We stood at the counter. They had Brett seated on a wine-cask. It was dark in the wine-shop and full of men singing, hard-voiced singing. Back of the counter they drew the wine from casks. I put down money for the wine, but one of the men picked it up and put it back in my pocket.
«I want a leather wine-bottle,» Bill said.
«There’s a place down the street,» I said. «I’ll go get a couple.»
The dancers did not want me to go out. Three of them were sitting on the high wine-cask beside Brett, teaching her to drink out of the wine-skins. They had hung a wreath of garlics around her neck. Some one insisted on giving her a glass. Somebody was teaching Bill a song. Singing it into his ear. Beating time on Bill’s back.
I explained to them that I would be back. Outside in the street I went down the street looking for the shop that made leather winebottles. The crowd was packed on the sidewalks and many of the shops were shuttered, and I could not find it. I walked as far as the church, looking on both sides of the street. Then I asked a man and he took me by the arm and led me to it. The shutters were up but the door was open.
Inside it smelled of fresh tanned leather and hot tar. A man was stencilling completed wine-skins. They hung from the roof in bunches. He took one down, blew it up, screwed the nozzle tight, and then jumped on it.
«See! It doesn’t leak.»
«I want another one, too. A big one.»
He took down a big one that would hold a gallon or more, from the roof. He blew it up, his cheeks puffing ahead of the wine-skin, and stood on the bota holding on to a chair.
«What are you going to do? Sell them in Bayonne?» «No.Drink out of them.»
He slapped me on the back.
«Good man. Eight pesetas for the two. The lowest price.»
The man who was stencilling the new ones and tossing them into a pile stopped. «It’s true,» he said. «Eight pesetas is cheap.»
I paid and went out and along the street back to the wine-shop. It was darker than ever inside and very crowded. I did not see Brett and Bill, and some one said they were in the back room. At the counter the girl filled the two wine-skins for me. One held two litres. The other held five litres. Filling them both cost three pesetas sixty centimos. Some one at the counter, that I had never seen before, tried to pay for the wine, but I finally paid for it myself. The man who had wanted to pay then bought me a drink. He would not let me buy one in return, but said he would take a rinse of the mouth from the new wine-bag. He tipped the big five-litre bag up and squeezed it so the wine hissed against the back of his throat.
«All right,» he said, and handed back the bag.
Inthe back room Brett and Bill were sitting on barrels surrounded by the dancers. Everybody had his arms on everybody else’s shoulders, and they were all singing. Mike was sitting at a table with several men in their shirt-sleeves, eating from a bowl of tuna fish, chopped onions and vinegar. They were all drinking wine and mopping up the oil and vinegar with pieces of bread.
«Hello, Jake. Hello!» Mike called. «Come here. I want you to meet my friends. We’re all having an hors d’oeuvre.»
I was introduced to the people at the table. They supplied their names to Mike and sent for a fork for me.
«Stop eating their dinner, Michael,» Brett shouted from the wine-barrels.
«I don’t want to eat up your meal,» I said when some one handed me a fork. «Eat,» he said. «What do you think it’s here for?»
I unscrewed the nozzle of the big wine-bottle and handed it around. Every one took a drink, tipping the wine-skin at arm’s length.
Outside, above the singing, we could hear the music of the procession going by. «Isn’t that the procession?» Mike asked.
«Nada,» some one said. «It’s nothing. Drink up. Lift the bottle.» «Where did they find you?» I asked Mike.
«Some one brought me here,» Mike said. «They said you were here.» «Where’s Cohn?»
«He’s passed out,» Brett called. «They’ve put him away somewhere.» «Where is he?»
«I don’t know.»
«How should we know,» Bill said. «I think he’s dead.»
«He’s not dead,» Mike said. «I know he’s not dead. He’s just passed out on Anis del Mono.» As he said Anis del Mono one of the men at the table looked up, brought out a bottle from
inside his smock, and handed it to me. «No,» I said. «No, thanks!»
«Yes. Yes. Arriba! Up with the bottle!»
I took a drink. It tasted of licorice and warmed all the way. I could feel it warming in my stomach.
«Where the hell is Cohn?»
«I don’t know,» Mike said. «I’ll ask. Where is the drunken comrade?» he asked in Spanish. «You want to see him?»
«Yes,» I said.
«Not me,» said Mike. «This gent.»
The Anis del Mono man wiped his mouth and stood up. «Come on.»
In a back room Robert Cohn was sleeping quietly on some wine-casks. It was almost too dark to see his face. They had covered him with a coat and another coat was folded under his head. Around his neck and on his chest was a big wreath of twisted garlics.
«Let him sleep,» the man whispered. «He’s all right.»
Two hours later Cohn appeared. He came into the front room still with the wreath of garlics around his neck. The Spaniards shouted when he came in. Cohn wiped his eyes and grinned.
«I must have been sleeping,» he said. «Oh, not at all,» Brett said.
«You were only dead,» Bill said.
«Aren’t we going to go and have some supper?» Cohn asked. «Do you want to eat?»
«Yes.Why not? I’m hungry.»
«Eat those garlics, Robert,» Mike said. «I say. Do eat those garlics.» Cohn stood there. His sleep had made him quite all right.
«Do let’s go and eat,» Brett said. «I must get a bath.» «Come on,» Bill said. «Let’s translate Brett to the hotel.»
We said good-bye to many people and shook hands with many people and went out. Outside it was dark.
«What time is it do you suppose?» Cohn asked.
«It’s to-morrow,» Mike said. «You’ve been asleep two days.» «No,» said Cohn, «what time is it?»
«It’s ten o’clock.»
«What a lot we’ve drunk.»
«You mean what a lot we’ve drunk. You went to sleep.»
Going down the dark streets to the hotel we saw the skyrockets going up in the square. Down the side streets that led to the square we saw the square solid with people, those in the centre all dancing.
It was a big meal at the hotel. It was the first meal of the prices being doubled for the fiesta, and there were several new courses. After the dinner we were out in the town. I remember resolving that I would stay up all night to watch the bulls go through the streets at six o’clock in the morning, and being so sleepy that I went to bed around four o’clock. The others stayed up.
My own room was locked and I could not find the key, so Iwent up-stairs and slept on one of the beds in Cohn’s room. The fiesta was going on outside in the night, but I was too sleepy for it to keep me awake. When I woke it was the sound of the rocket exploding that announced the release of the bulls from the corrals at the edge of town. They would race through the streets and out to the bull-ring. I had been sleeping heavily and I woke feeling I was too late. I put on a coat of Cohn’s and went out on the balcony. Down below the narrow street was empty. All the balconies were crowded with people. Suddenly a crowd came down the street. They were all running, packed close together. They passed along and up the street toward the bull-ring and behind them came more men running faster, and then some stragglers who were really running. Behind them was a little bare space, and then the bulls galloping, tossing their heads up and down. It all went out of sight around the corner. One man fell, rolled to the gutter, and lay quiet. But the bulls went right on and did not notice him. They were all running together.
After they went out of sight a great roar came from the bull-ring. It kept on. Then finally the pop of the rocket that meant the bulls had gotten through the people in the ring and into the corrals. I went back in the room and got into bed. I had been standing on the stone balcony in bare feet. I knew our crowd must have all been out at the bull-ring. Back in bed, I went to sleep.
Cohn woke me when he came in. He started to undress and went over and closed the window because the people on the balcony of the house just across the street were looking in.
«Did you see the show?» I asked. «Yes. We were all there.» «Anybody get hurt?»
«One of the bulls got into the crowd in the ring and tossed six or eight people.» «How did Brett like it?»
«It was all so sudden there wasn’t any time for it to bother anybody.» «I wish
