"What do you do sitting there?" Maria asked him. She was standing close beside him and he turned his head and smiled at her.
 "Nothing," he said. "I have been thinking."
 "What of? The bridge?"
 "No. The bridge is terminated. Of thee and of a hotel in Madrid where I know some Russians, and of a book I will write some time."
 "Are there many Russians in Madrid?"
 "No. Very few."
 "But in the fascist periodicals it says there are hundreds of thousands."
 "Those are lies. There are very few."
 "Do you like the Russians? The one who was here was a Russian."
 "Did you like him?"
 "Yes. I was sick then but I thought he was very beautiful and very brave."
 "What nonsense, beautiful," Pilar said. "His nose was flat as my hand and he had cheekbones as wide as a sheep's buttocks."
 "He was a good friend and comrade of mine," Robert Jordan said to Maria. "I cared for him very much."
 "Sure," Pilar said. "But you shot him."
 When she said this the card players looked up from the table and Pablo stared at Robert Jordan. Nobody said anything and then the gypsy, Rafael, asked, "Is it true, Roberto?"
 "Yes," Robert Jordan said. He wished Pilar had not brought this up and he wished he had not told it at El Sordo's. "At his request. He was badly wounded."
 "_Qu?cosa mas rara_," the gypsy said. "All the time he was with us he talked of such a possibility. I don't know how many times I have promised him to perform such an act. What a rare thing," he said again and shook his head.
 "He was a very rare man," Primitivo said. "Very singular."
 "Look," Andr廥, one of the brothers, said. "You who are Professor and all. Do you believe in the possibility of a man seeing ahead what is to happen to him?"
 "I believe he cannot see it," Robert Jordan said. Pablo was staring at him curiously and Pilar was watching him with no expression on her face. "In the case of this Russian comrade he was very nervous from being too much time at the front. He had fought at Irun which, you know, was bad. Very bad. He had fought later in the north. And since the first groups who did this work behind the lines were formed he had worked here, in Estremadura and in AndalucIa. I think he was very tired and nervous and he imagined ugly things."
 "He would undoubtedly have seen many evil things," Fernando said.
 "Like all the world," Andr廥 said. "But listen to me, _Ingl廥_. Do you think there is such a thing as a man knowing in advance what will befall him?"
 "No," Robert Jordan said. "That is ignorance and superstition."
 "Go on," Pilar said. "Let us hear the viewpoint of the professor." She spoke as though she were talking to a precocious child.
 "I believe that fear produces evil visions," Robert Jordan said. "Seeing bad signs--"
 "Such as the airplanes today," Primitivo said.
 "Such as thy arrival," Pablo said softly and Robert Jordan looked across the table at him, saw it was not a provocation but only an expressed thought, then went on. "Seeing bad signs, one, with fear, imagines an end for himself and one thinks that imagining comes by divination," Robert Jordan concluded. "I believe there is nothing more to it than that. I do not believe in ogres, nor soothsayers, nor in the supernatural things."
 "But this one with the rare name saw his fate clearly," the gypsy said. "And that was how it happened."
 "He did not see it," Robert Jordan said. "He had a fear of such a possibility and it became an obsession. No one can tell me that he saw anything."
 "Not I?" Pilar asked him and picked some dust up from the fire and blew it off the palm of her hand. "I cannot tell thee either?"
 "No. With all wizardry, gypsy and all, thou canst not tell me either."
 "Because thou art a miracle of deafness," Pilar said, her big face harsh and broad in the candlelight. "It is not that thou art stupid. Thou art simply deaf. One who is deaf cannot hear music. Neither can he hear the radio. So he might say, never having heard them, that such things do not exist. _Qu?va, Ingl廥_. I saw the death of that one with the rare name in his face as though it were burned there with a branding iron."
 "You did not," Robert Jordan insisted. "You saw fear and apprehension. The fear was made by what he had been through. The apprehension was for the possibility of evil he imagined."
 "_Qu?va_," Pilar said. "I saw death there as plainly as though it were sitting on his shoulder. And what is more he smelt of death."
 "He smelt of death," Robert Jordan jeered. "Of fear maybe. There is a smell to fear."
 "_De la muerte_," Pilar said. "Listen. When Blanquet, who was the greatest _peon de brega_ who ever lived, worked under the orders of Granero he told me that on the day of Manolo Granero's death, when they stopped in the chapel on the way to the ring, the odor of death was so strong on Manolo that it almost made Blanquet sick. And he had been with Manolo when he had bathed and dressed at the hotel before setting out for the ring. The odor was not present in the motorcar when they had sat packed tight together riding to the bull ring. Nor was it distinguishable to any one else but Juan Luis de la Rosa in the chapel. Neither Marcial nor Chicuelo smelled it neither then nor when the four of them lined up for the paseo. But Juan Luis was dead white, Blanquet told me, and he, Blanquet, spoke to him saying, 'Thou also?'
 "'So that I cannot breathe,' Juan Luis said to him. 'And from thy matador.'
 "'_Pues nada_,' Blanquet said. 'There is nothing to do. Let us hope we are mistaken.'
 "'And the others?' Juan Luis asked Blanquet.
 "'_Nada_,' Blanquet said. 'Nothing. But this one stinks worse than Jos?at Talavera.'
 "And it was on that afternoon that the bull _Pocapena_ of the ranch of Veragua destroyed Manolo Granero against the planks of the barrier in front of _tendido_ two in the Plaza de Toros of Madrid. I was there with Finito and I saw it. The horn entirely destroyed the cranium, the head of Manolo being wedged under the _estribo_ at the base of the _barrera_ where the bull had tossed him."
 "But did you smell anything?" Fernando asked.
 "Nay," Pilar said. "I was too far away. We were in the seventh row of the _tendido_ three. It was thus, being at an angle, that I could see all that happened. But that same night Blanquet who had been under the orders of Joselito when he too was killed told Finito about it at Fornos, and Finito asked Juan Luis de la Rosa and he would say nothing. But he nodded his head that it was true. I was present when this happened. So, _Ingl廥_, it may be that thou art deaf to some things as Chicuelo and Marcial Lalanda and all of their _banderilleros_ and picadors and all of the _gente_ of Juan Luis and Manolo Granero were deaf to this thing on this day. But Juan Luis and Blanquet were not deaf. Nor am I deaf to such things."
 "Why do you say deaf when it is a thing of the nose?" Fernando asked.
 "_Leche!_" Pilar said. "Thou shouldst be the professor in place of the _Ingl廥_. But I could tell thee of other things, _Ingl廥_, and do not doubt what thou simply cannot see nor cannot hear. Thou canst not hear what a dog hears. Nor canst thou smell what a dog smells. But already thou hast experienced a little of what can happen to man."
 Maria put her hand on Robert Jordan's shoulder and let it rest there and he thought suddenly, let us finish all this nonsense and take advantage of what time we have. But it is too early yet. We have to kill this part of the evening. So he said to Pablo, "Thou, believest thou in this wizardry?"
 "I do not know," Pablo said. "I am more of thy opinion. No supernatural thing has ever happened to me. But feai yes certainly. Plenty. But I believe that the Pilar can divine events from the hand. If she does not lie perhaps it is true that she has smelt such a thing."
 "_Qu?va_ that I should lie," Pilar said. "This is not a thing of my invention. This man Blanquet was a man of extreme seriousness and furthermore very devout. He was no gypsy but a bourgeois from Valencia. Hast thou never seen him?"
 "Yes," Robert Jordan said. "I have seen him many times. He was small, gray-faced and no one handled a cape better. He was quick on his feet as a rabbit."
 "Exactly," Pilar said. "He had a gray face from heart trouble and gypsies said that he carried death with him but that he could flick it away with a cape as you might dust a table. Yet he, who was no gypsy, smelled death on Joselito when he fought at Talavera. Although I do not see how he could smell it above the smell of manzanilla. Blanquet spoke of this afterwards with much diffidence but those to whom he spoke said that it was a fantasy and that what he had smelled was the life that Jos?led at tha............