For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

stop,” Robert Jordan said. “Already thou seemest beautiful and more.”
    â€œThat’s the way to talk,” the woman said. “You talk like the good ones. What more does she seem?”
    â€œIntelligent,” Robert Jordan said lamely. Maria giggled and the woman shook her head sadly. “How well you begin and how it ends, Don Roberto.”
    â€œDon’t call me Don Roberto.”
    â€œIt is a joke. Here we say Don Pablo for a joke. As we say the Señorita Maria for a joke.”
    â€œI don’t joke that way,” Robert Jordan said. “Camarada to me is what all should be called with seriousness in this war. In the joking commences a rottenness.”
    â€œThou art very religious about thy politics,” the woman teased him. “Thou makest no jokes?”
    â€œYes. I care much for jokes but not in the form of address. It is like a flag.”
    â€œI could make jokes about a flag. Any flag,” the woman laughed. “To me no one can joke of anything. The old flag of yellow and gold we called pus and blood. The flag of the Republic with the purple added we call blood, pus and permanganate. It is a joke.”
    â€œHe is a Communist,” Maria said. “They are very serious gente. ”
    â€œAre you a Communist?”
    â€œNo I am an anti-fascist.”
    â€œFor a long time?”
    â€œSince I have understood fascism.”
    â€œHow long is that?”
    â€œFor nearly ten years.”
    â€œThat is not much time,” the woman said. “I have been a Republican for twenty years.”
    â€œMy father was a Republican all his life,” Maria said. “It was for that they shot him.”
    â€œMy father was also a Republican all his life. Also my grandfather,” Robert Jordan said.
    â€œIn what country?”
    â€œThe United States.”
    â€œDid they shoot them?” the woman asked.
    â€œ Qué va, ” Maria said. “The United States is a country of Republicans. They don’t shoot you for being a Republican there.”
    â€œAll the same it is a good thing to have a grandfather who was a Republican,” the woman said. “It shows a good blood.”
    â€œMy grandfather was on the Republican national committee,” Robert Jordan said. That impressed even Maria.
    â€œAnd is thy father still active in the Republic?” Pilar asked.
    â€œNo. He is dead.”
    â€œCan one ask how he died?”
    â€œHe shot himself.”
    â€œTo avoid being tortured?” the woman asked.
    â€œYes,” Robert Jordan said. “To avoid being tortured.”
    Maria looked at him with tears in her eyes. “My father,” she said, “could not obtain a weapon. Oh, I am very glad that your father had the good fortune to obtain a weapon.”
    â€œYes. It was pretty lucky,” Robert Jordan said. “Should we talk about something else?”
    â€œThen you and me we are the same,” Maria said. She put her hand on his arm and looked in his face. He looked at her brown face and at the eyes that, since he had seen them, had never been as young as the rest of her face but that now were suddenly hungry and young and wanting.
    â€œYou could be brother and sister by the look,” the woman said. “But I believe it is fortunate that you are not.”
    â€œNow I know why I have felt as I have,” Maria said. “Now it is clear.”
    â€œ Qué va, ” Robert Jordan said and reaching over, he ran his hand over the top of her head. He had been wanting to do that all day and now he did it, he could feel his throat swelling. She moved her head under his hand and smiled up at him and he felt the thick but silky roughness of the cropped head rippling between his fingers. Then his hand was on her neck and then he dropped it.
    â€œDo it again,” she said. “I wanted you to do that all day.”
    â€œLater,” Robert Jordan said and his voice was