"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?"