this?”
“Brett. I saw her this morning.”
“What happened finally?”
“It seems the bull-fighter fellow was sitting on the bed. He’d been knocked down about fifteen times, and he wanted to fight some more. Brett held him and wouldn’t let him get up. He was weak, but Brett couldn’t hold him, and he got up. Then Cohn said he wouldn’t hit him again. Said he couldn’t do it. Said it would be wicked. So the bull-fighter chap sort of rather staggered over to him. Cohn went back against the wall.
“‘So you won’t hit me?’
“‘No,’ said Cohn. ‘I’d be ashamed to.’
“So the bull-fighter fellow hit him just as hard as he could in the face, and then sat down on the floor. He couldn’t get up, Brett said. Cohn wanted to pick him up and carry him to the bed. He said if Cohn helped him he’d kill him, and he’d kill him anyway this morning if Cohn wasn’t out of town. Cohn was crying, and Brett had told him off, and he wanted to shake hands. I’ve told you that before.”
“Tell the rest,” Bill said.
“It seems the bull-fighter chap was sitting on the floor. He was waiting to get strength enough to get up and hit Cohn again. Brett wasn’t having any shaking hands, and Cohn was crying and telling her how much he loved her, and she was telling him not to be a ruddy ass. Then Cohn leaned down to shake hands with the bull-fighter fellow. No hard feelings, you know. All for forgiveness. And the bull-fighter chap hit him in the face again.”
“That’s quite a kid,” Bill said.
“He ruined Cohn,” Mike said. “You know I don’t think Cohn will ever want to knock people about again.”
“When did you see Brett?”
“This morning. She came in to get some things. She’s looking after this Romero lad.”
He poured out another bottle of beer.
“Brett’s rather cut up. But she loves looking after people. That’s how we came to go off together. She was looking after me.”
“I know,” I said.
“I’m rather drunk,” Mike said. “I think I’ll stay rather drunk. This is all awfully amusing, but it’s not too pleasant. It’s not too pleasant for me.”
He drank off the beer.
“I gave Brett what for, you know. I said if she would go about with Jews and bull-fighters and such people, she must expect trouble.” He leaned forward. “I say, Jake, do you mind if I drink that bottle of yours? She’ll bring you another one.”
“Please,” I said. “I wasn’t drinking it, anyway.”
Mike started to open the bottle. “Would you mind opening it?” I pressed up the wire fastener and poured it for him.
“You know,” Mike went on, “Brett was rather good. She’s always rather good. I gave her a fearful hiding about Jews and bull-fighters, and all those sort of people, and do you know what she said: ‘Yes. I’ve had such a hell of a happy life with the British aristocracy!’”
He took a drink.
“That was rather good. Ashley, chap she got the title from, was a sailor, you know. Ninth baronet. When he came home he wouldn’t sleep in a bed. Always made Brett sleep on the floor. Finally, when he got really bad, he used to tell her he’d kill her. Always slept with a loaded service revolver. Brett used to take the shells out when he’d gone to sleep. She hasn’t had an absolutely happy life. Brett. Damned shame, too. She enjoys things so.”
He stood up. His hand was shaky.
“I’m going in the room. Try and get a little sleep.”
He smiled.
“We go too long without sleep in these fiestas. I’m going to start now and get plenty of sleep. Damn bad thing not to get sleep. Makes you frightfully nervy.”
“We’ll see you at noon at the Iruña,” Bill said.
Mike went out the door. We heard him in the next room.
He rang the bell and the chambermaid came and knocked at the door.
“Bring up half a dozen bottles of beer and a bottle of Fundador,” Mike told her.
“Si, Señorito.”
“I’m going to bed,” Bill said. “Poor old Mike. I had a hell of a row about him last night.”
“Where? At that Milano place?”
“Yes. There was a fellow there that had helped pay Brett and Mike out of Cannes, once. He was damned nasty.”
“I know the story.”
“I didn’t. Nobody ought to have a right to say things about Mike.”
“That’s what makes it bad.”
“They oughtn’t to have any right. I wish to hell they didn’t have any right. I’m going to bed.”
