The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway [59]
"I like it very much that you like my work," he said. "But you haven't seen it yet. To-morrow, if I get a good bull, I will try and show it to you."
When he said this he smiled, anxious that neither the bull-fight 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 to-morrow, if a good one comes out."
"Have you seen the bulls for to-morrow?" 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. "Borracho! 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 every one 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 shoe-horn."