For Whom the Bell Tolls

by Ernest Hemingway

“I mean nothing. But certainly we execute and destroy such veritable fiends and dregs of humanity and the treacherous dogs of generals and the revolting spectacle of admirals unfaithful to their trust. These are destroyed. They are not assassinated. You see the difference?” “I see,” Robert Jordan had said. “And because I make jokes sometime: and you know how dangerous it is to make jokes even in joke? Good. Because I make jokes, do not think that the Spanish people will not live to regret that they have not shot certain generals that even now hold commands. I do not like the shootings, you understand.” “I don’t mind them,” Robert Jordan said. “I do not like them but I do not mind them any more.” “I know that,” Karkov had said. “I have been told that.” “Is it important?” Robert Jordan said. “I was only trying to be truthful about it.” “It is regretful,” Karkov had said. “But it is one of the things that makes people be treated as reliable who would ordinarily have to spend much more time before attaining that category.” “Am I supposed to be reliable?” “In your work you are supposed to be very reliable. I must talk to you sometime to see how you are in your mind. It is regrettable that we never speak seriously.” “My mind is in suspension until we win the war,” Robert Jordan had said. “Then perhaps you will not need it for a long time. But you should be careful to exercise it a little.”