"I have not finished."
"Go ahead," Pilar said.
"Talk until he comes back.
Talk until he rolls a hand grenade under that blanket and blows this all up. Dynamite and all."
"I think that you exaggerate, Pilar," Fernando said.
"I do not think that he has any such conception."
"I do not think so either," Agustin said.
"Because that would blow the wine up too and he will be back in a little while to the wine."
"Why not turn him over to El Sordo and let El Sordo sell him to the fascists?" Rafael suggested.
"You could blind him and he would be easy to handle."
"Shut up," Pilar said.
"I feel something very justified against thee too when thou talkest."
"The fascists would pay nothing for him anyway," Primitivo said.
"Such things have been tried by others and they pay nothing.
They will shoot thee too."
"I believe that blinded he could be sold for something," Rafael said.
"Shut up," Pilar said.
"Speak of blinding again and you can go with the other."
"But, he, Pablo, blinded the _guardia civil_ who was wounded," the gypsy insisted.
"You have forgotten that?"
"Close thy mouth," Pilar said to him.
She was embarrassed before Robert Jordan by this talk of blinding.
"I have not been allowed to finish," Fernando interrupted.
"Finish," Pilar told him.
"Go on. Finish."
"Since it is impractical to hold Pablo as a prisoner," Fernando commenced, "and since it is repugnant to offer him--"
"Finish," Pilar said.
"For the love of God, finish."
"--in any class of negotiation," Fernando proceeded calmly, "I am agreed that it is perhaps best that he should be eliminated in order that the operations projected should be insured of the maximum possibility of success."
Pilar looked at the little man, shook her head, bit her lips and said nothing.
"That is my opinion," Fernando said.
"I believe we are justified in believing that he constitutes a danger to the Republic--"
"Mother of God," Pilar said.
"Even here one man can make a bureaucracy with his mouth."
"Both from his own words and his recent actions," Fernando continued.
"And while he is deserving of gratitude for his actions in the early part of the movement and up until the most recent time--"
Pilar had walked over to the fire.
Now she came up to the table.
"Fernando," Pilar said quietly and handed a bowl to him.
"Take this stew please in all formality and fill thy mouth with it and talk no more.
We are in possession of thy opinion."
"But, how then--" Primitivo asked and paused without completing the sentence.
"_Estoy listo_," Robert Jordan said.
"I am ready to do it.
Since you are all decided that it should be done it is a service that I can do."
What's the matter? he thought.
From listening to him I am beginning to talk like Fernando.
That language must be infectious.
French, the language of diplomacy.
Spanish, the language of bureaucracy.