The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway [speld decodable readers .TXT] 📗

“I’ll see you at the café,” Brett said. “Thank you, so much, Jake.”

We had stopped at the floor our rooms were on. She went straight down the hall and into Romero’s room. She did not knock. She simply opened the door, went in, and closed it behind her.

I stood in front of the door of Mike’s room and knocked. There was no answer. I tried the knob and it opened. Inside the room was in great disorder. All the bags were opened and clothing was strewn around. There were empty bottles beside the bed. Mike lay on the bed looking like a death mask of himself. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Hello, Jake,” he said very slowly. “I’m getting a lit tle sleep. I’ve want ed a lit tle sleep for a long time.”

“Let me cover you over.”

“No. I’m quite warm.”

“Don’t go. I haven’t got ten to sleep yet.”

“You’ll sleep, Mike. Don’t worry, boy.”

“Brett’s got a bullfighter,” Mike said. “But her Jew has gone away.”

He turned his head and looked at me.

“Damned good thing, what?”

“Yes. Now go to sleep, Mike. You ought to get some sleep.”

“I’m just start ing. I’m go ing to get a lit tle sleep.”

He shut his eyes. I went out of the room and turned the door to quietly. Bill was in my room reading the paper.

“See Mike?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go and eat.”

“I won’t eat downstairs with that German head waiter. He was damned snotty when I was getting Mike upstairs.”

“He was snotty to us, too.”

“Let’s go out and eat in the town.”

We went down the stairs. On the stairs we passed a girl coming up with a covered tray.

“There goes Brett’s lunch,” Bill said.

“And the kid’s,” I said.

Outside on the terrace under the arcade the German head waiter came up. His red cheeks were shiny. He was being polite.

“I haff a tabul for two for you gentlemen,” he said.

“Go sit at it,” Bill said. We went on out across the street.

We ate at a restaurant in a side street off the square. They were all men eating in the restaurant. It was full of smoke and drinking and singing. The food was good and so was the wine. We did not talk much. Afterward we went to the café and watched the fiesta come to the boiling-point. Brett came over soon after lunch. She said she had looked in the room and that Mike was asleep.

When the fiesta boiled over and toward the bullring we went with the crowd. Brett sat at the ringside between Bill and me. Directly below us was the callejón, the passageway between the stands and the red fence of the barrera. Behind us the concrete stands filled solidly. Out in front, beyond the red fence, the sand of the ring was smooth-rolled and yellow. It looked a little heavy from the rain, but it was dry in the sun and firm and smooth. The sword-handlers and bullring servants came down the callejón carrying on their shoulders the wicker baskets of fighting capes and muletas. They were bloodstained and compactly folded and packed in the baskets. The sword-handlers opened the heavy leather sword-cases so the red wrapped hilts of the sheaf of swords showed as the leather case leaned against the fence. They unfolded the dark-stained red flannel of the muletas and fixed batons in them to spread the stuff and give the matador something to hold. Brett watched it all. She was absorbed in the professional details.

“He’s his name stencilled on all the capes and muletas,” she said. “Why do they call them muletas?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wonder if they ever launder them.”

“I don’t think so. It might spoil the color.”

“The blood must stiffen them,” Bill said.

“Funny,” Brett said. “How one doesn’t mind the blood.”

Below in the narrow passage of the callejón the sword-handlers arranged everything. All the seats were full. Above, all the boxes were full. There was not an empty seat except in the President’s box. When he came in the fight would start. Across the smooth sand, in the high doorway that led into the corrals, the bullfighters were standing, their arms furled in their capes, talking, waiting for the signal to march in across the arena. Brett was watching them with the glasses.

“Here, would you like to look?”

I looked through the glasses and saw the three matadors. Romero was in the centre, Belmonte on his left, Marcial on his right. Back of them were their people, and behind the banderilleros, back in the passageway and in the open space of the corral, I saw the picadors. Romero was wearing a black suit. His tricornered hat was low down over his eyes. I could not see his face clearly under the hat, but it looked badly marked. He was looking straight ahead. Marcial was smoking a cigarette guardedly, holding it in his hand. Belmonte looked ahead, his face wan and yellow, his long wolf jaw out. He was looking at nothing. Neither he nor Romero seemed to have anything in common with the others. They were all alone. The President came in; there was handclapping above us in the grand stand, and I handed the glasses to Brett. There was applause. The music started. Brett looked through the glasses.

“Here, take them,” she said.

Through the glasses I saw Belmonte speak to Romero. Marcial straightened up and dropped his cigarette, and, looking straight ahead, their heads back, their free arms swinging, the three matadors walked out. Behind them came all the procession, opening out, all striding in step, all the capes furled, everybody with free arms swinging, and behind rode the picadors, their pics rising like lances. Behind all came the two trains of mules and the bullring servants. The matadors bowed, holding their hats on, before the President’s box, and then came over to the barrera below us. Pedro Romero took off his heavy gold-brocaded cape and handed it over the fence to his sword-handler. He said something to the sword-handler. Close below us we saw Romero’s