The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Page B

and clear streams, and then we crossed a stream and went through a gloomy little village, and started to climb again. We climbed up and up and crossed another high Col and turned along it, and the road ran down to the right, and we saw a whole new range of mountains off to the south, all brown and baked-looking and furrowed in strange shapes.

    After a while we came out of the mountains, and there were trees along both sides of the road, and a stream and ripe fields of grain, and the road went on, very white and straight ahead, and then lifted to a little rise, and off on the left was a hill with an old castle, with buildings close around it and a field of grain going right up to the walls and shifting in the wind. I was up in front with the driver and I turned around. Robert Cohn was asleep, but Bill looked and nodded his head. Then we crossed a wide plain, and there was a big river off on the right shining in the sun from between the line of trees, and away off you could see the plateau of Pamplona rising out of the plain, and the walls of the city, and the great brown cathedral, and the broken skyline of the other churches. In back of the plateau were the mountains, and every way you looked there were other mountains, and ahead the road stretched out white across the plain going toward Pamplona.

    We came into the town on the other side of the plateau, the road slanting up steeply and dustily with shade trees on both sides, and then levelling out through the new part of town they are building up outside the old walls. We passed the bullring, high and white and concrete-looking in the sun, and then came into the big square by a side street and stopped in front of the Hotel Montoya.

    The driver helped us down with the bags. There was a crowd of kids watching the car, and the square was hot, and the trees were green, and the flags hung on their staffs, and it was good to get out of the sun and under the shade of the arcade that runs all the way around the square. Montoya was glad to see us, and shook hands and gave us good rooms looking out on the square, and then we washed and cleaned up and went downstairs in the dining room for lunch. The driver stayed for lunch, too, and afterward we paid him and he started back to Bayonne.

    There are two dining rooms in the Montoya. One is upstairs on the second floor and looks out on the square. The other is down one floor below the level of the square and has a door that opens on the back street that the bulls pass along when they run through the streets early in the morning on their way to the ring. It is always cool in the downstairs dining room and we had a very good lunch. The first meal in Spain was always a shock with the hors d’oeuvres, an egg course, two meat courses, vegetables, salad, and dessert and fruit. You have to drink plenty of wine to get it all down. Robert Cohn tried to say he did not want any of the second meat course, but we would not interpret for him, and so the waitress brought him something else as a replacement, a plate of cold meats, I think. Cohn had been rather nervous ever since we had met at Bayonne. He did not know whether we knew Brett had been with him at San Sebastian, and it made him rather awkward.

    â€œWell,” I said, “Brett and Mike ought to get in tonight.”

    â€œI’m not sure they’ll come,” Cohn said.

    â€œWhy not?” Bill said. “Of course they’ll come.”

    â€œThey’re always late,” I said.

    â€œI rather think they’re not coming,” Robert Cohn said.

    He said it with an air of superior knowledge that irritated both of us.

    â€œI’ll bet you fifty pesetas they’re here tonight,” Bill said. He always bets when he is angered, and so he usually bets foolishly.

    â€œI’ll take it,” Cohn said. “Good. You remember it, Jake. Fifty pesetas.”

    â€œI’ll remember it myself,” Bill said. I saw he was angry and wanted to smooth