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For Whom the Bell Tolls Chapter 8
Robert Jordan wakes in the cold night, happy to feel her body. She is gone when he wakes again. He sees Pablo and goes back to sleep. He wakes again to the sound of enemy planes. They have never seen this many, and take it as a bad sign. Robert Jordan thinks they are flying to bomb an airfield, but does not think they know about the attack on the bridge. He tells Anselmo, who is illiterate, to watch the road, and to make marks indicating the presence of tanks, trucks, guns, troops, etc. He tells the gypsy to watch the guard posts, and to take things more seriously; the gypsy responds that he (Robert Jordan) was not very serious last night.
Fernando tells them that the movement in La Granja last night was not unusual. He has heard a rumor that the Republic is planning to blow up guarded bridges. They are alarmed at the coincidence, but he obviously does not know that it is more than a rumor. When Pilar, Pablo's woman, asks him if he likes the food, he says yes, it is the same as usual, and she says he could be a monument to "as usual." She asks Robert Jordan if there are people like this in other countries and he says no other country is like Spain. Fernando says he did not likeValencia, a city in Spain, and the woman tells him the best time of her life was spent there, during a festival, or feria, with the bullfighter Finito. She remembers the cafes with seafood and the famous melon. Fernando objects, insisting the melon of Castile is superior; she tells him to eat melon from Castile is self-abuse. She and Finito made love to smells of fireworks and flowers. She says Pablo is more man than Finito, but they never lay together in Valencia. He replies that Finito did not blow up a train. She tells him that many speak against the train, but none against Valencia. They hear planes.
