The Sun Also Rises (12 page)

“Don't be an ass.”

“Were you in the war, Mike?” Cohn asked.

“Was I not.”

“He was a very distinguished soldier,” Brett said. “Tell them about the time your horse bolted down Piccadilly.”

“I'll not. I've told that four times.”

“You never told me,” Robert Cohn said.

“I'll not tell that story. It reflects discredit on me.”

“Tell them about your medals.”

“I'll not. That story reflects great discredit on me.”

“What story's that?”

“Brett will tell you. She tells all the stories that reflect discredit on me.”

“Go on. Tell it, Brett.”

“Should I?”

“I'll tell it myself.”

“What medals have you got, Mike?”

“I haven't got any medals.”

“You must have some.”

“I suppose I've the usual medals. But I never sent in for them. One time there was this wopping big dinner and the Prince of Wales was to be there, and the cards said medals will be worn. So naturally I had no medals, and I stopped at my tailor's and he was impressed by the invitation, and I thought that's a good piece of business, and I said to him: ‘You've got to fix me up with some medals.' He said: ‘What medals, sir?' And I said: ‘Oh, any medals. Just give me a few medals.' So he said: ‘What medals
have
you, sir?' And I said: ‘How should I know?' Did he think I spent all my time reading the bloody gazette? ‘Just give me a good lot. Pick them out yourself.' So he got me some medals, you know, miniature medals, and handed me the box, and I put it in my pocket and forgot it. Well, I went to the dinner, and it was the night they'd shot Henry Wilson, so the Prince didn't come and the King didn't come, and no one wore any medals, and all these coves were busy taking off their medals, and I had mine in my pocket.”

He stopped for us to laugh.

“Is that all?”

“That's all. Perhaps I didn't tell it right.”

“You didn't,” said Brett. “But no matter.”

We were all laughing.

“Ah, yes,” said Mike. “I know now. It was a damn dull dinner, and I couldn't stick it, so I left. Later on in the evening I found the box in my pocket. What's this? I said. Medals? Bloody military medals? So I cut them all off their backing—you know, they put them on a strip—and gave them all around. Gave one to each girl. Form of souvenir. They thought I was hell's own shakes of a soldier. Give away medals in a night club. Dashing fellow.”

“Tell the rest,” Brett said.

“Don't you think that was funny?” Mike asked. We were all laughing. “It was. I swear it was. Any rate, my tailor wrote me and wanted the medals back. Sent a man around. Kept on writing for months. Seems some chap had left them to be cleaned. Frightfully military cove. Set hell's own store by them.” Mike paused. “Rotten luck for the tailor,” he said.

“You don't mean it,” Bill said. “I should think it would have been grand for the tailor.”

“Frightfully good tailor. Never believe it to see me now,” Mike said. “I used to pay him a hundred pounds a year just to keep him quiet. So he wouldn't send me any bills. Frightful blow to him when I went bankrupt. It was right after the medals. Gave his letters rather a bitter tone.”

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

“What brought it on?”

“Friends,” said Mike. “I had a lot of friends. False friends. Then I had creditors, too. Probably had more creditors than anybody in England.”

“Tell them about in the court,” Brett said.

“I don't remember,” Mike said. “I was just a little tight.”

“Tight!” Brett exclaimed. “You were blind!”

“Extraordinary thing,” Mike said. “Met my former partner the other day. Offered to buy me a drink.”

“Tell them about your learned counsel,” Brett said.

“I will not,” Mike said. “My learned counsel was blind, too. I say this is a gloomy subject. Are we going down and see these bulls unloaded or not?”

“Let's go down.”

We called the waiter, paid, and started to walk through the town. I started off walking with Brett, but Robert Cohn came up and joined her on the other side. The three of us walked along, past the Ayuntamiento with the banners hung from the balcony, down past the market and down past the steep street that led to the bridge across the Arga. There were many people walking to go and see the bulls, and carriages drove down the hill and across the bridge, the drivers, the horses, and the whips rising above the walking people in the street. Across the bridge we turned up a road to the corrals. We passed a wine shop with a sign in the window: Good Wine 30 Centimes A Liter.

“That's where we'll go when funds get low,” Brett said.

The woman standing in the door of the wine shop looked at us as we passed. She called to someone in the house and three girls came to the window and stared. They were staring at Brett.

At the gate of the corrals two men took tickets from the people that went in. We went in through the gate. There were trees inside and a low, stone house. At the far end was the stone wall of the corrals, with apertures in the stone that were like loop- holes running all along the face of each corral. A ladder led up to the top of the wall, and people were climbing up the ladder and spreading down to stand on the walls that separated the two corrals. As we came up the ladder, walking across the grass under the trees, we passed the big, gray painted cages with the bulls in them. There was one bull in each travelling box. They had come by train from a bull-breeding ranch in Castile, and had been unloaded off flat cars at the station and brought up here to be let out of their cages into the corrals. Each cage was stencilled with the name and the brand of the bull breeder.

We climbed up and found a place on the wall looking down into the corral. The stone walls were whitewashed, and there was straw on the ground and wooden feed boxes and water troughs set against the wall.

“Look up there,” I said.

Beyond the river rose the plateau of the town. All along the old walls and ramparts people were standing. The three lines of fortifications made three black lines of people. Above the walls there were heads in the windows of the houses. At the far end of the plateau boys had climbed into the trees.

“They must think something is going to happen,” Brett said. “They want to see the bulls.”

Mike and Bill were on the other wall across the pit of the corral. They waved to us. People who had come late were standing behind us, pressing against us when other people crowded them.

“Why don't they start?” Robert Cohn asked.

A single mule was hitched to one of the cages and dragged it up against the gate in the corral wall. The men shoved and lifted it with crowbars into position against the gate. Men were standing on the wall ready to pull up the gate of the corral and then the gate of the cage. At the other end of the corral a gate opened and two steers came in, swaying their heads and trotting, their lean flanks swinging. They stood together at the far end, their heads toward the gate where the bull would enter.

“They don't look happy,” Brett said.

The men on top of the wall leaned back and pulled up the door of the corral. Then they pulled up the door of the cage.

I leaned way over the wall and tried to see into the cage. It was dark. Someone rapped on the cage with an iron bar. Inside something seemed to explode. The bull, striking into the wood from side to side with his horns, made a great noise. Then I saw a dark muzzle and the shadow of horns, and then, with a clattering on the wood in the hollow box, the bull charged and came out into the corral, skidding with his forefeet in the straw as he stopped, his head up, the great hump of muscle on his neck swollen tight, his body muscles quivering as he looked up at the crowd on the stone walls. The two steers backed away against the wall, their heads sunken, their eyes watching the bull.

The bull saw them and charged. A man shouted from behind one of the boxes and slapped his hat against the planks, and the bull, before he reached the steer, turned, gathered himself and charged where the man had been, trying to reach him behind the planks with a half-dozen quick, searching drives with the right horn.

“My God, isn't he beautiful?” Brett said. We were looking right down on him.

“Look how he knows how to use his horns,” I said. “He's got a left and a right just like a boxer.”

“Not really?”

“You watch.”

“It goes too fast.”

“Wait. There'll be another one in a minute.”

They had backed up another cage into the entrance. In the far corner a man, from behind one of the plank shelters, attracted the bull, and while the bull was facing away the gate was pulled up and a second bull came out into the corral.

He charged straight for the steers and two men ran out from behind the planks and shouted, to turn him. He did not change his direction and the men shouted: “Hah! Hah! Toro!” and waved their arms; the two steers turned sideways to take the shock, and the bull drove into one of the steers.

“Don't look,” I said to Brett. She was watching, fascinated.

“Fine,” I said. “If it doesn't buck you.”

“I saw it,” she said. “I saw him shift from his left to his right horn.”

“Damn good!”

The steer was down now, his neck stretched out, his head twisted, he lay the way he had fallen. Suddenly the bull left off and made for the other steer which had been standing at the far end, his head swinging, watching it all. The steer ran awkwardly and the bull caught him, hooked him lightly in the flank, and then turned away and looked up at the crowd on the walls, his crest of muscle rising. The steer came up to him and made as though to nose at him and the bull hooked perfunctorily. The next time he nosed at the steer and then the two of them trotted over to the other bull.

When the next bull came out, all three, the two bulls and the steer, stood together, their heads side by side, their horns against the newcomer. In a few minutes the steer picked the new bull up, quieted him down, and made him one of the herd. When the last two bulls had been unloaded the herd were all together.

The steer who had been gored had gotten to his feet and stood against the stone wall. None of the bulls came near him, and he did not attempt to join the herd.

We climbed down from the wall with the crowd, and had a last look at the bulls through the loopholes in the wall of the corral. They were all quiet now, their heads down. We got a carriage outside and rode up to the café. Mike and Bill came in half an hour later. They had stopped on the way for several drinks.

We were sitting in the café.

“That's an extraordinary business,” Brett said.

“Will those last ones fight as well as the first?” Robert Cohn asked. “They seemed to quiet down awfully fast.”

“They all know each other,” I said. “They're only dangerous when they're alone, or only two or three of them together.”

“What do you mean, dangerous?” Bill said. “They all looked dangerous to me.”

“They only want to kill when they're alone. Of course, if you went in there you'd probably detach one of them from the herd, and he'd be dangerous.”

“That's too complicated,” Bill said. “Don't you ever detach me from the herd, Mike.”

“I say,” Mike said, “they
were
fine bulls, weren't they? Did you see their horns?”

“Did I not,” said Brett. “I had no idea what they were like.”

“Did you see the one hit that steer?” Mike asked. “That was extraordinary.”

“It's no life being a steer,” Robert Cohn said.

“Don't you think so?” Mike said. “I would have thought you'd loved being a steer, Robert.”

“What do you mean, Mike?”

“They lead such a quiet life. They never say anything and they're always hanging about so.”

We were embarrassed. Bill laughed. Robert Cohn was angry. Mike went on talking.

“I should think you'd love it. You'd never have to say a word. Come on, Robert. Do say something. Don't just sit there.”

“I said something, Mike. Don't you remember? About the steers.”

“Oh, say something more. Say something funny. Can't you see we're all having a good time here?”

“Come off it, Michael. You're drunk,” Brett said.

“I'm not drunk. I'm quite serious. Is Robert Cohn going to follow Brett around like a steer all the time?”

“Shut up, Michael. Try and show a little breeding.”

“Breeding be damned. Who has any breeding, anyway, except the bulls? Aren't the bulls lovely? Don't you like them, Bill? Why don't you say something, Robert? Don't sit there looking like a bloody funeral. What if Brett did sleep with you? She's slept with lots of better people than you.”

“Shut up,” Cohn said. He stood up. “Shut up, Mike.”

“Oh, don't stand up and act as though you were going to hit me. That won't make any difference to me. Tell me, Robert. Why do you follow Brett around like a poor bloody steer? Don't you know you're not wanted? I know when I'm not wanted. Why don't you know when you're not wanted? You came down to San Sebastian where you weren't wanted, and followed Brett around like a bloody steer. Do you think that's right?”

“Shut up. You're drunk.”

“Perhaps I am drunk. Why aren't you drunk? Why don't you ever get drunk, Robert? You know you didn't have a good time at San Sebastian because none of our friends would invite you on any of the parties. You can't blame them hardly. Can you? I asked them to. They wouldn't do it. You can't blame them, now. Can you? Now, answer me. Can you blame them?”

“Go to hell, Mike.”

“I can't blame them. Can you blame them? Why do you follow Brett around? Haven't you any manners? How do you think it makes
me
feel?”