Read Online For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway - Free Book Online

we work in the mountains with the timber, all of the rest of their lives. So they would see what man is born to. That they should sleep where we sleep. That they should eat as we eat. But above all that they should work. Thus they would learn.”
    â€œAnd they would survive to enslave thee again.”
    â€œTo kill them teaches nothing,” Anselmo said. “You cannot exterminate them because from their seed comes more with greater hatred. Prison is nothing. Prison only makes hatred. That all our enemies should learn.”
    â€œBut still thou hast killed.”
    â€œYes,” Anselmo said. “Many times and will again. But not with pleasure and regarding it as a sin.”
    â€œAnd the sentry. You joked of killing the sentry.”
    â€œThat was in joke. I would kill the sentry. Yes. Certainly and with a clear heart considering our task. But not with pleasure.”
    â€œWe will leave them to those who enjoy it,” Robert Jordan said. “There are eight and five. That is thirteen for those who enjoy it.”
    â€œThere are many of those who enjoy it,” Anselmo said in the dark. “We have many of those. More of those than of men who would serve for a battle.”
    â€œHast thou ever been in a battle?”
    â€œNay,” the old man said. “We fought in Segovia at the start of the movement but we were beaten and we ran. I ran with the others. We did not truly understand what we were doing, nor how it should be done. Also I had only a shotgun with cartridges of large buckshot and the guardia civil had Mausers. I could not hit them with buckshot at a hundred yards, and at three hundred yards they shot us as they wished as though we were rabbits. They shot much and well and we were like sheep before them.” He was silent. Then asked, “Thinkest thou there will be a battle at the bridge?”
    â€œThere is a chance.”
    â€œI have never seen a battle without running,” Anselmo said. “I do not know how I would comport myself. I am an old man and I have wondered.”
    â€œI will respond for thee,” Robert Jordan told him.
    â€œAnd hast thou been in many battles?”
    â€œSeveral.”
    â€œAnd what thinkest thou of this of the bridge?”
    â€œFirst I think of the bridge. That is my business. It is not difficult to destroy the bridge. Then we will make the dispositions for the rest. For the preliminaries. It will all be written.”
    â€œVery few of these people read,” Anselmo said.
    â€œIt will be written for every one’s knowledge so that all know, but also it will be clearly explained.”
    â€œI will do that to which I am assigned,” Anselmo said. “But remembering the shooting in Segovia, if there is to be a battle or even much exchanging of shots, I would wish to have it very clear what I must do under all circumstances to avoid running. I remember that I had a great tendency to run at Segovia.”
    â€œWe will be together,” Robert Jordan told him. “I will tell you what there is to do at all times.”
    â€œThen there is no problem,” Anselmo said. “I can do anything that I am ordered.”
    â€œFor us will be the bridge and the battle, should there be one,” Robert Jordan said and saying it in the dark, he felt a little theatrical but it sounded well in Spanish.
    â€œIt should be of the highest interest,” Anselmo said and hearing him say it honestly and clearly and with no pose, neither the English pose of understatement nor any Latin bravado, Robert Jordan thought he was very lucky to have this old man and having seen the bridge and worked out and simplified the problem it would have been to surprise the posts and blow it in a normal way, he resented Golz’s orders, and the necessity for them. He resented them for what they could do to him and for what they could do to this old man. They were bad orders all right for those who would have to carry them