1When I woke in the morning I went to the window and looked out. It had cleared and there were no clouds on the mountains. Outside under the window were some carts and an old diligence, the wood of the roof cracked and split by the weather. It must have been left from the days before the motor-buses. A goat hopped up on one of the carts and then to the roof of the diligence. He jerked his head at the other goats below and when I waved at him he bounded down.

2Bill was still sleeping, so I dressed, put on my shoes outside in the hall, and went down-stairs. No one was stirring down-stairs, so I unbolted the door and went out. It was cool outside in the early morning and the sun had not yet dried the dew that had come when the wind died down. I hunted around in the shed behind the inn and found a sort of mattock, and went down toward the stream to try and dig some worms for bait. The stream was clear and shallow but it did not look trouty. On the grassy bank where it was damp I drove the mattock into the earth and loosened a chunk of sod. There were worms underneath. They slid out of sight as I lifted the sod and I dug carefully and got a good many. Digging at the edge of the damp ground I filled two empty tobacco-tins with worms and sifted dirt onto them. The goats watched me dig.

3When I went back into the inn the woman was down in the kitchen, and I asked her to get coffee for us, and that we wanted a lunch. Bill was awake and sitting on the edge of the bed.

4I saw you out of the window,” he said. “Didn’t want to interrupt you. What were you doing? Burying your money?”

5You lazy bum!”

6Been working for the common good? Splendid. I want you to do that every morning.”

7Come on,” I said. Get up.”

8What? Get up? I never get up.”

9He climbed into bed and pulled the sheet up to his chin.

10Try and argue me into getting up.”

11I went on looking for the tackle and putting it all together in the tackle-bag.

12“Aren’t you interested?” Bill asked.

13Im going down and eat.”

14Eat? Why didn’t you say eat? I thought you just wanted me to get up for fun. Eat? Fine. Now youre reasonable. You go out and dig some more worms and Ill be right down.”

15Oh, go to hell!”

16Work for the good of all.” Bill stepped into his underclothes. Show irony and pity.”

17I started out of the room with the tackle-bag, the nets, and the rod-case.

18Hey! come back!”

19I put my head in the door.

20“Aren’t you going to show a little irony and pity?”

21I thumbed my nose.

22Thats not irony.”

23As I went down-stairs I heard Bill singing, “Irony and Pity. When youre feeling . . . Oh, Give them Irony and Give them Pity. Oh, give them Irony. When theyre feeling . . . Just a little irony. Just a little pity . . .” He kept on singing until he came down-stairs. The tune was: “The Bells are Ringing for Me and my Gal.” I was reading a week-old Spanish paper.

24Whats all this irony and pity?”

25What? Dont you know about Irony and Pity?”

26No. Who got it up?”

27Everybody. Theyre mad about it in New York. Its just like the Fratellinis used to be.”

28The girl came in with the coffee and buttered toast. Or, rather, it was bread toasted and buttered.

29Ask her if shes got any jam,” Bill said. Be ironical with her.”

30Have you got any jam?”

31Thats not ironical. I wish I could talk Spanish.”

32The coffee was good and we drank it out of big bowls. The girl brought in a glass dish of raspberry jam.

33Thank you.”

34Hey! thats not the way,” Bill said. Say something ironical. Make some crack about Primo de Rivera.”

35I could ask her what kind of a jam they think theyve gotten into in the Riff.”

36Poor,” said Bill. Very poor. You cant do it. Thats all. You dont understand irony. You have no pity. Say something pitiful.”

37Robert Cohn.”

38Not so bad. Thats better. Now why is Cohn pitiful? Be ironic.”

39He took a big gulp of coffee.

40Aw, hell!” I said. Its too early in the morning.”

41There you go. And you claim you want to be a writer, too. Youre only a newspaper man. An expatriated newspaper man. You ought to be ironical the minute you get out of bed. You ought to wake up with your mouth full of pity.”

42Go on,” I said. Who did you get this stuff from?”

43Everybody. Dont you read? Dont you ever see anybody? You know what you are? Youre an expatriate. Why dont you live in New York? Then youd know these things. What do you want me to do? Come over here and tell you every year?”

44Take some more coffee,” I said.

45Good. Coffee is good for you. Its the caffeine in it. Caffeine, we are here. Caffeine puts a man on her horse and a woman in his grave. You know whats the trouble with you? Youre an expatriate. One of the worst type. Havent you heard that? Nobody that ever left their own country ever wrote anything worth printing. Not even in the newspapers.”

46He drank the coffee.

47Youre an expatriate. Youve lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, see? You hang around cafés.”

48It sounds like a swell life,” I said. When do I work?”

49You dont work. One group claims women support you. Another group claims youre impotent.”

50No,” I said. I just had an accident.”

51Never mention that,” Bill said. Thats the sort of thing that cant be spoken of. Thats what you ought to work up into a mystery. Like Henrys bicycle.”

52He had been going splendidly, but he stopped. I was afraid he thought he had hurt me with that crack about being impotent. I wanted to start him again.

53It wasn’t a bicycle,” I said. He was riding horseback.”

54I heard it was a tricycle.”

55Well,” I said. A plane is sort of like a tricycle. The joystick works the same way.”

56But you dont pedal it.”

57No,” I said, “I guess you dont pedal it.”

58Lets lay off that,” Bill said.

59All right. I was just standing up for the tricycle.”

60I think hes a good writer, too,” Bill said. And youre a hell of a good guy. Anybody ever tell you you were a good guy?”

61Im not a good guy.”

62Listen. Youre a hell of a good guy, and Im fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn’t tell you that in New York. Itd mean I was a faggot. That was what the Civil War was about. Abraham Lincoln was a faggot. He was in love with General Grant. So was Jefferson Davis. Lincoln just freed the slaves on a bet. The Dred Scott case was framed by the Anti-Saloon League. Sex explains it all. The Colonels Lady and Judy O’Grady are Lesbians under their skin.”

63He stopped.

64Want to hear some more?”

65Shoot,” I said.

66I dont know any more. Tell you some more at lunch.”

67Old Bill,” I said.

68You bum!”

69We packed the lunch and two bottles of wine in the rucksack, and Bill put it on. I carried the rod-case and the landing-nets slung over my back. We started up the road and then went across a meadow and found a path that crossed the fields and went toward the woods on the slope of the first hill. We walked across the fields on the sandy path. The fields were rolling and grassy and the grass was short from the sheep grazing. The cattle were up in the hills. We heard their bells in the woods.

70The path crossed a stream on a foot-log. The log was surfaced off, and there was a sapling bent across for a rail. In the flat pool beside the stream tadpoles spotted the sand. We went up a steep bank and across the rolling fields. Looking back we saw Burguete, white houses and red roofs, and the white road with a truck going along it and the dust rising.

71Beyond the fields we crossed another faster-flowing stream. A sandy road led down to the ford and beyond into the woods. The path crossed the stream on another foot-log below the ford, and joined the road, and we went into the woods.

72It was a beech wood and the trees were very old. Their roots bulked above the ground and the branches were twisted. We walked on the road between the thick trunks of the old beeches and the sunlight came through the leaves in light patches on the grass. The trees were big, and the foliage was thick but it was not gloomy. There was no undergrowth, only the smooth grass, very green and fresh, and the big gray trees well spaced as though it were a park.

73This is country,” Bill said.

74The road went up a hill and we got into thick woods, and the road kept on climbing. Sometimes it dipped down but rose again steeply. All the time we heard the cattle in the woods. Finally, the road came out on the top of the hills. We were on the top of the height of land that was the highest part of the range of wooded hills we had seen from Burguete. There were wild strawberries growing on the sunny side of the ridge in a little clearing in the trees.

75Ahead the road came out of the forest and went along the shoulder of the ridge of hills. The hills ahead were not wooded, and there were great fields of yellow gorse. Way off we saw the steep bluffs, dark with trees and jutting with gray stone, that marked the course of the Irati River.

76We have to follow this road along the ridge, cross these hills, go through the woods on the far hills, and come down to the Irati valley,” I pointed out to Bill.

77Thats a hell of a hike.”

78Its too far to go and fish and come back the same day, comfortably.”

79Comfortably. Thats a nice word. Well have to go like hell to get there and back and have any fishing at all.”

80It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica.

81The road came out from the shadow of the woods into the hot sun. Ahead was a river-valley. Beyond the river was a steep hill. There was a field of buckwheat on the hill. We saw a white house under some trees on the hillside. It was very hot and we stopped under some trees beside a dam that crossed the river.

82Bill put the pack against one of the trees and we jointed up the rods, put on the reels, tied on leaders, and got ready to fish.

83Youre sure this thing has trout in it?” Bill asked.

84Its full of them.”

85Im going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?”

86Theres some in there.”

87You going to fish bait?”

88Yeah. Im going to fish the dam here.”

89Well, Ill take the fly-book, then.” He tied on a fly. Whered I better go? Up or down?”

90Down is the best. Theyre plenty up above, too.”

91Bill went down the bank.

92Take a worm can.”

93No, I dont want one. If they wont take a fly Ill just flick it around.”

94Bill was down below watching the stream.

95Say,” he called up against the noise of the dam. How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?”

96All right,” I shouted. Bill waved his hand and started down the stream. I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water. It was so cold my hand and wrist felt numbed. I put back the slab of wood, and hoped nobody would find the wine.

97I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. In the white water at the foot of the dam it was deep. As I baited up, a trout shot up out of the white water into the falls and was carried down. Before I could finish baiting, another trout jumped at the falls, making the same lovely arc and disappearing into the water that was thundering down. I put on a good-sized sinker and dropped into the white water close to the edge of the timbers of the dam.

98I did not feel the first trout strike. When I started to pull up I felt that I had one and brought him, fighting and bending the rod almost double, out of the boiling water at the foot of the falls, and swung him up and onto the dam. He was a good trout, and I banged his head against the timber so that he quivered out straight, and then slipped him into my bag.

99While I had him on, several trout had jumped at the falls. As soon as I baited up and dropped in again I hooked another and brought him in the same way. In a little while I had six. They were all about the same size. I laid them out, side by side, all their heads pointing the same way, and looked at them. They were beautifully colored and firm and hard from the cold water. It was a hot day, so I slit them all and shucked out the insides, gills and all, and tossed them over across the river. I took the trout ashore, washed them in the cold, smoothly heavy water above the dam, and then picked some ferns and packed them all in the bag, three trout on a layer of ferns, then another layer of fems, then three more trout, and then covered them with ferns. They looked nice in the ferns, and now the bag was bulky, and I put it in the shade of the tree.

100It was very hot on the dam, so I put my worm-can in the shade with the bag, and got a book out of the pack and settled down under the tree to read until Bill should come up for lunch.

101It was a little past noon and there was not much shade, but I sat against the trunk of two of the trees that grew together, and read. The book was something by A. E. W. Mason, and I was reading a wonderful story about a man who had been frozen in the Alps and then fallen into a glacier and disappeared, and his bride was going to wait twenty-four years exactly for his body to come out on the moraine, while her true love waited too, and they were still waiting when Bill came up.

102Get any?” he asked. He had his rod and his bag and his net all in one hand, and he was sweating. I hadn’t heard him come up, because of the noise from the dam.

103Six. What did you get?”

104Bill sat down, opened up his bag, laid a big trout on the grass. He took out three more, each one a little bigger than the last, and laid them side by side in the shade from the tree. His face was sweaty and happy.

105How are yours?”

106Smaller.”

107Lets see them.”

108Theyre packed.”

109How big are they really?”

110Theyre all about the size of your smallest.”

111Youre not holding out on me?”

112I wish I were.”

113Get them all on worms?”

114Yes.”

115You lazy bum!”

116Bill put the trout in the bag and started for the river, swinging the open bag. He was wet from the waist down and I knew he must have been wading the stream.

117I walked up the road and got out the two bottles of wine. They were cold. Moisture beaded on the bottles as I walked back to the trees. I spread the lunch on a newspaper, and uncorked one of the bottles and leaned the other against a tree. Bill came up drying his hands, his bag plump with ferns.

118Lets see that bottle,” he said. He pulled the cork, and tipped up the bottle and drank. Whew! That makes my eyes ache.”

119Lets try it.”

120The wine was icy cold and tasted faintly rusty.

121Thats not such filthy wine,” Bill said.

122The cold helps it,” I said.

123We unwrapped the little parcels of lunch.

124Chicken.”

125Theres hard-boiled eggs.”

126Find any salt?”

127First the egg,” said Bill. Then the chicken. Even Bryan could see that.”

128Hes dead. I read it in the paper yesterday.”

129No. Not really?”

130Yes. Bryan’s dead.”

131Bill laid down the egg he was peeling.

132Gentlemen,” he said, and unwrapped a drumstick from a piece of newspaper. I reverse the order. For Bryan’s sake. As a tribute to the Great Commoner. First the chicken; then the egg.”

133Wonder what day God created the chicken?”

134Oh,” said Bill, sucking the drumstick, “how should we know? We should not question. Our stay on earth is not for long. Let us rejoice and believe and give thanks.”

135Eat an egg.”

136Bill gestured with the drumstick in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other.

137Let us rejoice in our blessings. Let us utilize the fowls of the air. Let us utilize the product of the vine. Will you utilize a little, brother?”

138After you, brother.”

139Bill took a long drink.

140Utilize a little, brother,” he handed me the bottle. “Let us not doubt, brother. Let us not pry into the holy mysteries of the hen-coop with simian fingers. Let us accept on faith and simply sayI want you to join with me in sayingWhat shall we say, brother?” He pointed the drumstick at me and went on. Let me tell you. We will say, and I for one am proud to sayand I want you to say with me, on your knees, brother. Let no man be ashamed to kneel here in the great out-of-doors. Remember the woods were Gods first temples. Let us kneel and say: ‘Dont eat that, Ladythats Mencken.’”

141Here,” I said. Utilize a little of this.”

142We uncorked the other bottle.

143Whats the matter?” I said. “Didn’t you like Bryan?”

144I loved Bryan,” said Bill. We were like brothers.”

145Where did you know him?”

146He and Mencken and I all went to Holy Cross together.”

147And Frankie Fritsch.”

148Its a lie. Frankie Fritsch went to Fordham.”

149Well,” I said, “I went to Loyola with Bishop Manning.”

150Its a lie,” Bill said. I went to Loyola with Bishop Manning myself.”

151Youre cock-eyed,” I said.

152On wine?”

153Why not?”

154Its the humidity,” Bill said. They ought to take this damn humidity away.”

155Have another shot.”

156Is this all weve got?”

157Only the two bottles.”

158Do you know what you are?” Bill looked at the bottle affectionately.

159No,” I said.

160Youre in the pay of the Anti-Saloon League.”

161I went to Notre Dame with Wayne B. Wheeler.”

162Its a lie,” said Bill. I went to Austin Business College with Wayne B. Wheeler. He was class president.”

163Well,” I said, “the saloon must go.”

164Youre right there, old classmate,” Bill said. The saloon must go, and I will take it with me.”

165Youre cock-eyed.”

166On wine?”

167On wine.”

168Well, maybe I am.”

169Want to take a nap?”

170All right.”

171We lay with our heads in the shade and looked up into the trees.

172You asleep?”

173No,” Bill said. I was thinking.”

174I shut my eyes. It felt good lying on the ground.

175Say,” Bill said, “what about this Brett business?”

176What about it?”

177Were you ever in love with her?”

178Sure.”

179For how long?”

180Off and on for a hell of a long time.”

181Oh, hell!” Bill said. Im sorry, fella.”

182Its all right,” I said. I dont give a damn any more.”

183Really?”

184Really. Only Id a hell of a lot rather not talk about it.”

185You aren’t sore I asked you?”

186Why the hell should I be?”

187Im going to sleep,” Bill said. He put a newspaper over his face.

188Listen, Jake,” he said, “are you really a Catholic?”

189Technically.”

190What does that mean?”

191I dont know.”

192All right, Ill go to sleep now,” he said. Dont keep me awake by talking so much.”

193I went to sleep, too. When I woke up Bill was packing the rucksack. It was late in the afternoon and the shadow from the trees was long and went out over the dam. I was stiff from sleeping on the ground.

194What did you do? Wake up?” Bill asked. “Why didn’t you spend the night?” I stretched and rubbed my eyes.

195I had a lovely dream,” Bill said. I dont remember what it was about, but it was a lovely dream.”

196I dont think I dreamt.”

197You ought to dream,” Bill said. All our biggest business men have been dreamers. Look at Ford. Look at President Coolidge. Look at Rockefeller. Look at Jo Davidson.”

198I disjointed my rod and Bills and packed them in the rod-case. I put the reels in the tackle-bag. Bill had packed the rucksack and we put one of the trout-bags in. I carried the other.

199Well,” said Bill, “have we got everything?”

200The worms.”

201Your worms. Put them in there.”

202He had the pack on his back and I put the worm-cans in one of the outside flap pockets.

203You got everything now?”

204I looked around on the grass at the foot of the elm-trees.

205Yes.”

206We started up the road into the woods. It was a long walk home to Burguete, and it was dark when we came down across the fields to the road, and along the road between the houses of the town, their windows lighted, to the inn.

207We stayed five days at Burguete and had good fishing. The nights were cold and the days were hot, and there was always a breeze even in the heat of the day. It was hot enough so that it felt good to wade in a cold stream, and the sun dried you when you came out and sat on the bank. We found a stream with a pool deep enough to swim in. In the evenings we played three-handed bridge with an Englishman named Harris, who had walked over from Saint Jean Pied de Port and was stopping at the inn for the fishing. He was very pleasant and went with us twice to the Irati River. There was no word from Robert Cohn nor from Brett and Mike.