The Sun Also Rises

by Ernest Hemingway

  When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bullfight critic nor I would think he was boasting.

  "I am anxious to see it," the critic said. "I would like to be convinced."

  "He doesn't like my work much." Romero turned to me. He was serious.

  The critic explained that he liked it very much, but that so far it had been incomplete.

  'Wait till tomorrow, if a good one comes out."

  "Have you seen the bulls for tomorrow?" the critic asked me.

  "Yes. I saw them unloaded."

  Pedro Romero leaned forward.

  "What did you think of them?"

  "Very nice," I said. "About twenty-six arrobas. Very short horns. Haven't you seen them?"

  "Oh, yes," said Romero.

  "They won't weigh twenty-six arrobas," said the critic.

  "No," said Romero.

  "They've got bananas for horns," the critic said.

  "You call them bananas?" asked Romero. He turned to me and smiled. "You wouldn't call them bananas?"

  "No," I said. 'They're horns all right."

  "They're very short," said Pedro Romero. "Very, very short. Still, they aren't bananas."

  "I say, Jake," Brett called from the next table, "you have deserted us."

  "Just temporarily," I said. "We're talking bulls."

  "You are superior."

  "Tell him that bulls have no balls," Mike shouted. He was drunk.

  Romero looked at me inquiringly.

  "Drunk," I said. "Borrachol Muy borracho!"

  "You might introduce your friends," Brett said. She had not stopped looking at Pedro Romero. I asked them if they would like to have coffee with us. They both stood up. Romero's face was very brown. He had very nice manners.

  I introduced them all around and they started to sit down, but there was not enough room, so we all moved over to the big table by the wall to have coffee. Mike ordered a bottle of Fundador and glasses for everybody. There was a lot of drunken talking.

  "Tell him I think writing is lousy," Bill said. "Go on, tell him. Tell him I'm ashamed of being a writer."

  Pedro Romero was sitting beside Brett and listening to her.

  "Go on. Tell him!" Bill said.

  Romero looked up smiling.

  "This gentleman," I said, "is a writer."

  Romero was impressed. "This other one, too," I said, pointing at Cohn.

  "He looks like Villalta," Romero said, looking at Bill. "Rafael, doesn't he look like Villalta?"

  "I can't see it," the critic said.

  "Really," Romero said in Spanish. "He looks a lot like Villalta. What does the drunken one do?"

  "Nothing."

  "Is that why he drinks?"

  "No. He's waiting to marry this lady."

  "Tell him bulls have no balls!" Mike shouted, very drunk, from the other end of the table.

  "What does he say?"

  "He's drunk."

  "Jake," Mike called. "Tell him bulls have no balls!"

  "You understand?" I said.

  "Yes."

  I was sure he didn't, so it was all right.

  "Tell him Brett wants to see him put on those green pants."

  "Pipe down, Mike."

  "Tell him Brett is dying to know how he can get into those pants."

  "Pipe down."

  During this Romero was fingering his glass and talking with Brett. Brett was talking French and he was talking Spanish and a little English, and laughing.

  Bill was filling the glasses.

  "Tell him Brett wants to come into--"

  "Oh, pipe down, Mike, for Christ's sake!"

  Romero looked up smiling. "Pipe down! I know that," he said.

  Just then Montoya came into the room. He started to smile at me, then he saw Pedro Romero with a big glass of cognac in his hand, sitting laughing between me and a woman with bare shoulders, at a table full of drunks. He did not even nod.

  Montoya went out of the room. Mike was on his feet proposing a toast. "Let's all drink to--" he began. "Pedro Romero," I said. Everybody stood up. Romero took it very seriously, and we touched glasses and drank it down, I rushing it a little because Mike was trying to make it clear that that was not at all what he was going to drink to. But it went off all right, and Pedro Romero shook hands with everyone and he and the critic went out together.

  "My God! he's a lovely boy," Brett said. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoehorn."

  "I started to tell him," Mike began. "And Jake kept interrupting me. Why do you interrupt me? Do you think you talk Spanish better than I do?"

  "Oh, shut up, Mike! Nobody interrupted you."

  "No, I'd like to get this settled." He turned away from me. "Do you think you amount to something, Cohn? Do you think you belong here among us? People who are out to have a good time? For God's sake don't be so noisy, Cohn!"

  "Oh, cut it out, Mike," Cohn said.

  "Do you think Brett wants you here? Do you think you add to the party? Why don't you say something?"

  "I said all I had to say the other night, Mike."

  "I'm not one of you literary chaps." Mike stood shakily and leaned against the table. "I'm not clever. But I do know when I'm not wanted. Why don't you see when you're not wanted, Cohn? Go away. Go away, for God's sake. Take that sad Jewish face away. Don't you think I'm right?"

  He looked at us.

  "Sure," I said. "Let's all go over to the Iruna."

  "No. Don't you think I'm right? I love that woman."

  "Oh, don't start that again. Do shove it along, Michael," Brett said.

  "Don't you think I'm right, Jake?"

  Cohn still sat at the table. His face had the sallow, yellow look it got when he was insulted, but somehow he seemed to be enjoying it. The childish, drunken heroics of it. It was his affair with a lady of title.

  "Jake," Mike said. He was almost crying. "You know I'm right. Listen, you!" He turned to Cohn: "Go away! Go away now!"

  "But I won't go, Mike," said Cohn.

  "Then I'll make you!" Mike started toward him around the table. Cohn stood up and took off his glasses. He stood waiting, his face sallow, his hands fairly low, proudly and firmly waiting for the assault, ready to do battle for his lady love.

  I grabbed Mike. "Come on to the cafe," I said. "You can't hit him here in the hotel."

  "Good!" said Mike. "Good idea!"

  We started off. I looked back as Mike stumbled up the stairs and saw Cohn putting his glasses on again. Bill was sitting at the table pouring another glass of Fundador. Brett was sitting looking straight ahead at nothing.

  Outside on the square it had stopped raining and the moon was trying to get through the clouds. There was a wind blowing. The military band was playing and the crowd was massed on the far side of the square where the fireworks specialist and his son were trying to send up fire balloons. A balloon would start up jerkily, on a great bias, and be torn by the wind or blown against the houses of the square. Some fell into the crowd. The magnesium flared and the fireworks exploded and chased about in the crowd. There was no one dancing in the square. The gravel was too wet.

  Brett came out with Bill and joined us. We stood in the crowd and watched Don Manuel Orquito, the fireworks king, standing on a little platform, carefully starting the balloons with sticks, standing above the heads of the crowd to launch the balloons off into the wind. The wind brought them all down, and Don Manuel Orquito's face was sweaty in the light of his complicated fireworks that fell into the crowd and charged and chased, sputtering and cracking, between the legs of the people. The people shouted as each new luminous paper bubble careened, caught fire, and fell.

  "They're razzing Don Manuel," Bill said.

  "How do you know he's Don Manuel?" Brett said.

  "His name's on the programme. Don Manuel Orquito, the pirotecnico of esta ciudad."

  "Globos illuminados," Mike said. "A collection of globos illuminados. That's what the paper said."

  The wind bl
ew the band music away.

  "I say, I wish one would go up," Brett said. "That Don Manuel chap is furious."

  "He's probably worked for weeks fixing them to go off, spelling out 'Hail to San Fermin,''' Bill said.

  "Globos illuminados," Mike said. "A bunch of bloody globos illuminados."

  "Come on," said Brett. "We can't stand here."

  "Her ladyship wants a drink," Mike said.

  "How you know things," Brett said.

  Inside, the cafe was crowded and very noisy. No one noticed us come in. We could not find a table. There was a great noise going on.

  "Come on, let's get out of here," Bill said.

  Outside the paseo was going in under the arcade. There were some English and Americans from Biarritz in sport clothes scattered at the tables. Some of the women stared at the people going by with lorgnons. We had acquired, at some time, a friend of Bill's from Biarritz. She was staying with another girl at the Grand Hotel. The other girl had a headache and had gone to bed.

  "Here's the pub," Mike said. It was the Bar Milano, a small, tough bar where you could get food and where they danced in the back room. We all sat down at a table and ordered a bottle of Fundador. The bar was not full. There was nothing going on.

  "This is a hell of a place," Bill said. "It's too early."

  "Let's take the bottle and come back later," Bill said. "I don't want to sit here on a night like this."

  "Let's go and look at the English," Mike said. "I love to look at the English."

  "They're awful," Bill said. "Where did they all come from?"

  "They come from Biarritz," Mike said. "They come to see the last day of the quaint little Spanish fiesta."

  "I'll festa them," Bill said.

  "You're an extraordinarily beautiful girl." Mike turned to Bill's friend. "When did you come here?"

  "Come off it, Michael."

  "I say, she is a lovely girl. Where have I been? Where have I been looking all this while? You're a lovely thing. Have we met? Come along with me and Bill. We're going to festa the English."

  "I'll festa them," Bill said. "What the hell are they doing at this fiesta?"

  "Come on," Mike said. "Just us three. We're going to festa the bloody English. I hope you're not English? I'm Scotch. I hate the English. I'm going to festa them. Come on, Bill."

  Through the window we saw them, all three arm in arm, going toward the cafe. Rockets were going up in the square.

  "I'm going to sit here," Brett said.

  "I'll stay with you," Cohn said.

  "Oh, don't!" Brett said. "For God's sake, go off somewhere. Can't you see Jake and I want to talk?"

  "I didn't," Cohn said. "I thought I'd sit here because I felt a little tight."

  "What a hell of a reason for sitting with anyone. If you're tight, go to bed. Go on to bed."

  "Was I rude enough to him?" Brett asked. Cohn was gone. "My God! I'm so sick of him!"

  "He doesn't add much to the gayety."

  "He depresses me so."

  "He's behaved very badly."

  "Damned badly. He had a chance to behave so well."

  "He's probably waiting just outside the door now."

  "Yes. He would. You know I do know how he feels. He can't believe it didn't mean anything."

  "I know."

  "Nobody else would behave as badly. Oh, I'm so sick of the whole thing. And Michael. Michael's been lovely, too."

  "It's been damned hard on Mike."

  "Yes. But he didn't need to be a swine."

  "Everybody behaves badly," I said. "Give them the proper chance."

  "You wouldn't behave badly." Brett looked at me.

  "I'd be as big an ass as Cohn," I said.

  "Darling, don't let's talk a lot of rot."

  "All right. Talk about anything you like."

  "Don't be difficult. You're the only person I've got, and I feel rather awful tonight."

  "You've got Mike."

  "Yes, Mike. Hasn't he been pretty?"

  "Well," I said, "it's been damned hard on Mike, having Cohn around and seeing him with you."

  "Don't I know it, darling? Please don't make me feel any worse than I do."

  Brett was nervous as I had never seen her before. She kept looking away from me and looking ahead at the wall.

  "Want to go for a walk?"

  "Yes. Come on."

  I corked up the Fundador bottle and gave it to the bartender.

  "Let's have one more drink of that," Brett said. "My nerves are rotten."

  We each drank a glass of the smooth amontillado brandy.

  "Come on," said Brett.

  As we came out the door I saw Cohn walk out from under the arcade.

  "He was there," Brett said. "He can't be away from you."

  "Poor devil!"

  "I'm not sorry for him. I hate him, myself."

  "I hate him, too," she shivered. "I hate his damned suffering."

  We walked arm in arm down the side street away from the crowd and the lights of the square. The street was dark and wet, and we walked along it to the fortifications at the edge of town. We passed wine shops with light coming out from their doors onto the black, wet street, and sudden bursts of music.

  "Want to go in?"

  "No."

  We walked out across the wet grass and onto the stone wall of the fortifications. I spread a newspaper on the stone and Brett sat down. Across the plain it was dark, and we could see the mountains. The wind was high up and took the clouds across the moon. Below us were the dark pits of the fortifications. Behind were the trees and the shadow of the cathedral, and the town silhouetted against the moon.

  "Don't feel bad," I said.

  "I feel like hell," Brett said. "Don't let's talk."

  We looked out at the plain. The long lines of trees were dark in the moonlight. There were the lights of a car on the road climbing the mountain. Up on the top of the mountain we saw the lights of the fort. Below to the left was the river. It was high from the rain, and black and smooth. Trees were dark along the banks. We sat and looked out. Brett stared straight ahead. Suddenly she shivered.

  "It's cold."

  "Want to walk back?"

  "Through the park."

  We climbed down. It was clouding over again. In the park it was dark under the trees.

  "Do you still love me, Jake?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "Because I'm a goner," Brett said.

  "How?"

  "I'm a goner. I'm mad about the Romero boy. I'm in love with him, I think."

  "I wouldn't be if I were you."

  "I can't help it. I'm a goner. It's tearing me all up inside."

  "Don't do it."

  "I can't help it. I've never been able to help anything."

  "You ought to stop it."

  "How can I stop it? I can't stop things. Feel that?"

  Her hand was trembling.

  "I'm like that all through."

  "You oughtn't to do it."

  "I can't help it. I'm a goner now, anyway. Don't you see the difference?"

  "No."

  "I've got to do something. I've got to do something I really want to do. I've lost my self-respect."

  "You don't have to do that."

  "Oh, darling, don't be difficult. What do you think it's meant to have that damned Jew about, and Mike the way he's acted?"

  "Sure."

  "I can't just stay tight all the time."

  "No."

  "Oh, darling, please stay by me. Please stay by me and see me through this."

  "Sure."

  "I don't say it's right. It is right though for me. God knows, I've never felt such a bitch."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Come on," Brett said. "Let's go and find him."

  Together we walked down the gravel path in the park in the dark, under the trees and then out from under the trees and past the gate into the street that led into town.

  Pedro Romero was in the cafe. He was at a table with other
bullfighters and bullfight critics. They were smoking cigars. When we came in they looked up. Romero smiled and bowed. We sat down at a table half-way down the room.

  "Ask him to come over and have a drink."

  "Not yet. He'll come over."

  "I can't look at him."

  "He's nice to look at," I said.

  "I've always done just what I wanted."

  "I know."

  "I do feel such a bitch."

  "Well," I said.

  "My God!" said Brett, "the things a woman goes through."

  "Yes?"

  "Oh, I do feel such a bitch."

  I looked across at the table. Pedro Romero smiled. He said something to the other people at his table, and stood up. He came over to our table. I stood up and we shook hands.

  "Won't you have a drink?"

  "You 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 cheekbone. 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 tomorrow?" I said.

  "Yes," he said. "Algabeno was hurt today 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 fingertips 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.