Yet the hand of a man is like the paw of a bear."
"So is the chest of a man like the chest of a bear," Robert Jordan said.
"With the hide removed from the bear, there are many similarities in the muscles."
"Yes," Anselmo said.
"The gypsies believe the bear to be a brother of man."
"So do the Indians in America," Robert Jordan said.
"And when they kill a bear they apologize to him and ask his pardon.
They put his skull in a tree and they ask him to forgive them before they leave it."
"The gypsies believe the bear to be a brother to man because he has the same body beneath his hide, because he drinks beer, because he enjoys music and because he likes to dance."
"So also believe the Indians."
"Are the Indians then gypsies?"
"No.
But they believe alike about the bear."
"Clearly.
The gypsies also believe he is a brother because he steals for pleasure."
"Have you gypsy blood?"
"No.
But I have seen much of them and clearly, since the movement, more.
There are many in the hills.
To them it is not a sin to kill outside the tribe.
They deny this but it is true."
"Like the Moors."
"Yes.
But the gypsies have many laws they do not admit to having.
In the war many gypsies have become bad again as they were in olden times."
"They do not understand why the war is made.
They do not know for what we fight."
"No," Anselmo said.
"They only know now there is a war and people may kill again as in the olden times without a surety of punishment."
"You have killed?" Robert Jordan asked in the intimacy of the dark and of their day together.
"Yes.
Several times.
But not with pleasure.
To me it is a sin to kill a man.
Even Fascists whom we must kill.
To me there is a great difference between the bear and the man and I do not believe the wizardry of the gypsies about the brotherhood with animals.
No.
I am against all killing of men."
"Yet you have killed."
"Yes.
And will again.
But if I live later, I will try to live in such a way, doing no harm to any one, that it will be forgiven."
"By whom?"
"Who knows?
Since we do not have God here any more, neither His Son nor the Holy Ghost, who forgives?
I do not know."
"You have not God any more?"
"No. Man.
Certainly not.
If there were God, never would He have permitted what I have seen with my eyes.