Does what I say not hold interest for you, _Ingles?_"
"You speak very well.
But there are other things that interest me more than talk of beauty or lack of beauty."
"Then let us talk of what interests thee."
"Where were you at the start of the movement?"
"In my town."
"Avila?"
"_Que va_, Avila."
"Pablo said he was from Avila."
"He lies.
He wanted to take a big city for his town.
It was this town," and she named a town.
"And what happened?"
"Much," the woman said.
"Much.
And all of it ugly.
Even that which was glorious."
"Tell me about it," Robert Jordan said.
"It is brutal," the woman said.
"I do not like to tell it before the girl."
"Tell it," said Robert Jordan.
"And if it is not for her, that she should not listen."
"I can hear it," Maria said.
She put her hand on Robert Jordan's.
"There is nothing that I cannot hear."
"It isn't whether you can hear it," Pilar said.
"It is whether I should tell it to thee and make thee bad dreams."
"I will not get bad dreams from a story," Maria told her.
"You think after all that has happened with us I should get bad dreams from a story?"
"Maybe it will give the _Ingles_ bad dreams."
"Try it and see."
"No, _Ingles_, I am not joking.
Didst thou see the start of the movement in any small town?"
"No," Robert Jordan said.
"Then thou hast seen nothing.
Thou hast seen the ruin that now is Pablo, but you should have seen Pablo on that day."
"Tell it."
"Nay.
I do not want to."
"Tell it."
"All right, then.
I will tell it truly as it was.
But thee, _guapa_, if it reaches a point that it molests thee, tell me."
"I will not listen to it if it molests me," Maria told her.
"It cannot be worse than many things."
"I believe it can," the woman said.
"Give me another cigarette, _Ingles_, and _vamonos_."
The girl leaned back against the heather on the bank of the stream and Robert Jordan stretched himself out, his shoulders against the ground and his head against a clump of the heather.
He reached out and found Maria's hand and held it in his, rubbing their two hands against the heather until she opened her hand and laid it flat on top of his as they listened.
"It was early in the morning when the _civiles_ surrendered at the barracks," Pilar began.