Read Online Savage Coast by Muriel Rukeyser - Free Book Online Page A

in these hills?” Olive laughed.
    â€œNo, not like that, this is what I mean.” Helen leaned forward, beginning to relax in the effort of explanation. The fact. The story of one or two people. She told about the Catalan family. The story of Toni. She was speaking fast now, wanting to be finished. “It seems more a question of the presence of belief, of feeling.”
    â€œThat’s what gets me angry,” Olive said slowly, and her eyes lengthened. They were dark. There was sun.
    â€œThe emotion?”
    â€œNot theirs—only that I can’t feel it myself. It was that way in France, too. I can’t make myself feel it.”
    Helen’s hand came out in a push of denial. “Don’t be one of those,” she said vehemently. “I hate them most, and I know plenty of them in New York. The spoiled, brutal girls with the disappointed faces, trying for all they’re worth to make themselves feel.”
    Olive looked sharply at her.
    â€œWhy should you feel; who are you that you should push anything on yourself?” Helen said, in a loss of control. “Let yourself alone; my God!” Olive was staring at her. Surprise and regret, until the jealousy passed. The look pulled Helen in. She was quiet, and went on evenly.
    â€œDon’t feel anything,” she said. “That’s not so terrible. Only don’t try so.”
    â€œAnd what about you, does everything hit you hard?”
    Helen sat back against the lace, against the gray upholstery. “Oh, that, it’s the last thing that counts, anyway, the way we are. We’re to be quiet, and stay in the train. Tourists! To look out the window!”
    She repeated the names of the lace border, with pain, and with a certain sarcasm that drew the two women together more quickly than any talk about emotions could. The pattern ran straight over all the lace edges.
    â€œMadrid-Zaragoza-Alicante.”
    â€œMadrid-Zaragoza-Alicante.”
    THE AFTERNOON WAS deepening, and the population of the station platform was growing continually.
    From the street behind the station, automobiles could be heard. They must go down the street very slowly—their horns were blowing, a harsh triplicate blowing, One-Two-Three down the road. One of them swung into sight, pulled down the half-street to the station, and stopped. On its side was painted, in white, scrawling letters, “C.N.T.,” and the long, new car behind it was lettered “F.A.I.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Helen asked.
    â€œI wonder where Peter is,” said Olive.
    From the car, armed men were hurrying to the train. Two of them stopped at the back of the station house, and the others broke into a half-run, heading up toward the engine.
    After a few minutes they ran back to their cars, got in, and with a screeching of tires, the cars pulled off.
    The horns went One-Two-Three the length of the village, seemed to turn, and faded.
    â€œI’ve got to get Peter,” Olive repeated, and stood.
    Peter was at the door.
    â€œLook,” he said gaily, “I lost them. They went back to their compartment,”
    â€œWhat do you know?” Olive asked.
    â€œOh, it’s complicated,” he answered. “So many Anarchists, too. But not like ours—here, they’re different, they’re in the majority, and it’s natural anarchism: they’ve never seen any party that didn’t rob them, the state is always the church and the generals and the other landowners, and it looks as though those are the people who have attacked this government. It’s a liberal government, too, voted in OK, nothing particularly left-wing about it—not last night, anyhow,” he added with a grin.
    â€œAnd the cars?” Helen remembered initials.
    â€œThat’s what gets me,” he said, puzzled. “I know some of the letters. C.N.T.—that’s Confederación Nacional del Trabajo; F.A.I.— Federación