THE worst of being wanted by the police in a town like Barcelona is that everything opens so late. When you sleep out of doors you always wake about dawn, and none of the Barcelona cafes opens much before nine. It was hours before I could get a cup of coffee or a shave. It seemed queer, in the barber’s shop, to see the Anarchist1 notice still on the wall, explaining that tips were prohibited. ‘The Revolution has struck off our chains,’ the notice said. I felt like telling the barbers that their chains would soon be back again if they didn’t look out.
I wandered back to the centre of the town. Over the P.O.U.M. buildings the red flags had been torn down, Republican flags were floating in their place, and knots of armed Civil Guards were lounging in the doorways3. At the Red Aid centre on the corner of the Plaza4 de Gataluna the police had amused themselves by smashing most of the windows. The P.O.U.M. book-stalls had been emptied of books and the notice-board farther down the Ramblas had been plastered with an anti-P.O.U.M. cartoon — the one representing the mask and the Fascist5 face beneath. Down at the bottom of the Ramblas, near the quay6, I came upon a queer sight; a row of militiamen, still ragged8 and muddy from the front, sprawling9 exhaustedly10 on the chairs placed there for the bootblacks. I knew who they were — indeed, I recognized one of them. They were P.O.U.M. militiamen who had come down the line on the previous day to find that the P.O.U.M. had been suppressed, and had had to spend the night in the streets because their homes had been raided. Any P.O.U.M. militiaman who returned to Barcelona at this time had the choice of going straight into hiding or into jail — not a pleasant reception after three or four months in the line.
It was a queer situation that we were in. At night one was a hunted fugitive11, but in the daytime one could live an almost normal life. Every house known to harbour P.O.U.M. supporters was — or at any rate was likely to be — under observation, and it was impossible to go to a hotel or boarding-house, because it had been decreed that on the arrival of a stranger the hotel-keeper must inform the police immediately. Practically this meant spending the night out of doors. In the daytime, on the other hand, in a town the size of Barcelona, you were fairly safe. The streets were thronged12 by Civil Guards, Assault Guards, Carabineros, and ordinary police, besides God knows how many spies in plain clothes; still, they could not stop everyone who passed, and if you looked normal you might escape notice. The thing to do was to avoid hanging round P.O.U.M. buildings and going to cafes and restaurants where the waiters knew you by sight. I spent a long time that day, and the next, in having a bath at one of the public baths. This struck me as a good way of putting in the time and keeping out of sight. Unfortunately the same idea occurred to a lot of people, and a few days later — after I left Barcelona — the police raided one of the public baths and arrested a number of ‘Trotskyists’ in a state of nature.
Half-way up the Ramblas I ran into one of the wounded men from the Sanatorium Maurin. We exchanged the sort of invisible wink13 that people were exchanging at that time, and managed in an unobtrusive way to meet in a cafe farther up the street. He had escaped arrest when the Maurin was raided, but, like the others, had been driven into the street. He was in shirt-sleeves — had had to flee without his jacket — and had no money. He described to me how one of the Civil Guards had torn the large coloured portrait of Maurin from the wall and kicked it to pieces. Maurin (one of the founders14 of the P.O.U.M.) was a prisoner in the hands of the Fascists15 and at that time was believed to have been shot by them.
I met my wife at the British Consulate16 at ten o’clock. McNair and Cottman turned up shortly afterwards. The first thing they told me was that Bob Smillie was dead. He had died in prison at Valencia — of what, nobody knew for certain. He had been buried immediately, and the I.L.P. representative on the spot, David Murray, had been refused permission to see his body.
Of course I assumed at once that Smillie had been shot. It was what everyone believed at the time, but I have since thought that I may have been wrong. Later the cause of his death was given out as appendicitis18, and we heard afterwards from another prisoner who had been released that Smillie had certainly been ill in prison. So perhaps the appendicitis story was true. The refusal to let Murray see his body may have been due to pure spite. I must say this, however. Bob Smillie was only twenty-two years old and physically19 he was one of the toughest people I have met. He was, I think, the only person I knew, English or Spanish, who went three months in the trenches20 without a day’s illness. People so tough as that do not usually die of appendicitis if they are properly looked after. But when you saw what the Spanish jails were like — the makeshift jails used for political prisoners — you realized how much chance there was of a sick man getting proper attention. The jails were places that could only be described as dungeons21. In England you would have to go back to the eighteenth century to find anything comparable. People were penned together in small rooms where there was barely space for them to lie down, and often they were kept in cellars and other dark places. This was not as a temporary measure — there were cases of people being kept four and five months almost without sight of daylight. And they were fed on a filthy22 and insufficient23 diet of two plates of soup and two pieces of bread a day. (Some months later, however, the food seems to have improved a little.) I am not exaggerating; ask any political suspect who was imprisoned24 in Spain. I have had accounts of the Spanish jails from a number of separate sources, and they agree with one another too well to be disbelieved; besides, I had a few glimpses into one Spanish jail myself. Another English friend who was imprisoned later writes that his experiences in jail ‘make Smillie’s case easier to understand’. Smillie’s death is not a thing I can easily forgive. Here was this brave and gifted boy, who had thrown up his career at Glasgow University in order to come and fight against Fascism, and who, as I saw for myself, had done his job at the front with faultless courage and willingness; and all they could find to do with him was to fling him into jail and let him die like a neglected animal. I know that in the middle of a huge and bloody25 war it is no use making too much fuss over an individual death. One aeroplane bomb in a crowded street causes more suffering than quite a lot of political persecution26. But what angers one about a death like this is its utter pointlessness. To be killed in battle — yes, that is what one expects; but to be flung into jail, not even for any imaginary offence, but simply owing to dull blind spite, and then left to die in solitude27 — that is a different matter. I fail to see how this kind of thing — and it is not as though Smillie’s case were exceptional — brought victory any nearer.
My wife and I visited Kopp that afternoon. You were allowed to visit prisoners who were not incommunicado, though it was not safe to do so more than once or twice. The police watched the people who came and went, and if you visited the jails too often you stamped yourself as a friend of ‘Trotskyists’ and probably ended in jail yourself. This had already happened to a number of people.
Kopp was not incommunicado and we got a permit to see him without difficulty. As they led us through the steel doors into the jail, a Spanish militiaman whom I had known at the front was being led out between two Civil Guards. His eye met mine; again the ghostly wink. And the first person we saw inside was an American militiaman who had left for home a few days earlier; his papers were in good order, but they had arrested him at the frontier all the same, probably because he was still wearing corduroy breeches and was therefore identifiable as a militiaman. We walked past one another as though we had been total strangers. That was dreadful. I had known him. for months, had shared a dug-out with him, he had helped to carry me down the line when I was wounded; but it was the only thing one could do. The blue — clad guards were snooping everywhere. It would be fatal to recognize too many people.
The so-called jail was really the ground floor of a shop. Into two rooms each measuring about twenty feet square, close on a hundred people were penned. The place had the real eighteenth-century Newgate Calendar appearance, with its frowsy dirt, its huddle29 of human bodies, its lack of furniture — just the bare stone floor, one bench, and a few ragged blankets — and its murky30 light, for the corrugated31 steel shutters32 had been drawn33 over the windows. On the grimy walls revolutionary slogans — ‘Visca P.O.U.M.!’ ‘Viva la Revolucion!’ and so forth34 — had been scrawled35. The place had been used as a dump for political prisoners for months past. There was a deafening36 racket of voices. This was the visiting hour, and the place was so packed with people that it was difficult to move. Nearly all of them were of the poorest of the working-class population. You saw women undoing37 pitiful packets of food which they had brought for their imprisoned men-folk. There were several of the wounded men from the Sanatorium Maurin among the prisoners. Two of them had amputated legs; one of them had been brought to prison without his crutch38 and was hopping39 about on one foot. There was also a boy of not more than twelve; they were even arresting children, apparently40. The place had the beastly stench that you always get when crowds of people are penned together without proper sanitary41 arrangements.
Kopp elbowed his way through the crowd to meet us. His plump fresh — coloured face looked much as usual, and in that filthy place he had kept his uniform neat and had even contrived42 to shave. There was another officer in the uniform of the Popular Army among the prisoners. He and Kopp saluted43 as they struggled past one another; the gesture was pathetic, somehow. Kopp seemed in excellent spirits. ‘Well, I suppose we shall all be shot,’ he said cheerfully. The word ‘shot’ gave me a sort of inward shudder44. A bullet had entered my own body recently and the feeling of it was fresh in my memory; it is not nice to think of that happening to anyone you know well. At that time I took it for granted that all the principal people in the P.O.U.M., and Kopp among them, would be shot. The first rumour45 of Nin’s death had just filtered through, and we knew that the P.O.U.M. were being accused of treachery and espionage46. Everything pointed47 to a huge frame-up trial followed by a massacre48 of leading ‘Trotskyists.’ It is a terrible thing to see your friend in jail and to know yourself impotent to help him. For there was nothing that one could do; useless even to appeal to the Belgian authorities, for Kopp had broken the law of his own country by coming here. I had to leave most of the talking to my wife; with my squeaking49 voice I could not make myself heard in the din2. Kopp was telling us about the friends he had made among the other prisoners, about the guards, some of whom were good fellows, but some of whom abused and beat the more timid prisoners, and about the food, which was ‘pig-wash’. Fortunately we had thought to bring a packet of food, also cigarettes. Then Kopp began telling us about the papers that had been taken from him when he was arrested. Among them was his letter from the Ministry50 of War, addressed to the colonel commanding engineering operations in the Army of the East. The police had seized it and refused to give it back; it was said to be lying in the Chief of Police’s office. It might make a very great difference if it were recovered.
I saw instantly how important this might be. An official letter of that kind, bearing the recommendation of the Ministry of War and of General Pozas, would establish Kopp’s bona fides. But the trouble was to prove that the letter existed; if it were opened in the Chief of Police’s office one could be sure that some nark or other would destroy it. There was only one person who might possibly be able to get it back, and that was the officer to whom it was addressed. Kopp had already thought of this, and he had written a letter which he wanted me to smuggle51 out of the jail and post. But it was obviously quicker and surer to go in person. I left my wife with Kopp, rushed out, and, after a long search, found a taxi. I knew that time was everything. It was now about half past five, the colonel would probably leave his office at six, and by tomorrow the letter might be God knew where — destroyed, perhaps, or lost somewhere in the chaos52 of documents that was presumably piling up as suspect after suspect was arrested. The colonel’s office was at the War Department down by the quay. As I hurried up the steps the Assault Guard on duty at the door barred the way with his long bayonet and demanded ‘papers’. I waved my discharge ticket at him; evidently he could not read, and he let me pass, impressed by the vague mystery of’ papers’. Inside, the place was a huge complicated warren running round a central courtyard, with hundreds of offices on each floor; and, as this was Spain, nobody had the vaguest idea where the office I was looking for was. I kept repeating: ‘El coronet —, jefe de ingenieros, Ejercito de Este!’ People smiled and shrugged53 their shoulders gracefully54. Everyone who had an opinion sent me in a different direction; up these stairs, down those, along interminable passages which turned out to be blind alleys55. And time was slipping away. I had the strangest sensation of being in a nightmare: the rushing up and down flights of stairs, the mysterious people coming and going, the glimpses through open doors of chaotic56 offices with papers strewn everywhere and typewriters clicking; and time slipping away and a life perhaps in the balance.
However, I got there in time, and slightly to my surprise I was granted a hearing. I did not see Colonel —, but his aide-de-camp or secretary, a little slip of an officer in smart uniform, with large and squinting57 eyes, came out to interview me in the ante-room. I began to pour forth my story. I had come on behalf of my superior officer. Major Jorge Kopp, who was on an urgent mission to the front and had been arrested by mistake. The letter to Colonel — was of a confidential58 nature and should be recovered without delay. I had served with Kopp for months, he was an officer of the highest character, obviously his arrest was a mistake, the police had confused him with someone else, etc., etc., etc. I kept piling it on about the urgency of Kopp’s mission to the front, knowing that this was the strongest point. But it must have sounded a strange tale, in my villainous Spanish which elapsed into French at every crisis. The worst was that my voice gave out almost at once and it was only by violent straining that I could produce a sort of croak59. I was in dread28 that it would disappear altogether and the little officer would grow tired of trying to listen to me. I have often wondered what he thought was wrong with my Voice — whether he thought I was drunk or merely suffering from a guilty conscience.
However, he heard me patiently, nodded his head a great number of times, and gave a guarded assent60 to what I said. Yes, it sounded as though there might have been a mistake. Clearly the matter should be looked into. Manana — I protested. Not manana! The matter was urgent; Kopp was due at the front already. Again the officer seemed to agree. Then came the question I was dreading61:
‘This Major Kopp — what force was he serving in?’
The terrible word had to come out: ‘In the P.O.U.M. militia7.’
‘P.O.U.M.!’
I wish I could convey to you the shocked alarm in his voice. You have got to remember how the P.O.U.M. was regarded at that moment. The spy — scare was at its height; probably all good Republicans did believe for a day or two that the P.O.U.M. was a huge spying organization in German pay. To have to say such a thing to an officer in the Popular Army was like going into the Cavalry62 Club immediately after the Red Letter scare and announcing yourself a Communist. His dark eyes moved obliquely63 across my face. Another long pause, then he said slowly:
‘And you say you were with him at the front. Then you were serving in the P.O.U.M. militia yourself?’
‘Yes.’
He turned and dived into the colonel’s room. I could hear an agitated64 conversation. ‘It’s all up,’ I thought. We should never get Kopp’s letter back. Moreover I had had to confess that I was in the P.O.U.M. myself, and no doubt they would ring up the police and get me arrested, just to add another Trotskyist to the bag. Presently, however, the officer reappeared, fitting on his cap, and sternly signed to me to follow. We were going to the Chief of Police’s office. It was a long way, twenty minutes’ walk. The little officer marched stiffly in front with a military step. We did not exchange a single word the whole way. When we got to the Chief of Police’s office a crowd of the most dreadful-looking scoundrels, obviously police narks, informers, and spies of every kind, were hanging about outside the door. The little officer went in; there was a long, heated conversation. You could hear voices furiously raised; you pictured violent gestures, shrugging of the shoulders, hangings on the table. Evidently the police were refusing to give the letter up. At last, however, the officer emerged, flushed, but carrying a large official envelope. It was Kopp’s letter. We had won a tiny victory — which, as it turned out, made not the slightest difference. The letter was duly delivered, but Kopp’s military superiors were quite unable to get him out of jail.
The officer promised me that the letter should be delivered. But what about Kopp? I said. Could we not get him released? He shrugged his shoulders. That was another matter. They did not know what Kopp had been arrested for. He would only tell me that the proper inquiries65 would be made. There was no more to be said; it was time to part. Both of us bowed slightly. And then there happened a strange and moving thing. The little officer hesitated a moment, then stepped across, and shook hands with me.
I do not know if I can bring home to you how deeply that action touched me. It sounds a small thing, but it was not. You have got to realize what was the feeling of the time — the horrible atmosphere of suspicion and hatred66, the lies and rumours67 circulating everywhere, the posters screaming from the hoardings that I and everyone like me was a Fascist spy. And you have got to remember that we were standing68 outside the Chief of Police’s office, in front of that filthy gang of tale-bearers and agents provocateurs, any one of whom might know that I was ‘wanted’ by the police. It was like publicly shaking hands with a German during the Great War. I suppose he had decided69 in some way that I was not really a Fascist spy; still, it was good of him to shake hands.
I record this, trivial though it may sound, because it is somehow typical of Spain — of the flashes of magnanimity that you get from Spaniards in the worst of circumstances. I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards. I only twice remember even being seriously angry with a Spaniard, and on each occasion, when I look back, I believe I was in the wrong myself. They have, there is no doubt, a generosity70, a species of nobility, that do not really belong to the twentieth century. It is this that makes one hope that in Spain even Fascism may take a comparatively loose and bearable form. Few Spaniards possess the damnable efficiency and consistency71 that a modern totalitarian state needs. There had been a queer little illustration of this fact a few nights earlier, when the police had searched my wife’s room. As a matter of fact that search was a very interesting business, and I wish I had seen it, though perhaps it is as well that I did not, for I might not have kept my temper.
The police conducted the search in the recognized Ogpu or Gestapo style. In the small hours of the morning there was a pounding on the door, and six men marched in, switched on the light, and immediately took up various positions about the room, obviously agreed upon beforehand. They then searched both rooms (there was a bathroom attached) with inconceivable thoroughness. They sounded the walls, took up the mats, examined the floor, felt the curtains, probed under the bath and the radiator72, emptied every drawer and suitcase and felt every garment and held it up to the light. They impounded all papers, including the contents of the waste-paper basket, and all our books into the bargain. They were thrown into ecstasies73 of suspicion by finding that we possessed74 a French translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. If that had been the only book they found our doom75 would have been sealed. It is obvious that a person who reads Mein Kampf must be a Fascist. The next moment, however, they came upon a copy of Stalin’s pamphlet. Ways of Liquidating76 Trotskyists and other Double Dealers77, which reassured78 them somewhat. In one drawer there was a number of packets of cigarette papers. They picked each packet to pieces and examined each paper separately, in case there should be messages written on them. Altogether they were on the job for nearly two hours. Yet all this time they never searched the bed. My wife was lying in bed all the while; obviously there might have been half a dozen sub — machine-guns under the mattress79, not to mention a library ofTrotskyist documents under the pillow. Yet the detectives made no move to touch the bed, never even looked underneath80 it. I cannot believe that this is a regular feature of the Ogpu routine. One must remember that the police were almost entirely81 under Communist control, and these men were probably Communist Party members themselves. But they were also Spaniards, and to turn a woman out of bed was a little too much for them. This part of the job was silently dropped, making the whole search meaningless.
That night McNair, Cottman, and I slept in some long grass at the edge of a derelict building-lot. It was a cold night for the time of year and no one slept much. I remember the long dismal82 hours of loitering about before one could get a cup of coffee. For the first time since I had been in Barcelona I went to have a look at the cathedral — a modern cathedral, and one of the most hideous83 buildings in the world. It has four crenellated spires84 exactly the shape of hock bottles. Unlike most of the churches in Barcelona it was not damaged during the revolution — it was spared because of its ‘artistic value’, people said. I think the Anarchists85 showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance, though they did hang a red and black banner between its spires. That afternoon my wife and I went to see Kopp for the last time. There was nothing that we could do for him, absolutely nothing, except to say good-bye and leave money with Spanish friends who would take him food and cigarettes. A little while later, however, after we had left Barcelona, he was placed incommunicado and not even food could be sent to him. That night, walking down the Ramblas, we passed the Cafe Moka, which the Civil Guards were still holding in force. On an impulse I went in and spoke86 to two of them who were leaning against the counter with their rifles slung87 over their shoulders. I asked them if they knew which of their comrades had been on duty here at the time of the May fighting. They did not know, and, with the usual Spanish vagueness, did not know how one could find out. I said that my friend Jorge Kopp was in prison and would perhaps be put on trial for something in connexion with the May fighting; that the men who were on duty here would know that he had stopped the fighting and saved some of their lives; they ought to come forward and give evidence to that effect. One of the men I was talking to was a dull, heavy-looking man who kept shaking his head because he could not hear my voice in the din of the traffic. But the other was different. He said he had heard of Kopp’s action from some of his comrades; Kopp was buen chico (a good fellow). But even at the time I knew that it was all useless. If Kopp were ever tried, it would be, as in all such trials, with faked evidence. If he has been shot (and I am afraid it is quite likely), that will be his epitaph: the buen chico of the poor Civil Guard who was part of a dirty system but had remained enough of a human being to know a decent action when he saw one.
It was an extraordinary, insane existence that we were leading. By night we were criminals, but by day we were prosperous English visitors — that was our pose, anyway. Even after a night in the open, a shave, a bath, and a shoe-shine do wonders with your appearance. The safest thing at present was to look as bourgeois88 as possible. We frequented the fashionable residential89 quarter of the town, where our faces were not known, went to expensive restaurants, and were very English with the waiters. For the first time in my life I took to writing things on walls. The passage-ways of several smart restaurants had ‘Visca P.O.U.M.!’ scrawled on them as large as I could write it. All the while, though I was technically90 in hiding, I could not feel myself in danger. The whole thing seemed too absurd. I had the ineradicable English belief that’ they’ cannot arrest you unless you have broken the law. It is a most dangerous belief to have during a political pogrom. There was a warrant out for McNair’s arrest, and the chances were that the rest of us were on the list as well. The arrests, raids, searchings were continuing without pause; practically everyone we knew, except those who were still at the front, was in jail by this time. The police were even boarding the French ships that periodically took off refugees and seizing suspected ‘Trotskyists’.
Thanks to the kindness of the British consul17, who must have had a very trying time during that week, we had managed to get our passports into order. The sooner we left the better. There was a train that was due to leave for Port Bou at half past seven in the evening and might normally be expected to leave at about half past eight. We arranged that my wife should order a taxi beforehand and then pack her bags, pay her bill, and leave the hotel at the last possible moment. If she gave the hotel people too much notice they would be sure to send for the police. I got down to the station at about seven to find that the train had already gone — it had left at ten to seven. The engine — driver had changed his mind, as usual. Fortunately we managed to warn my wife in time. There was another train early the following morning. McNair, Cottman, and I had dinner at a little restaurant near the station and by cautious questioning discovered that the restaurant — keeper was a C.N.T. member and friendly. He let us a three-bedded room and forgot to warn the police. It was the first time in five nights that I had been able to sleep with my clothes off.
Next morning my wife slipped out of the hotel successfully. The train was about an hour late in starting. I filled in the time by writing a long letter to the Ministry of War, telling them about Kopp’s case — that without a doubt he had been arrested by mistake, that he was urgently needed at the front, that countless91 people would testify that he was innocent of any offence, etc., etc., etc. I wonder if anyone read that letter, written on pages torn out of a note-book in wobbly handwriting (my fingers were still partly paralysed) and still more wobbly Spanish. At any rate, neither this letter nor anything else took effect. As I write, six months after the event, Kopp (if he has not been shot) is still in jail, untried and uncharged. At the beginning we had two or three letters from him, smuggled92 out by released prisoners and posted in France. They all told the same story — imprisonment93 in filthy dark dens94, bad and insufficient food, serious illness due to the conditions of imprisonment, and refusal of medical attention. I have had all this confirmed from several other sources, English and French. More recently he disappeared into one of the ‘secret prisons’ with which it seems impossible to make any kind of communication. His case is the case of scores or hundreds of foreigners and no one knows how many thousands of Spaniards.
In the end we crossed the frontier without incident. The train had a first class and a dining-car, the first I had seen in Spain. Until recently there had been only one class on the trains in Catalonia. Two detectives came round the train taking the names of foreigners, but when they saw us in the dining-car they seemed satisfied that we were respectable. It was queer how everything had changed. Only six months ago, when the Anarchists still reigned95, it was looking like a proletarian that made you respectable. On the way down from Perpignan to Cerberes a French commercial traveller in my carriage had said to me in all solemnity: ‘You mustn’t go into Spain looking like that. Take off that collar and tie. They’ll tear them off you in Barcelona.’ He was exaggerating, but it showed how Catalonia was regarded. And at the frontier the Anarchist guards had turned back a smartly dressed Frenchman and his wife, solely96 — I think — because they looked too bourgeois. Now it was the other way about; to look bourgeois was the one salvation97. At the passport office they looked us up in the card — index of suspects, but thanks to the inefficiency98 of the police our names were not listed, not even McNair’s. We were searched from head to foot, but we possessed nothing incriminating, except my discharge — papers, and the carabineros who searched me did not know that the 29th Division was the P.O.U.M. So we slipped through the barrier, and after just six months I was on French soil again. My only souvenirs of Spain were a goatskin water-bottle and one of those tiny iron lamps in which the Aragon peasants bum99 olive oil — lamps almost exactly the shape of the terra-cotta lamps that the Romans used two thousand years ago — which I had picked up in some ruined hut, and which had somehow got stuck in my luggage.
After all, it turned out that we had come away none too soon. The very first newspaper we saw announced McNair’s arrest for espionage. The Spanish authorities had been a little premature100 in announcing this. Fortunately, ‘Trotskyism’is not extraditable.
I wonder what is the appropriate first action when you come from a country at war and set foot on peaceful soil. Mine was to rush to the tobacco-kiosk and buy as many cigars and cigarettes as I could stuff” into my pockets. Then we all went to the buffet101 and had a cup of tea, the first tea with fresh milk in it that we had had for many months. It was several days before I could get used to the idea that you could buy cigarettes whenever you wanted them. I always half-expected to see the tobacconists’ doors barred and the forbidding notice ‘No hay tabaco’ in the window.
McNair and Cottman were going on to Paris. My wife and I got off the train at Banyuls, the first station up the line, feeling that we would like a rest. We were not too well received in Banyuls when they discovered that we had come from Barcelona. Quite a number of times I was involved in the same conversation: ‘You come from Spain? Which side were you fighting on? The Government? Oh!’ — and then a marked coolness. The little town seemed solidly pro-Franco, no doubt because of the various Spanish Fascist refugees who had arrived there from time to time. The waiter at the cafe I frequented was a pro-Franco Spaniard and used to give me lowering glances as he served me with an aperitif102. It was otherwise in Perpignan, which was stiff with Government partisans104 and where all the different factions105 were caballing against one another almost as in Barcelona. There was one cafe where the word ‘P.O.U.M.’ immediately procured106 you French friends and smiles from the waiter.
I think we stayed three days in Banyuls. It was a strangely restless time. In this quiet fishing-town, remote from bombs, machine-guns, food-queues, propaganda, and intrigue107, we ought to have felt profoundly relieved and thankful. We felt nothing of the kind. The things we had seen in Spain did not recede108 and fall into proportion now that we were away from them; instead they rushed back upon us and were far more vivid than before. We thought, talked, dreamed incessantly109 of Spain. For months past we had been telling ourselves that ‘when we get out of Spain’ we would go somewhere beside the Mediterranean110 and be quiet for a little while and perhaps do a little fishing, but now that we were here it was merely a bore and a disappointment. It was chilly111 weather, a persistent112 wind blew off the sea, the water was dull and choppy, round the harbour’s edge a scum of ashes, corks113, and fish-guts bobbed against the stones. It sounds like lunacy, but the thing that both of us wanted was to be back in Spain. Though it could have done no good to anybody, might indeed have done serious harm, both of us wished that we had stayed to be imprisoned along with the others. I suppose I have failed to convey more than a little of what those months in Spain meant to me. I have recorded some of the outward events, but I cannot record the feeling they have left me with. It is all mixed up with sights, smells, and sounds that cannot be conveyed in writing: the smell of the trenches, the mountain dawns stretching away into inconceivable distances, the frosty crackle of bullets, the roar and glare of bombs; the clear cold light of the Barcelona mornings, and the stamp of boots in the barrack yard, back in December when people still believed in the revolution; and the food-queues and the red and black flags and the faces of Spanish militiamen; above all the faces of militiamen — men whom I knew in the line and who are now scattered114 Lord knows where, some killed in battle, some maimed, some in prison — most of them, I hope, still safe and sound. Good luck to them all; I hope they win their war and drive all the foreigners out of Spain, Germans, Russians, and Italians alike. This war, in which I played so ineffectual a part, has left me with memories that are mostly evil, and yet I do not wish that I had missed it. When you have had a glimpse of such a disaster as this — and however it ends the Spanish war will turn out to have been an appalling115 disaster, quite apart from the slaughter116 and physical suffering — the result is not necessarily disillusionment and cynicism. Curiously117 enough the whole experience has left me with not less but more belief in the decency118 of human beings. And I hope the account I have given is not too misleading. I believe that on such an issue as this no one is or can be completely truthful119. It is difficult to be certain about anything except what you have seen with your own eyes, and consciously or unconsciously everyone writes as a partisan103. In case I have not said this somewhere earlier in the book I will say it now: beware of my partisanship120, my mistakes of fact, and the distortion inevitably121 caused by my having seen only one corner of events. And beware of exactly the same things when you read any other book on this period of the Spanish war.
Because of the feeling that we ought to be doing something, though actually there was nothing we could do, we left Banyuls earlier than we had intended. With every mile that you went northward122 France grew greener and softer. Away from the mountain and the vine, back to the meadow and the elm. When I had passed through Paris on my way to Spain it had seemed to me decayed and gloomy, very different from the Paris I had known eight years earlier, when living was cheap and Hitler was not heard of. Half the cafes I used to know were shut for lack of custom, and everyone was obsessed123 with the high cost of living and the fear of war. Now, after poor Spain, even Paris seemed gay and prosperous. And the Exhibition was in full swing, though we managed to avoid visiting it.
And then England — southern England, probably the sleekest124 landscape in the world. It is difficult when you pass that way, especially when you are peacefully recovering from sea-sickness with the plush cushions of a boat-train carriage under your bum, to believe that anything is really happening anywhere. Earthquakes in Japan, famines in China, revolutions in Mexico? Don’t worry, the milk will be on the doorstep tomorrow morning, the New Statesman will come out on Friday. The industrial towns were far away, a smudge of smoke and misery125 hidden by the curve of the earth’s surface. Down here it was still the England I had known in my childhood: the railway-cuttings smothered126 in wild flowers, the deep meadows where the great shining horses browse127 and meditate128, the slow-moving streams bordered by willows129, the green bosoms130 of the elms, the larkspurs in the cottage gardens; and then the huge peaceful wilderness131 of outer London, the barges132 on the miry river, the familiar streets, the posters telling of cricket matches and Royal weddings, the men in bowler133 hats, the pigeons in Trafalgar Square, the red buses, the blue policemen — all sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs.
The End
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anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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fascist
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| adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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exhaustedly
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| adv.exhausted（精疲力竭的）的变形 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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fascists
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| n.法西斯主义的支持者( fascist的名词复数 ) | |
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consulate
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| n.领事馆 | |
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consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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appendicitis
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| n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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dungeons
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| n.地牢( dungeon的名词复数 ) | |
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filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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persecution
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| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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huddle
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| vi.挤作一团；蜷缩；vt.聚集；n.挤在一起的人 | |
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murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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scrawled
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| 乱涂，潦草地写( scrawl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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deafening
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| adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式 | |
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undoing
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| n.毁灭的原因，祸根；破坏，毁灭 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sanitary
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| adj.卫生方面的，卫生的，清洁的，卫生的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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rumour
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| n.谣言，谣传，传闻 | |
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espionage
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| n.间谍行为，谍报活动 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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chaotic
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| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
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squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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obliquely
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| adv.斜； 倾斜； 间接； 不光明正大 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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ecstasies
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| 狂喜( ecstasy的名词复数 )； 出神； 入迷； 迷幻药 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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liquidating
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| v.清算( liquidate的现在分词 )；清除（某人）；清偿；变卖 | |
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dealers
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| n.商人( dealer的名词复数 )；贩毒者；毒品贩子；发牌者 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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anarchists
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| 无政府主义者( anarchist的名词复数 ) | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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bourgeois
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| adj./n.追求物质享受的(人)；中产阶级分子 | |
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residential
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| adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的 | |
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technically
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| adv.专门地，技术上地 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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dens
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| n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋 | |
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reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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inefficiency
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| n.无效率，无能；无效率事例 | |
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bum
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| n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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buffet
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| n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台 | |
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aperitif
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| n.饭前酒 | |
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partisan
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| adj.党派性的；游击队的；n.游击队员；党徒 | |
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104
partisans
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| 游击队员( partisan的名词复数 )； 党人； 党羽； 帮伙 | |
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105
factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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106
procured
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| v.（努力）取得， （设法）获得( procure的过去式和过去分词 )；拉皮条 | |
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107
intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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108
recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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109
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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111
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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113
corks
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| n.脐梅衣；软木( cork的名词复数 )；软木塞 | |
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114
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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115
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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116
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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117
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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118
decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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119
truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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120
Partisanship
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| n. 党派性, 党派偏见 | |
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121
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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122
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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123
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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124
sleekest
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| 时髦的( sleek的最高级 )； 光滑而有光泽的； 保养得很好的； 线条流畅的 | |
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125
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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126
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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127
browse
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| vi.随意翻阅，浏览；(牛、羊等)吃草 | |
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128
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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129
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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130
bosoms
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| 胸部( bosom的名词复数 )； 胸怀； 女衣胸部（或胸襟）； 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
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131
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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133
bowler
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| n.打保龄球的人，（板球的）投（球）手 | |
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