In my previous writing "Generalissimo" at http://blog.udn.com/kkuo0810/30260901, I mentioned Spanish Civil War(1936-1939) and Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled Spain after the war until 1975.  Actually, the war was a prelude to WWII in Europe, in which Fascist Germany and Italy backed Franco and the rebels, while Soviet Union supported then incumbent, left-winged government and "populist front"(France and UK stealthily gave them support also).  Some romantic idealists like Earnest Hemingway and Pablo Piccasso sympathized the leftists.  Later on, Hemingway wrote one of his great novels, "For whom the bell tolls", as the experience he witnessed in the war.  The novel was subsequently adapted into a namesake film(戰地鐘聲), which I watched again the other night on classic channel. 

As just a seventh grader, I was too young to fully understand the whole background of the storyline when I then watched the movie; at first place I even thought the movie was a story concerning things happened in WWII .  Anyway, that was the first time I watched the legendary Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman play on screen.  Since then both of them have been my idols, especially Ingrid Bergman.

The title "For who the bell tolls" Hemingway used had been an exerpt from a poem of John Donne, a great English poet.  I love the verse very much, and I would like share with you here:    

John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

P.S.  I read Mr. Li Ao's renderings on the poem in one of his books.  It was really a masterpiece of translation, and he made a postscipt to it with a gloating tune: "See? only a master like me can give a rendering to the poem.  Yes, I am the master indeed!"