The Sun Also Rises - Chapter 11

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Episode Transcript

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Chapter eleven. It was baking hotin the square when we came out after
lunch with our bags in the rodcase to go to Brigette. People were
on top of the bus and otherswere climbing up a ladder. Bill went
up and Robert sat beside Bill tosave a place for me, and I
went back in the hotel to geta couple of bottles of wine to take

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with us. When I came out, the bus was crowded. Men and
women were sitting on all the baggageand boxes on top, and the women
all had their fans going in thesun. It certainly was hot. Robert
climbed down and I fitted into theplace he had saved on one wooden seat
that ran across the top. RobertCone stood in the shade of the arcade,

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waiting for us to start a basque. With a big leather wine bag
in his lap, lay across thetop of the bus in front of our
seat, leaning back against our legs. He offered the wine skin to build
in to me, and when Itipped it up to drink, he imitated
the sound of a clason motor hoornso well and so suddenly that I spilled

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some of the wine and everybody laughed. He apologized and made me take another
drink. He made the clackson againa little later, and it fooled me.
The second time. He was verygood at it. The bess liked
it. The man next to Billwas talking to him in Spanish, and
Bill was not getting it, sohe offered the man one of the bottles

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of wine. The man waved itaway. He said it was too hot
and he had drunk too much atlunch. When Bill offered the bottle the
second time, he took a longdrink, and then the bottle went all
over that part of the bus.Everyone took a drink very politely, and
then they made us cork it upand put it away. They all wanted

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us to drink from their leather winebottles. They were peasants going up into
the hills. Finally, after acouple more false claxons, the bus started
and Robert Kane waved good bye tous, and all the basque waved goodbye
to him. As soon as westarted out on the road outside of town.
It was cool, felt nice ridinghigh up and close under the trees.

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The bus went quite fast and madea good breeze, And as we
went out along the road with thedust powdering the trees, and down the
hill, we had a fine viewback through the trees of the town,
rising up from the bluff above theriver. The basque, lying against my
knees, pointed out the view withthe neck of the wine bottle and winked

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at us. He nodded his head. Pretty nice, eh, These bass
are swell people, Bill said.The basque lying against my legs was tan,
the color of saddle leather. Hewore a black smock like all the
rest. There were wrinkles and histanned neck. He turned around and offered
his wine bag to build. Billhanded him one of our bottles. The

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basque wagged a forefinger at him andhanded the bottle back. Slapping in the
cork with the palm of his hand, he shoved the wine bag up.
Ariba arriba, he said, liftit up. Bill raised the wine skin
and let the stream of wine spurtout and into his mouth. His head
tipped back when he stopped drinking,and tipped the leather bottle down. A

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few drops ran down his chin.No. No, several Boss said,
not like that. One snatched thebottle away from the owner, who is
himself about to give a demonstration.He was a young fellow, and he
held the wine bottle at full arm'slength and raised it high up, squeezing
the leather bag with his hand,so the stream of wine hissed into his

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mouth. He held the bag outthere, the wine making a flat,
hard trajectory into his mouth, andhe kept on swallowing smoothly and regularly.
Hey, the owner of the bottleshouted, whose wine is that? The
drinker wagged his little finger at himand smiled at us with his eyes.
Then he bit the stream off sharp, made a quick lift with the wine

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bag, and lowered it down tothe owner. He winked at us.
The owner shook the wineskin sadly.We passed through a town and stopped in
front of the posada, and thedriver took on several packages. Then we
started on again, and outside thetown the road commenced to mount We were
going through farming country with rocky hillsthat sloped down into the fields. The

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grain fields went up the hillsides.Now, as we went higher, there
was a wind blowing the grain.The road was white and dusty, and
the dust rose under the wheels andhung in the air behind us. The
road climbed up into the hills andleft the rich grain fields below. Now
there were only patches of grain onthe bare hillsides and on each side of

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the watercourses. We turned sharply outto the side of the road to give
room to pass to a long stringof six mules, following one after the
other, haulding a high hooded wagonloaded with freight. The wagon and the
mules were covered with dust. Closebehind was another string of mules and another
wagon. This was loaded with lumber, and the ari arrow driving the mules

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leaned back and put on the thickwooden brakes. As we passed up here,
the country was quite barren, andthe hills were rocky and hard baked
clay furrowed by the rain. Wecame around a curve into a town,
and on both sides opened up asudden green valley. A stream went through
the center of the town, andfields of grapes touched the houses. The

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bus stopped in front of a posadaand many of the passengers got down,
and a lot of the baggage wasunstrapped from the roof from under the big
tarpaulins and lifted down villa and Igot down and went into the posada.
There was a low, dark roomwith saddles and harness and hay forks made
of white wood, and clusters ofcanvas, rope soled shoes and hams,

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and slabs of bacon and white garlicsand long sausages hanging from the roof.
Was cool and dusky. We stoodin front of a long wooden counter with
two women behind it serving drinks.Behind them were shelves stacked with supplies and
goods. We each had an oargardiente and paid forty cent themes for the

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two drinks. I gave the womanfifty cent themes to make a tip,
and she gave me back the copperpiece, thinking had misunderstood the price.
Two of our bass came in andinsisted on buying a drink. So they
bought a drink, and then webought a drink, and then they slapped
us on the back and bought anotherdrink. Then we bought, and then

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we all went out into the sunlightand the heat and climbed back on top
of the bus. There was plentyof room now for everyone to sit on
the seat, and the basque,who had been lying on the tin roof,
now sat between us. The womanwho had been serving drinks came out,
wiping her hands on her apron,and talked to somebody inside the bus.

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Then the driver came out, swingingtwo flat leather mail pouches and climbed
up, and everybody waving. Westarted off the road, left the Green
Valley at once, and we're upin the hills again. Bill and the
wine bottled basque were having a conversation. A man leaned over from the other
side of the seat and asked,in English, you're Americans. Sure,

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I've been there, he said,forty years ago. He was an old
man, as brown as the others, with the stubble of a white beard.
How was it what you say?How was America? Oh? I
was in California. It was fine. Why did you leave? What did
you say? Why did you comeback here? Oh? I come back

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to get married. I was goingto go back, but my wife she
don't like to travel. Where areyou from? Kansas City? I've been
there, he said. I've beenin Chicago, Saint Louis, Kansas City,
Denver, Los Angeles, Lake City. He named them carefully, how
long were you over? Fifteen years? Then I come back and got married.

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Have a drink, all right,he said, you can't get this
in America. Hey, there's plentyif you can pay for it. What
you come over here for? We'regoing to the fiesta at Pamplona. You
liked the bullfights, sure, don'tyou? Yes? He said, I
guess I like them. Then aftera little where you go? Now up

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to Burgette to fish well, hesaid, I hope you catch something.
He shook hands and turned around tothe back seat again. The other bess
had been impressed. He sat backcomfortably and smiled at me when I turned
around to look at the country.But the effort of talking Americans seemed to
have tired him. He did notsay anything after that. The bus climbed

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steadily up the road. The countrywas barren and rocks stuck up through the
clay. There was no grasp besidethe road. Looking back, we could
see the country spread out below.Far back, the fields were squares of
green and brown. On the hillsidesmaking the horizon were the brown mountains.
They were strangely shaped. As weclimbed higher, the horizon kept changing as

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the bus ground slowly up the road. We could see other mountains coming up
in the south. Then the roadcame up over the crest, flattened out
and went into a forest. Itwas a forest of cork oaks, and
the sun came through the trees andpatches, and there were cattle grazing back
in the trees. We went throughthe forest and the road came out and

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turned along the rise of land,and out ahead of us was a rolling
green plain with dark mountains beyond it. These were not like the brown,
heat baked mountains we had left behind. These were wooded and there were clouds
coming down from them. The greenplain stretched off, was cut by fences,
and the white of the road showedthrough the trunks of a double line

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of trees that crossed the plain towardsthe north. As we came to the
edge of the rise, we sawthe red roofs and the white houses of
Burgette ahead, strung out on theplain, and away off on the shoulder
of the first dark mountain was thegray metal roof of the monastery of Bronque
Vales. There's bronze, vaud Isaid, where way off there were the

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mountain starts. It's cold up here, Bill said, it's high. I
said, must be twelve hundred meterssoftly cold, Bill said. The bus
leveled down onto the straight line ofroad that ran to Burgeti. We passed
a cross roads and crossed a bridgeover a stream. The houses of Burgety

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were along both sides of the road. There were no side streets. We
passed the church and the schoolyard,and the bus stopped. We got down
and the driver handed down our bagsin the rod case. A carabineer in
his hat and yellow leather cross strapscame up. What's in there? He
pointed to the rod case. Iopened it and showed him. He asked

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to see our fishing permits, andI got them out. He looked at
the date and then waved us on. Is that all right? I asked,
yes, of course. We wentup the street, past the white
washed stone houses, families sitting inthe doorways watching us, to the inn.
The fat woman who ran the inncame out from the kitchen and shook

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hands with us. She took offher spectacles, wiped them, and put
them on again. It was coldin the inn and the wind started to
blow outside. The woman sent agirl upstairs with us to show the room.
There were two beds, a washstand, a clothes chest, and a
big frame steel engraving on Nuestra Signoraderonque Vales. The wind was blowing against

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the shutters. The room was onthe north side of the inn. We
washed, put on sweaters and camedown downstairs into the dining room. It
had a stone floor, low ceiling, and was oak paneled. The shutters
were up, and it was socold you could see your breath. My
God, said Bill. It can'tbe this cold tomorrow. I'm not going

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to waite a stream in this weather. It was an upright piano in the
far corner of the room, beyondthe wooden tables, and Bill went over
and started to play. I gotto keep warm, he said. I
went out to find the woman andask her how much the room and board
was. She put her hands underher apron and looked away from me.
Twelve pisettas why we only paid thatin Pamplona. She did not say anything,

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just took off her glasses and wipedthem on her apron. That's too
much, I said. We didn'tpay more than that at a big hotel.
We've put in a bathroom. Haven'tyou got anything cheaper? Not in
the summer. Now is the bigseason. We were the only people in
the inn. Well, I thought, it's only a few days. Is

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the wine included? Oh? Yes, Well, I said, it's all
right. I went back to Bill. He blew his breath at me to
show how cold it was. Itwent on playing. I sat at one
of the tables and looked at thepictures on the wall. There was one
panel of rabbits dead, one ofpheasants also dead, and one panel of
dead ducks. The panels were alldark and smoky looking. There was a

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cupboard full of liqueur bottles. Ilooked at them all. Bill was still
playing. How about a hot rumpunch? He said, this isn't going
to keep me warm permanently. Iwent out and told the woman what a
rum punch was and how to makeit. In a few minutes, a
girl brought a stone pitcher steaming intothe room. Bill came over from the

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piano, and we drank the hotpunch and listened to the wind. There
isn't too much rum in that.I went over to the cupboard and brought
the rum bottle and poured a halftumbler into the pitcher direct action, said
Bill. It beats legislation. Thegirl came in and laid the table for
supper. It blows like hell uphere, Bill said. The girl brought

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in a big bowl of hot vegetablesoup and the wine we had fried trout
afterward in some sort of a stew, and a big bowl full of wild
strawberries. We did not lose moneyon the wine, and the girl was
shy but nice about bringing it.The old woman looked in once and counted
the empty bottles. After supper,we went upstairs and smoked and read in

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bed to keep warm. Once inthe night I woke and heard the wind
blowing. Felt good to be warmand in bed. End of Chapter eleven,