Robert Jordan now looked past the table to where the wife of Pablo was standing by the fire.
She had said nothing yet, nor given any sign.
But now she said something he could not hear to the girl and the girl rose from the cooking fire, slipped along the wall, opened the blanket that hung over the mouth of the cave and went out.
I think it is going to come now, Robert Jordan thought.
I believe this is it.
I did not want it to be this way but this seems to be the way it is.
"Then we will do the bridge without thy aid," Robert Jordan said to Pablo.
"No," Pablo said, and Robert Jordan watched his face sweat.
"Thou wilt blow no bridge here."
"No?"
"Thou wilt blow no bridge," Pablo said heavily.
"And thou?" Robert Jordan spoke to the wife of Pablo who was standing, still and huge, by the fire.
She turned toward them and said,
"I am for the bridge."
Her face was lit by the fire and it was flushed and it shone warm and dark and handsome now in the firelight as it was meant to be.
"What do you say?" Pablo said to her and Robert Jordan saw the betrayed look on his face and the sweat on his forehead as he turned his head.
"I am for the bridge and against thee," the wife of Pablo said.
"Nothing more."
"I am also for the bridge," the man with the flat face and the broken nose said, crushing the end of the cigarette on the table.
"To me the bridge means nothing," one of the brothers said.
"I am for the _mujer_ of Pablo."
"Equally," said the other brother.
"Equally," the gypsy said.
Robert Jordan watched Pablo and as he watched, letting his right hand hang lower and lower, ready if it should be necessary, half hoping it would be (feeling perhaps that were the simplest and easiest yet not wishing to spoil what had gone so well, knowing how quickly all of a family, all of a clan, all of a band, can turn against a stranger in a quarrel, yet thinking what could be done with the hand were the simplest and best and surgically the most sound now that this had happened), saw also the wife of Pablo standing there and watched her blush proudly and soundly and healthily as the allegiances were given.
"I am for the Republic," the woman of Pablo said happily.
"And the Republic is the bridge.
Afterwards we will have time for other projects."
"And thou," Pablo said bitterly.
"With your head of a seed bull and your heart of a whore.
Thou thinkest there will be an afterwards from this bridge?
Thou hast an idea of that which will pass?"
"That which must pass," the woman of Pablo said.
"That which must pass, will pass."
"And it means nothing to thee to be hunted then like a beast after this thing from which we derive no profit?
Nor to die in it?"
"Nothing," the woman of Pablo said.
"And do not try to frighten me, coward."
"Coward," Pablo said bitterly.
"You treat a man as coward because he has a tactical sense.
Because he can see the results of an idiocy in advance.
It is not cowardly to know what is foolish."
"Neither is it foolish to know what is cowardly," said Anselmo, unable to resist making the phrase.
"Do you want to die?" Pablo said to him seriously and Robert Jordan saw how unrhetorical was the question.
"No."
"Then watch thy mouth.
You talk too much about things you do not understand.
Don't you see that this is serious?" he said almost pitifully.
"Am I the only one who sees the seriousness of this?"
I believe so, Robert Jordan thought.
Old Pablo, old boy, I believe so.