PHILIP. Because I cannot afford to make much noise and scare others that we need much more. This one is just a killer.

ANTONIO. Yes. There are plenty of fascists left in a town of a million people, and they work inside. Those who have the courage to. We must have twenty thousand active here.

PHILIP. More. Double that. But when you catch them they won’t talk. Except the politicians.

ANTONIO. Politicians. Yes, politicians. I have seen a politician on the floor in that corner of the room unable to stand up when it was time to go out. I have seen a politician walk across that floor on his knees and put his arms around my legs and kiss my feet. I watched him slobber on my boots when all he had to do was such a simple thing as die. I have seen many die, and I have never seen a politician die well.

PHILIP. I don’t like to see them die. It’s O.K. I guess, if you like to see it. But I don’t like it. Sometimes I don’t know how you stick it. Listen, who dies well?

ANTONIO. You know. Don’t be naïve.

PHILIP. Yes. I suppose I know.

ANTONIO. I could die all right. I don’t ask any one to do something that is impossible.

PHILIP. You’re a specialist. Look, Tonico. Who dies well? Go ahead, say it. Go ahead. Do you good to talk about your trade. Talk about it you know. Then next thing you know, forget it. Simple, eh? Tell me about in the first days of the movement.

ANTONIO. [Rather proudly] You want to hear? You mean definite people?

PHILIP. No. I know a couple of definite people. I mean sort of by classes.

ANTONIO. Fascists, real fascists, the young ones; very well. Sometimes with very much style. They are mistaken, but they have much style. Soldiers, yes, the majority all right. Priests all my life I am against. The church fights us. We fight the church. I am a Socialist for many years. We are the oldest revolutionary party in Spain. But to die—

[He shakes his hand in the quick triple flip of the wrist that is the Spanish gesture of supreme admiration]

To die? Priests? Terrific. You know; just simple priests. I don’t mean bishops.

PHILIP. And Antonio. Sometimes there must have been mistakes, eh? When you had to work in a hurry perhaps. Or you know, just mistakes, we all make mistakes. I just made a little one yesterday. Tell me, Antonio, were there ever any mistakes?

ANTONIO. Oh, yes. Certainly. Mistakes. Oh, yes. Mistakes. Yes. Yes. Very regrettable mistakes. A very few.

PHILIP. And how did the mistakes die?

ANTONIO. [Proudly] All very well.

PHILIP. Ah——

[It is noise a boxer might make when he is hit with a hard body punch]