"Then, as I learn, I will discover things for myself and other things you can tell me."
"There is nothing to do."
"_Que va_, man, there is nothing!
Thy sleeping robe, this morning, should have been shaken and aired and hung somewhere in the sun.
Then, before the dew comes, it should be taken into shelter."
"Go on, rabbit."
"Thy socks should be washed and dried.
I would see thee had two pair."
"What else?"
"If thou would show me I would clean and oil thy pistol."
"Kiss me," Robert Jordan said.
"Nay, this is serious.
Wilt thou show me about the pistol?
Pilar has rags and oil.
There is a cleaning rod inside the cave that should fit it."
"Sure.
I'll show you."
"Then," Maria said.
"If you will teach me to shoot it either one of us could shoot the other and himself, or herself, if one were wounded and it were necessary to avoid capture."
"Very interesting," Robert Jordan said.
"Do you have many ideas like that?"
"Not many," Maria said.
"But it is a good one.
Pilar gave me this and showed me how to use it," she opened the breast pocket of her shirt and took out a cut-down leather holder such as pocket combs are carried in and, removing a wide rubber band that closed both ends, took out a Gem type, single-edged razor blade.
"I keep this always," she explained.
"Pilar says you must make the cut here just below the ear and draw it toward here."
She showed him with her finger.
"She says there is a big artery there and that drawing the blade from there you cannot miss it.
Also, she says there is no pain and you must simply press firmly below the ear and draw it downward.
She says it is nothing and that they cannot stop it if it is done."
"That's right," said Robert Jordan.
"That's the carotid artery."
So she goes around with that all the time, he thought, as a definitely accepted and properly organized possibility.
"But I would rather have thee shoot me," Maria said.
"Promise if there is ever any need that thou wilt shoot me."
"Sure," Robert Jordan said.
"I promise."
"Thank thee very much," Maria told him.
"I know it is not easy to do."
"That's all right," Robert Jordan said.
You forget all this, he thought.
You forget about the beauties of a civil war when you keep your mind too much on your work.
You have forgotten this.
Well, you are supposed to.
Kashkin couldn't forget it and it spoiled his work.
Or do you think the old boy had a hunch?
It was very strange because he had experienced absolutely no emotion about the shooting of Kashkin.
He expected that at some time he might have it.
But so far there had been absolutely none.
"But there are other things I can do for thee," Maria told him, walking close beside him, now, very serious and womanly.