ERNEST HEMINGWAY - Premium Edition. Ernest Hemingway

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СКАЧАТЬ must have a drink with me,” he said. He seated himself, asking Brett’s permission without saying anything. He had very nice manners. But he kept on smoking his cigar. It went well with his face.

      “You like cigars?” I asked.

      “Oh, yes. I always smoke cigars.”

      It was part of his system of authority. It made him seem older. I noticed his skin. It was clear and smooth and very brown. There was a triangular scar on his cheek-bone. I saw he was watching Brett. He felt there was something between them. He must have felt it when Brett gave him her hand. He was being very careful. I think he was sure, but he did not want to make any mistake.

      “You fight to-morrow?” I said.

      “Yes,” he said. “Algabeno was hurt to-day in Madrid. Did you hear?”

      “No,” I said. “Badly?”

      He shook his head.

      “Nothing. Here,” he showed his hand. Brett reached out and spread the fingers apart.

      “Oh!” he said in English, “you tell fortunes?”

      “Sometimes. Do you mind?”

      “No. I like it.” He spread his hand flat on the table. “Tell me I live for always, and be a millionaire.”

      He was still very polite, but he was surer of himself. “Look,” he said, “do you see any bulls in my hand?”

      He laughed. His hand was very fine and the wrist was small.

      “There are thousands of bulls,” Brett said. She was not at all nervous now. She looked lovely.

      “Good,” Romero laughed. “At a thousand duros apiece,” he said to me in Spanish. “Tell me some more.”

      “It’s a good hand,” Brett said. “I think he’ll live a long time.”

      “Say it to me. Not to your friend.”

      “I said you’d live a long time.”

      “I know it,” Romero said. “I’m never going to die.”

      I tapped with my finger-tips on the table. Romero saw it. He shook his head.

      “No. Don’t do that. The bulls are my best friends.”

      I translated to Brett.

      “You kill your friends?” she asked.

      “Always,” he said in English, and laughed. “So they don’t kill me.” He looked at her across the table.

      “You know English well.”

      “Yes,” he said. “Pretty well, sometimes. But I must not let anybody know. It would be very bad, a torero who speaks English.”

      “Why?” asked Brett.

      “It would be bad. The people would not like it. Not yet.”

      “Why not?”

      “They would not like it. Bull-fighters are not like that.”

      “What are bull-fighters like?”

      He laughed and tipped his hat down over his eyes and changed the angle of his cigar and the expression of his face.

      “Like at the table,” he said. I glanced over. He had mimicked exactly the expression of Nacional. He smiled, his face natural again. “No. I must forget English.”

      “Don’t forget it, yet,” Brett said.

      “No?”

      “No.”

      “All right.”

      He laughed again.

      “I would like a hat like that,” Brett said.

      “Good. I’ll get you one.”

      “Right. See that you do.”

      “I will. I’ll get you one to-night.”

      I stood up. Romero rose, too.

      “Sit down,” I said. “I must go and find our friends and bring them here.”

      He looked at me. It was a final look to ask if it were understood. It was understood all right.

      “Sit down,” Brett said to him. “You must teach me Spanish.”

      He sat down and looked at her across the table. I went out. The hard-eyed people at the bull-fighter table watched me go. It was not pleasant. When I came back and looked in the café, twenty minutes later, Brett and Pedro Romero were gone. The coffee-glasses and our three empty cognac-glasses were on the table. A waiter came with a cloth and picked up the glasses and mopped off the table.

      CHAPTER 17

       Table of Contents

      Outside the Bar Milano I found Bill and Mike and Edna. Edna was the girl’s name.

      “We’ve been thrown out,” Edna said.

      “By the police,” said Mike. “There’s some people in there that don’t like me.”

      “I’ve kept them out of four fights,” Edna said. “You’ve got to help me.”

      Bill’s face was red.

      “Come back in, Edna,” he said. “Go on in there and dance with Mike.”

      “It’s silly,” Edna said. “There’ll just be another row.”

      “Damned Biarritz swine,” Bill said.

      “Come on,” Mike said. “After all, it’s a pub. They can’t occupy a whole pub.”

      “Good old Mike,” Bill said. “Damned English swine come here and insult Mike and try and spoil the fiesta.”

      “They’re so bloody,” Mike said. “I hate the English.”

      “They can’t insult Mike,” Bill said. “Mike is a swell fellow. They can’t insult Mike. I won’t stand it. Who cares if he is a damn bankrupt?” His voice broke.

      “Who cares?” Mike said. “I don’t care. Jake doesn’t care. Do you care?”

      “No,” Edna said. “Are you a bankrupt?”

      “Of course I am. You don’t care, do you, Bill?”

      Bill put СКАЧАТЬ