The bull saw them and charged. A man shouted from behind one of the boxes and slapped his hat against the planks, and the bull, before he reached the steer, turned, gathered himself and charged where the man had been, trying to reach him behind the planks with a half-dozen quick, searching drives with the right horn.
"My God, isn't he beautiful?" Brett said. We were looking right down on him.
"Look how he knows how to use his horns," I said. "He's got a left and a right just like a boxer."
"Not really?"
"You watch."
"It goes too fast."
"Wait. There'll be another one in a minute."
They had backed up another cage into the entrance. In the far corner a man, from behind one of the plank shelters, attracted the bull, and while the bull was facing away the gate was pulled up and a second bull came out into the corral.
He charged straight for the steers and two men ran out from behind the planks and shouted, to turn him. He did not change his direction and the men shouted: "Hah! Hah! Toro!" and waved their arms; the two steers turned sideways to take the shock, and the bull drove into one of the steers.
"Don't look," I said to Brett. She was watching, fascinated.
"Fine," I said. "If it doesn't buck you."
"I saw it," she said. "I saw him shift from his left to his right horn."
"Damn good!"
The steer was down now, his neck stretched out, his head twisted, he lay the way he had fallen. Suddenly the bull left off and made for the other steer which had been standing at the far end, his head swinging, watching it all. The steer ran awkwardly and the bull caught him, hooked him lightly in the flank, and then turned away and looked up at the crowd on the walls, his crest of muscle rising. The steer came up to him and made as though to nose at him and the bull hooked perfunctorily. The next time he nosed at the steer and then the two of them trotted over to the other bull.
When the next bull came out, all three, the two bulls and the steer, stood together, their heads side by side, their horns against the newcomer. In a few minutes the steer picked the new bull up, quieted him down, and made him one of the herd. When the last two bulls had been unloaded the herd were all together.
The steer who had been gored had gotten to his feet and stood against the stone wall. None of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd.
We climbed down from the wall with the crowd, and had a last look at the bulls through the loopholes in the wall of the corral. They were all quiet now, their heads down. We got a carriage outside and rode up to the cafe. Mike and Bill came in half an hour later. They had stopped on the way for several drinks.
We were sitting in the cafe.
"That's an extraordinary business," Brett said.
"Will those last ones fight as well as the first?" Robert Cohn asked. "They seemed to quiet down awfully fast."
"They all know each other," I said. "They're only dangerous when they're alone, or only two or three of them together."
"What do you mean, dangerous?" Bill said. "They all looked dangerous to me."
"They only want to kill when they're alone. Of course, if you went in there you'd probably detach one of them from the herd, and he'd be dangerous."
"That's too complicated," Bill said. "Don't you ever detach me from the herd, Mike."
"I say," Mike said, "they were fine bulls, weren't they? Did you see their horns?"
"Did I not," said Brett. "I had no idea what they were like."
"Did you see the one hit that steer?" Mike asked. "That was extraordinary."
"It's no life being a steer," Robert Cohn said.
"Don't you think so?" Mike said. "I would have thought you'd loved being a steer, Robert."
"What do you mean, Mike?"
"They lead such a quiet life. They never say anything and they're always hanging about so."
We were embarrassed. Bill laughed. Robert Cohn was angry. Mike went on talking.
"I should think you'd love it. You'd never have to say a word. Come on, Robert. Do say something. Don't just sit there."
"I said something, Mike. Don't you remember? About the steers."
"Oh, say something more. Say something funny. Can't you see we're all having a good time here?"
"Come off it, Michael. You're drunk," Brett said.
"I'm not drunk. I'm quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?"
"Shut up, Michael. Try and show a little breeding."
"Breeding be damned. Who has any breeding, anyway, except the bulls? Aren't the bulls lovely? Don't you like them, Bill? Why don't you say something, Robert? Don't sit there looking like a bloody funeral. What if Brett did sleep with you? She's slept with lots of better people than you."
"Shut up," Cohn said. He stood up. "Shut up, Mike."
"Oh, don't stand up and act as though you were going to hit me. That won't make any difference to me. Tell me, Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don't you know you're not wanted? I know when I'm not wanted. Why don't you know when you're not wanted? You came down to San Sebastian where you weren't wanted, and followed Brett around like a bloody steer. Do you think that's right?"
"Shut up. You're drunk."
"Perhaps I am drunk. Why aren't you drunk? Why don't you ever get drunk, Robert? You know you didn't have a good time at San Sebastian because none of our friends would invite you on any of the parties. You can't blame them hardly. Can you? I asked them to. They wouldn't do it. You can't blame them, now. Can you? Now, answer me. Can you blame them?"
"Go to hell, Mike."
"I can't blame them. Can you blame them? Why do you follow Brett around? Haven't you any manners? How do you think it makes me feel?"
"You're a splendid one to talk about manners," Brett said.
"You've such lovely manners."
"Come on, Robert," Bill said.
"What do you follow her around for?" Bill stood up and took hold of Cohn.
"Don't go," Mike said. "Robert Cohn's going to buy a drink."
Bill went off with Cohn. Cohn's face was sallow. Mike went on talking. I sat and listened for a while. Brett looked disgusted.
"I say, Michael, you might not be such a bloody ass," she interrupted. "I'm not saying he's not right, you know." She turned to me.
The emotion left Mike's voice. We were all friends together. "I'm not so damn drunk as I sounded," he said.
"I know you're not," Brett said.
"We're none of us sober," I said.
"I didn't say anything I didn't mean."
"But you put it so badly," Brett laughed.
"He was an ass, though. He came down to San Sebastian where he damn well wasn't wanted. He hung around Brett and just looked at her. It made me damned well sick."
"He did behave very badly," Brett said.
"Mark you. Brett's had affairs with men before. She tells me all about everything. She gave me this chap Cohn's letters to read. I wouldn't read them."
"Damned noble of you."
"No, listen, Jake. Brett's gone off with men. But they weren't ever Jews, and they didn't come and hang about afterward."
"Damned good chaps," Brett said. "It's all rot to talk about it. Michael and I understand each other."
"She gave me Robert Cohn's letters. I wouldn't read them."
"You wouldn't read any letters, darling. You wouldn't read mine."
"I can't read letters," Mike said. "Funny, isn't it?"
"You can't read anything."
"No. You're wrong there. I read quite a bit. I read when I'm at home."
"You'll be writing next," Brett said. "Come on, Michael. De buck up. You've got to go through with this thing now. He's here, Don't spoil the fiesta."
"Well, let him behave, then."
"He'll behave. I'll tell him."
"You tell him, Jake. Tell him either he must behave or get out."
"Yes," I said, "it would be nice for me to tell him."
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"Look, Brett. Tell Jake what Robert calls you. That is perfect, you know."
"Oh, no. I can't."
"Go on. We're all friends. Aren't we all friends, Jake?" "I can't tell him. It's too ridiculous."
"I'll tell him."
"You won't, Michael. Don't be an ass."
"He calls her Circe," Mike said. "He claims she turns men into swine. Damn good. I wish I were one of these literary chaps."
"He'd be good, you know," Brett said. "He writes a good letter."
"I know," I said. "He wrote me from San Sebastian."
"That was nothing," Brett said. "He can write a damned amusing letter."
"She made me write that. She was supposed to be ill."
"I damned well was, too."
"Come on," I said, "we must go in and eat."
"How should I meet Cohn?" Mike said. "Just act as though nothing had happened."
"It's quite all right with me," Mike said. "I'm not embarrassed."
"If he says anything, just say you were tight."
"Quite. And the funny thing is I think I was tight."
"Come on," Brett said. "Are these poisonous things paid for? I must bathe before dinner."
We walked across the square. It was dark and all around the square were the lights from the cafe s under the arcades. We walked across the gravel under the trees to the hotel.
They went upstairs and I stopped to speak with Montoya. "Well, how did you like the bulls?" he asked.
"Good. They were nice bulls."
"They're all right"--Montoya shook his head--"but they're not too good."
"What didn't you like about them?"
"I don't know. They just didn't give me the feeling that they were so good."
"I know what you mean."
"They're all right."
"Yes. They're all right."
"How did your friends like them?"
"Fine."
"Good," Montoya said.
I went upstairs. Bill was in his room standing on the balcony looking out at the square. I stood beside him.
"Where's Cohn?"
"Upstairs in his room."
"How does he feel?"
"Like hell, naturally. Mike was awful. He's terrible when he's tight."
"He wasn't so tight."
"The hell he wasn't. I know what we had before we came to the cafe."
"He sobered up afterward."
"Good. He was terrible. I don't like Cohn, God knows, and I think it was a silly trick for him to go down to San Sebastian, but nobody has any business to talk like Mike."
"How'd you like the bulls?"
"Grand. It's grand the way they bring them out."
"Tomorrow come the Miuras."
"When does the fiesta start?"
"Day after tomorrow."
"We've got to keep Mike from getting so tight. That kind of stuff is terrible."
"We'd better get cleaned up for supper."
"Yes. That will be a pleasant meal."
"Won't it?"
As a matter of fact, supper was a pleasant meal. Brett wore a black, sleeveless evening dress. She looked quite beautiful. Mike acted as though nothing had happened. I had to go up and bring Robert Cohn down. He was reserved and formal, and his face was still taut and sallow, but he cheered up finally. He could not stop looking at Brett. It seemed to make him happy. It must have been pleasant for him to see her looking so lovely, and know he had been away with her and that everyone knew it. They could not take that away from him. Bill was very funny. So was Michael. They were good together.
It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.
Chapter XIV
I do not know what time I got to bed. I remember undressing, putting on a bathrobe, and standing out on the balcony. I knew I was quite drunk, and when I came in I put on the light over the head of the bed and started to read. I was reading a book by Turgenieff. Probably I read the same two pages over several times. It was one of the stories in A Sportsman's Sketches. I had read it before, but it seemed quite new. The country became very clear and the feeling of pressure in my head seemed to loosen. I was very drunk and I did not want to shut my eyes because the room would go round and round. If I kept on reading that feeling would pass.
I heard Brett and Robert Cohn come up the stairs. Cohn said good-night outside the door and went on up to his room. I heard Brett go into the room next door. Mike was already in bed. He had come in with me an hour before. He woke as she came in, and they talked together. I heard them laugh. I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep. It was not necessary to read anymore. I could shut my eyes without getting the wheeling sensation. But I could not sleep. There is no reason why because it is dark you should look at things differently from when it is light. The hell there isn't!
I figured that all out once, and for six months I never slept with the electric light off. That was another bright idea. To hell with women, anyway. To hell with you. Brett Ashley.
Women made such swell friends. Awfully swell. In the first place, you had to be in love with a woman to have a basis of friendship. I had been having Brett for a friend. I had not been thinking about her side of it. I had been getting something for nothing. That only delayed the presentation of the bill. The bill always came. That was one of the swell things you could count on.
I thought I had paid for everything. Not like the woman pays and pays and pays. No idea of retribution or punishment. Just exchange of values. You gave up something and got something else. Or you worked for something. You paid some way for everything that was any good. I paid my way into enough things that I liked, so that I had a good time. Either you paid by learning about them, or by experience, or by taking chances, or by money. Enjoying living was learning to get your money's worth and knowing when you had it. You could get your money's worth. The world was a good place to buy in. It seemed like a fine philosophy. In five years, I thought, it will seem just as silly as all the other fine philosophies I've had.
Perhaps that wasn't true, though. Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about.
I wished Mike would not behave so terribly to Cohn, though. Mike was a bad drunk. Brett was a good drunk. Bill was a good drunk. Cohn was never drunk. Mike was unpleasant after he passed a certain point. I liked to see him hurt Cohn. I wished he would not do it, though, because afterward it made me disgusted at myself. That was morality; things that made you disgusted afterward. No, that must be immorality. That was a large statement. What a lot of bilge I could think up at night. What rot, I could hear Brett say it. What rot! When you were with English you got into the habit of using English expressions in your thinking The English spoken language--the upper classes, anyway--must have fewer words than the Eskimo. Of course I didn't know anything about the Eskimo. Maybe the Eskimo was a fine language. Say the Cherokee. I didn't know anything about the Cherokee, either. The English talked with inflected phrases. One phrase to mean everything. I liked them, though. I liked the way they talked. Take Harris. Still Harris was not the upper classes.
I turned on the light again and read. I read the Turgenieff. I knew that now, reading it in the over-sensitized state of my mind after much too much brandy, I would remember it somewhere, and afterward it would seem as though it had really happened to me. I would always have it. That was another good thing you paid for and then had. Sometime along toward daylight I went to sleep.
The next two days in Pamplona were quiet, and there were no more rows. The town was getting ready for the fiesta. Workmen put up the gateposts that were to shut off the side streets when the bulls were released from the corrals and came running through the streets in the morning on
their way to the ring. The work-men dug holes and fitted in the timbers, each timber numbered for its regular place. Out on the plateau beyond the town employees of the bullring exercised picador horses, galloping them stiff-legged on the hard, sun-baked fields behind the bullring. The big gate of the bullring was open, and inside the amphitheatre was being swept. The ring was rolled and sprinkled, and carpenters replaced weakened or cracked planks in the barrera. Standing at the edge of the smooth rolled sand you could look up in the empty stands and see old women sweeping out the boxes.
Outside, the fence that led from the last street of the town to the entrance of the bullring was already in place and made a long pen; the crowd would come running down with the bulls behind them on the morning of the day of the first bullfight. Out across the plain, where the horse and cattle fair would be, some gypsies had camped under the trees. The wine and aguardiente sellers were putting up their booths. One booth advertised Anis Del Taro. The cloth sign hung against the planks in the hot sun. In the big square that was the centre of the town there was no change yet. We sat in the white wicker chairs on the terrasse of the cafe and watched the motor buses come in and unload peasants from the country coming in to the market, and we watched the buses fill up and start out with peasants sitting with their saddle bags full of the things they had bought in the town. The tall gray motor buses were the only life of the square except for the pigeons and the man with a hose who sprinkled the gravelled square and watered the streets.
In the evening was the paseo. For an hour after dinner every one, all the good looking girls, the officers from the garrison, all the fashionable people of the town, walked in the street on one side of the square while the cafe tables filled with the regular after dinner crowd.
During the morning I usually sat in the cafe and read the Madrid papers and then walked in the town or out into the country. Sometimes Bill went along. Sometimes he wrote in his room. Robert Cohn spent the mornings studying Spanish or trying to get a shave at the barbershop. Brett and Mike never got up until noon. We all had a vermouth at the cafe. It was a quiet life and no one was drunk. I went to church a couple of times, once with Brett. She said she wanted to hear me go to confession, but I told her that not only was it impossible but it was not as interesting as it sounded, and, besides, it would be in a language she did not know. We met Cohn as we came out of church, and although it was obvious he had followed us, yet he was very pleasant and nice, and we all three went for a walk out to the gypsy camp, and Brett had her fortune told.