for whom the bell tolls

in 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the north american newspaper alliance. three years later he completed the greatest emerge from the ‘good fight’, for whom the bell tolls. the story of Robert Jordon, a young american in the international brigades attached to an antifascist guerrilla unit in the mountains of the Spain, it tells loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and tragic death of the ideal. in his portrayal of Robert jordan’s love for the beautiful maria and his superb account of el sordo’s last stand, in his brilliant travesty of la pasionaria and his unwillingness to to believe in the blid faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in ‘The sun also rises’and ‘a farewell to arms’ to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise.

in this novel, death is the primary preoccupation. in this novel everyone subconciously know that they are fighting for their own death. el sordo in this novel thinks that ” dying was nothing and he had no picture of it nor fear of it in his mind. but living was a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side hill. living was a hawk in the sky. living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.

Characters

Robert Jordan—American university instructor of Spanish language and a specialist in demolition and explosive.

Anselmo—elderly guide to Robert Jordan

Golz- commander who ordered the bridge’s demolition.

Pablo—leader of the group antifascist guerrillas.

Rafael—a gypsy, lazy guerilla.

Maria—Robert Jordan’s young lover.

Pilar—wife of Pablo.

Agustin—middle aged guerilla.

EL sordo—leader of the fellow band who is fight in la passonaria. Deaf guy.

Primitivo—young guerilla in pablo’s band.

Fernando—leader of fello band guerilla.

Andres and eladio—brother. Members of pablo’s band.

Joaquin—member of sordo’s band.

Chapter 1

In the late 1930 in spain, during a Spanish civil war, Robert Jordan lies in the forest and see the mill in the distance where an old man anselmo point out the bride and says that mill and the hut is the post of enemys. Robert Jordan a tall thin guy, with a gray hair, and anselmo who is an experienced climber, both began ti climb the hill. He has been sent to blow the bridge. General golz who was with them explained that when the explosion  should happen, only when attack has begun, so the enemy cannot repair it.  The main purpose of exploding the bridge is the enemis move their trucks, tanks, and artillery via the bridge. Anselmo returns with Pablo. Robert Jordan shows his identification papper to Pablo. Pablo flatters him with his qualification he had heard of him. He repliedthat he is there on orders. He cannot decide if the Pablo is gloomy or dangerous.

Chapter 2

They arrive at the camp, which is a cave and cannot be spotted from the air. A gyps, Rafael, is whittling a trap. Anselmo jokes that if he hunt a for he would say that its an elephant, and if he caught an elephant he will claim tank.

After a while, a girl, maria brings them rabbit stew. She is beautiful and Robert Jordan stares her head was shaved in prison of fascist. She was on the train that Pablo blew up, and then they carried her on their back. Robert Jordan asks her if she is pablo’s or gypsy’s woman. Gypsy’s says that he is of no one not even of him(Robert Jordan).  Anselmo tells him that there are seven men and 2 woman, pablo’s brave and ugl woman, pilar. He also says that Pablo has killed may but he is now afraid of death.

Chapter 3

Rober Jordan draws the bridge and plan two blasts on the opposite site at the same time. Anselmo point out the sentries one at thefar end, the other in ahut built into the rock. There are eight men. On the way back, they see planes above which anselmo think are theirs, but Robert Jordan recognizes them as enemy planes.

Back to the camp they find agustin, who tell them that he is bored of the mountains and that is good that they are exploding the bride. He reminds the m to guard the explosives. He speaks with many obscenities, for wich the hamigway substitutes the word obscenity. Anselmo tells Robert Jordan that agustin speaks filthy but reliable and serious, and that el sordo is also good. He thinks Pablo is bad, but knows that th mountains are the pablo’s territory and that they must move carefully

Chapter 4

Pablo, the woman, maria, the gypsy Rafael, anselmo, the three other men are back to the cave. Pablo has no pity when he hears of agustin. Robert Jordan drinks abstinthe, an extremely stonge alcohol. It relaxes him, taking the place ‘of all things he had enjoyed and forgotto=en and the came back to him when he taseted that opaque, bitter, tongue-numbing, brain warming, stomach-warming, idea changing liquid alchemy.” Pablo says that he doesnot want to explode the bridge. Anselmo call him coward. Pablo’s wife says that she is for the bridge and against him.

The fight against eachother, and Pablo says that its not coward to kno what is foolish. Anselmo replys that it is not foolish to kno what is cowardly. Pablo threatens his life. Pablo talks of the bullfighter says before they are gored, for she lives nine years with bullfighter. She tells him to take the wax out of his hairy ears. He tells her that since she is a woman as well as commander, to serve supper. Robert Jordan shows the sketches to the flat man, primitive and the scarred brother, Andres.

Chapter 5

Robert Jordan inhales the clear mountain air contrasting with the heavy tobacco and cooking smell inside, where gypsy sings making fun of Catalans. He asks Robert Jordan why he did not kill Pablo; they were expecting it. Robert Jordan finds the repugnant. He tell him to do it before it becomes too difficult: to take advantage of the quiet, or to provoke him.

Pablo enters, and tells Robert Jordan to disregard his woman; she is good and loyal to the republic. Robert Jordan trusts the woman, but does not know how she would react. He knows it is bad for a stranger to kill where he must work. He sees Pablo talking to the horses and he decides not to kill him.

Chapter 6

Maria tell Robert Jordan to drink wine so that she will seem beautiful, he says she is already. He objects to them calling him don, and says that in the seriousness of war, they should call each other camarada, or comrade. The women remarks on how serious he is and how she can joke about anything. They are republicans. Maria’s father was a republican all his life, and was shot.

Robert Jordan says that his father and grandfather were republicans, and Maria replies that in the U.S. they do not shoot you for it. He says that his grandfather shot himself to avoid being tortured. She looks at him with longing and says he and she are the same. He touches her neck. Later the woman says his judgment in not killing Pablo was good.

Chapter 7

Robert Jordan welcomes a trembling Maria into his sleeping bag, calling her little rabbit. They confess their love. She tells him she does not know how to kiss, and insists that she must learn. He holds her with a tight-chaste loneliness.

He asks her if she has loved others, and she says things were done to her by other, and is ashamed. He tells her that if they make love, it will be as if the others had never been. He tells her she is his woman. He asks her if she wants to make the other disappear; she fiercely says yes.

Chapter 8

Robert Jordan wakes in the cold night, happy to feel her body. She is gone when he wakes again. He sees Pablo and goes back to sleep. He wakes again to the sound of enemy planes. They have never seen this many, and take it as a bad sign. Robert Jordan thinks they are flying to bomb an airfield, but does not think they know about the attack on the bridge. He tells Anselmo, who is illiterate, to watch the road, and to make marks indicating the presence of tanks, trucks, guns, troops, etc. He tells the gypsy to watch the guard posts, and to take things more seriously; the gypsy responds that he (Robert Jordan) was not very serious last night.

Fernando tells them that the movement in La Granja last night was not unusual.

He has heard a rumor that the Republic is planning to blow up guarded bridges. They are alarmed at the coincidence, but he obviously does not know that it is more than a rumor. When Pilar, Pablo’s woman, asks him if he likes the food, he says yes, it is the same as usual, and she says he could be a monument to “as usual.” She asks Robert Jordan if there are people like this in other countries and he says no other country is like Spain. Fernando says he did not likeVlancia, a city in Spain, and the woman tells him the best time of her life was spent there, during a festival, with the bullfighter Finito. She remembers the cafes with seafood and the famous melon. Fernando objects, insisting the melon of Castile is superior; she tells him to eat melon from Castile is self-abuse. She and Finito made love to smells of fireworks and flowers. She says Pablo is more man than Finito, but they never lay together inValencia. He replies that Finito did not blow up a train. She tells him that many speak against the train, but none against Valencia. They hear planes.

Chapter 8

Robert Jordan thinks planes are mechanized doom. Maria says they look like death. The woman says they look like planes. They come so close that they can see the pilots. The woman asks if he and Maria made love, and since neither of them will say, she assumes they have. He says he cannot take a woman where she goes, and the woman jokes that he may take two where he is going, meaning he and Maria will go to their deaths. She says she is no coward, but knows some may not live to see another Sunday. She knows that she has hurt Pablo with her talk of Valencia, and will curse and want to kill him, but she will never wound him. She sees the success he was and the failure that he has become. In bed he cries about how the people no longer follow him, and how he fears death. She tells him that there isn’t room in bed for him and her and his fear. She tells Robert Jordan that she has felt sadness, but it did not crush her as it did Pablo; she believes in the Republic as others believe religion.

chapter 8

The woman thinks Robert Jordan is cold because he does not fear death, but he says he is only preoccupied with work. He tells her that he cares for Maria very deeply. She says she will leave her with him, for there is not much time, and denies this is something she read in his palm. She and Agustín bicker, “the insults having reached the ultimate formalism in Spanish in which the acts are never stated but only implied. She laughs and says he has no variety in his obscenities, only force. He talks of Pablo’s cowardice, but also of his wiliness and understanding, amidst the unbounded idiocy in the war. He says that she is loyal and intuitive, but not smart. She argues that Pablo is rendered useless by his fear, but Agustín still has confidence in him. He says that Pablo resists blowing the bridges because he wants to stay, out of his own weakness. He says that they are both intelligent, but Pablo has the talent. “To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.”

Chapter 10

They are on their way to El Sordo, a leader of a band of guerrillas.Robert Jordan is in a hurry. Maria likes the smell and feel of the pine trees, and Pilar says that she likes anything, and would be a gift to a man if only she could cook. Robert Jordan likes the pines also. Pilar says she is ugly. Maria and Robert disagree. She asks María how she would like to be ugly. She says that she is not ugly, only born ugly; inside she is beautiful, and would have made a good man, but she is all woman and all ugly. Yet she has had many loves:

“Look at the ugliness. Yet one has a feeling within one that blinds a man while he loves you. You, with that feeling, blind him, and blind yourself. Then, one day, for no reason, he sees you as ugly as you really are and he is not blind anymore and then you see yourself as ugly as he sees you and you lose your man and your feeling… After a while, when you are as ugly as I am, as ugly as women can be, then, as I say after a while the feeling, the idiotic feeling that you are beautiful, grows slowly in one again. It grows like a cabbage. And then, when the feeling is grown, another man sees you and thinks you are beautiful and it is all to do over.’’

María insists that she is not ugly, but that she (María) is. Robert Jordan asks the woman to tell him about Pablo before the movement. The woman replies that even his glorious acts were ugly, and she does not want María to hear. María says that she will not have bad dreams after all that has happened to her. The woman says that if one did not see the start of the movement in a small town, one has seen nothing.

Pablo assaulted the enemy barracks, and the guardia civil, or CivilGuard, surrendered early in the morning. Pablo had four of them. One told him that he had never killed, and another wore corporal’s stripes. He made them kneel and shot them in the heads with their own pistol, which one of them had to show him how to use. There were more than twenty other fascist sympathizers. Pablo organized it like a bullfight, with the fascists held in theAyuntamiento(city hall), the streets blocked to form a plaza, and everybody watching. He arranged two lines of men with flails, clubs, pitchforks, sickles, and reaping hooks. One of the men said he had never killed, another said he will learn. He added that he did not think that his club will kill in one blow, and a third said that the beauty of it is that there would be many blows. Pilar explained to one man that they were proceeding in this way to save bullets, and also so that each man will share in the responsibility.

Mayor Don Benito García was the first to come out. Nothing happened, and then finally, one blow fell, then many followed. After him, no one would come out. The drunkards shouted. Don Federico González, owner of the mill and feed store, was too scared to walk, and reached to the sky, not speaking a word the entire time. Don Ricardo Montcalvo volunteered to go, saying that to die is not a bad thing, only to die at the hands of these men. He insulted the Republic, and was killed quickly. He aroused such anger in the men that they wanted to flail the priest. Don Faustino Rivero, known as a girl-chaser and a coward, having faked sickness to avoid a bullfight, came out next. They yelled insults, and he tried to turn back, but was pushed out again by Pablo. Rivero lost his cool, and was thrown off the cliff without a beating. Pilar knew that the lines had become cruel. Don Guillermo Martín, from whose store they got the weapons, came out, and Pilar thought that if it had not been for the other events, he may have been set free.

Robert Jordan tells of a time when he saw a black man lynched in Oklahoma. Maria says she has never seen a Negro, except in thecircus, unless the Moors count as Negroes. Pilar says she can talk of Moors, and Maria tells her not to, making reference to her rape, and Pilar tells her not to bring that up – it is unhealthy.

Pilar continues her story. They teased Don Guillermo, who was not a rich man, and who accepted fascism due to the religiousness of his wife. She cried out to him, and he was beaten. Pilar felt intense shame, and began to walk away. She told two men that had left the lines that she had a belly-full. They spoke of how such killing will bring bad luck. She went to speak with Pablo and heard some shouting “long live liberty,” and one man said with disgust that they should have been shouting “long live drunkenness.” Pilar returned in time to see the fat Don Anastacio Rivas being beaten by a drunken mob. A drunk wearing a red and black scarf set the body of Don Anastacio, who was too heavy to throw off the cliff, on fire.

The guards locked the doors when the mob broke out, and the priest was inside with the remaining men. Finally, Pablo simply unlocked the door and let the mob in. Pilar wanted to see, so she hit a drunkard in the groin so that he would get out of her way. She saw the priest being hacked with hooks and sickles. They finally threw the bodies over the cliff with a wheelbarrow, and Pilar would have preferred they threw twenty or thirty of the drunkards over the cliff with the bodies. The next day, Pablo criticized the priest’s lack of dignity. Pilar asked how he could have dignity while being chased by a mob. Pablo insisted that he felt disillusioned, for he had expected the priest’s death to be a culmination of his violent acts. Pablo was also a priest, and more importantly, he was Spanish. He would not have sex after the killing, and she understood, as she lived with bullfighters. She looked out during the night and saw Don Guillermo’s wife crying by the fountain and decided that it was the worst day of her life-until the fascists took the town three days later.

Maria begs her to stop. Robert Jordan wants to hear, but Pilar says it will be bad for Maria. She will tell him everything that happened to Maria sometime, and Maria wants to be there when she tells, but Pilar says that she will never hear it.

Chapter 11

They meet a guard, Joaquin, who agrees that the planes are a bad sign. He tells Maria that she is pretty and tells her how he carried her from the train on his shoulders. Teasing, he offers to carry her, and says that he is glad she was hanging down his back when the shots were coming from behind. She calls him a swine. Pilar reminds her that he could have dropped her to dodge bullets, and he says that Pilar would have shot him, or scared him to death with her mouth. He says that he shined shoes before the war, but Pilar can tell from his pigtail and his quickness that he was training to be a bullfighter. In his town, Valladolid, his parents were shot, and Robert Jordan is saddened to hear of another time this occurred.

“You only heard the statement of the loss. You did not see the father fall as Pilar made him see the fascists die in that story she had told by the stream. You knew the father died in some courtyard, or against some wall, or in some field or orchard, or at night, in the lights of a truck, beside some road. You had seen the lights of the car from down the hills and heard the shooting and afterwards you had come down to the road and found the bodies. You did not see the mother shot, nor the sister, nor the brother. You heard about it; you heard the shots; and you saw the bodies.”

He wants to take down Pilar’s story, for she cannot write, even though she is an incredible storyteller. He wants to have known the people, for the partizans take action and the peasants remain to take the punishment. He is learning a lot from the war, and he is lucky to have lived in Spain for ten years before the war. He speaks the language and does not feel like a foreigner most of the time, except when the Spanish turn on him, as they turn on themselves. He stops himself, and thinks he wants to win the war first, and then after that, think and judge. He sees Pilar and the two younger ones as a mountain and two fresh trees, untouched despite all that has happened. He remembers a Belgian boy who enlisted with five others from his village, and how after they all died, the boy was given an orderly job and could do nothing but cry. He thinks Maria seems sound and normal enough. He idolizes her like a movie star and wishes she could wake and find out that the bad things were just a dream.

They are approaching El Sordo’s cave. Joaquín tells the womanhow the fascists shot his parents and imprisoned his sister. He apologizes for burdening them when he knows they have the same troubles, and Maria says that her troubles are such a big bucket that his falling in will not fill it. She kisses him, she says as his sister, and says that they are all family. He asks if even RobertJordan is family, and then is embarrassed. Pilar jokes that it has been a long time since she kissed a bullfighter, and he does not like her teasing. She says he is very tender for a bullfighter. She feels old and ugly, having seen panic in Joaquin’s face when she joked about kissing him, though he denies it.

They greet El Sordo, whose real name is Santiago. He is short and heavy with a thin, hooked nose like an Indian, gray hair, and yellow-brown eyes. He offers them food and drink. He tells Maria and Joaquín to go, and they drink and discuss the war. There has been much movement of troops in Segovia, and on the Valladolid road. El Sordo wants to blow the bridge, but Robert Jordan tells him he must wait for orders. He wants El Sordo’s men to cut thetelephone and attack the roadmender’s post. Pablo will cut thetelephone below and attack the other post. Robert Jordan tells him they need horses for the retreat and he says it is impossible to have eight by the next day. They review their stock of guns and ammunition. Robert Jordan wants more men, but El Sordo says that among the hundred, only four are not “undependables,” and every day, more become bad.

El Sordo speaks a simpler Spanish to Robert Jordan because he is a foreigner. El Sordo suggests they retreat to Gredos after the bombing, but Pilar wants to go to the Republic. Robert Jordan suggests Gredos because there they could operate against the main line of the railway. He realizes he has made a mistake, telling Spaniards that foreigners can do better than they can. Still, he recognizes that they have not done anything major since they lost the foreigner Kashkin at the train explosion. Kashkin was very nervous. He was shot in the back, and was unwilling to be left behind, so Robert Jordan shot him. He suggests Gredos again andthe woman explodes into obscenities and gets extremely defensive, saying he will return to the Republic which she loved when he was just a child, and leave them in the hills to die, and to take his crop-headed whore with him. Maria hears her and says that she could become a whore if the woman wishes, and that she should calm down. The woman calms and takes a drink. RobertJordan tells Maria to go again. He thinks they should blow the bridge at daylight, but escape in daylight is problematic, and they cannot return to the camp afterward and stay until dark. El Sordo tells him that to make it to Gredos would be a miracle, not a plan. Robert Jordan says he appreciates El Sordo’s help and loyalty, and that on paper, the plan is not as complicated, nor does paper bleed. The woman says again that she wants to go to the Republic. El Sordo says that when they win, it will all be Republic.

Chapter 12

They leave El Sordo’s. Pilar (the woman) is breathing heavily, and they rest. She tells Maria to lay her head in her lap. She tells RobertJordan that he can have her soon, and that she has never wantedher, but is jealous. Maria tells her not to talk like that. Pilar says that she wants Maria to be happy, but is not a tortillera (colloquial Spanish for lesbian). Maria says she loves her and Pilar says to lift her head because the silliness is over.

Maria does not accept her making it all into a joke. Pilar embarrasses Robert Jordan, saying that his nickname, “little rabbit” is good, and that when she was young, she could have taken Maria. She apologizes again and tells them she does not feel like herself; perhaps the bridge has given her a headache. Robert Jordan jokes that he will drop the bridge like a banana out of its peel. Pilar tells them that she will leave them so they can do what they want to do, and Maria tells her not to speak grossly. Pilar explains that she was jealous because she feels ugly and old, but that Maria will not be nineteen forever. Robert Jordanwants to go back with her, but Maria says to let her go.

chapter 13

Robert Jordan and Maria walk hand in hand. Her beauty and the intensity of their touch awe him. She trembles when he kisses her. They make love. “For her everything was red, orange, gold-red from the sun on the closed eyes, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in ablindness of that color.”  He feels that he is being borne through nowhere; time stands still, and the earth moves. Later, walking by the stream, she tells him that she dies each time they make love, as the earth moves. He tells her that he has loved many others, but the earth had never moved. She says she hopes that her hair grows back soon, so that she will not be ugly, and that her body is too young and thin. He says her body is lovely, and she tells him her body is for him.

His mind wanders. He knows that that he must use people he likes as troops, and tries to convince himself that he has no responsibility for them; he is only obeyingGolz’s orders. He thinks of another commander, the swine Gomez inEstremadura. He believes that the partizans bring bad luck and danger, but make the country a good place in which to live. He feels conflicted and worries about betraying the people. He fights because he loves Spain. He fights with the communists only for the duration of the war, for it is the only group he can respect. He knows he cannot tell anyone that he has no politics. He wonders about Pablo’s politics, and decides he probably moved from left to right, having only faith in ultimate victory: the politics of horse thieves. “Was there ever a people whose leaders were as truly their enemies as this one?”  He has become bigoted from politics, and his mind too easily uses clichés like “enemy of the people.”

Robert Jordan does not want to be a hero or a martyr, and just wants to spend a long time with Maria. The marriage fantasy he sets up becomes cynical as his guilt takes over, for he knows that he can take her with him, but he cannot change what happened to her. His students will come smoke pipes with him in the evening, and “Maria can tell them about how some of the blue-shirted crusaders for the true faith sat on her head while others twisted her arms and pulled her skirts up and stuffed them in her mouth.” He wonders if he is blacklisted in his hometown of Missoula, and if he will still be able to teach. He knows that his life is simply today, tonight, and tomorrow, and he believes that it is possible to live as full of a life in seventy hours as it is in seventy years. He has had casual sex, but he loves Maria so much that he feels as though he could die. He knows that he came upon her late, but their connection is so strong that they would have come together even if Pilar had not intervened. However, her intervention saved precious time. He berates himself for the impossible fantasy of having a long life with Maria, and knows the urgency of the time they have. He wonders if Golz felt this rush too during his service, but as for Maria, he believes that their love goes beyond the intense circumstances under which they met.

He returns from his thoughts, and tells Maria that he loves her. She is telling him she wants to do the things that a wife does, like washing his socks and rolling his cigarettes. She wants to knowhow to use his pistol so they could shoot each other should they be captured. Pilar showed her how to make a fatal cut with a bladeshe carries. He tells her that she cannot help with his work, for it is cold and in his head.

Pilar returns and teases them persistently, but he sees nothing predatory. Maria finally tells her that the earth moved, and Pilar tells her it only moves three times in a lifetime, and that she (Pilar) has had two, and will never have another. Robert Jordan resents how Pilar turns it into a gypsy thing, for he does not believe in the mysterious, and says that he wants less mysteries and more work, and that god damn it, the earth did move. She laughs at him, and says it will snow. He says it cannot in June, then sees she is right.

chapter 14

It is snowing. Robert Jordan is cranky. He wants to go to the upper post, where Anselmo waits, and Pablo tells him that he will not be able to find it in the snow. Pablo acts strange, asking if he will sleep outside, and Robert Jordan curses him in his mind. Robert Jordan takes wine. Pablo tells him that there are two different kinds of storms, depending on where they come from, and that this is a great one. Robert Jordan looks at the snow and is over his rage: “It was like the excitement of the battle except it was clean… In a snowstorm it always seemed, for a time, as though there were no enemies.”  Pablo tells them that he worked for a leftist movement and met Pilar when she was with the bullfighter Finito de Palencia, who was not much of a bullfighter. Pilar remembers differently. She can see Finito in his glory, victorious as the bright sword plunges into the bull. She says that Finito was one of the bravest men in the ring and did not fear death, as Pablo does. Out of the ring, though, he was one of the most fearful men Pilar had ever known. The bulls often struck him in the chest because he was so short. One night after a fight, there was a banquet in his honor. He drank a lot. Pilar was taken in with the festivities and did not notice he was in bad shape. When they presented him with the head of the bull, it stared at him as if alive, and he was horrified and said “no” again and again, bleeding from the mouth. He died that winter of the chest wounds. Primitivo says that if he was so short, he should not have fought bulls. Pilar is enraged with his simpleness. She can still see his body, his deep scars, and remembers how she would rub his sore muscles and he would tell her she was much woman. Bull force and courage do not last, but she has lasted, and wonders for what.

The gypsy brings a report on the enemy posts and the road: nothing unusual. Fernando will lead Robert Jordan to where Anselmo is posted.

chapter 15

Anselmo is crouched in the trunk of a tree. He is freezing, and wonders when Robert Jordan will come. He sees a camouflaged motorcar on the road and marks it in his notebook, unaware it isn’t an enemy vehicle. He has seen ten cars, which is not unusual, but he cannot distinguish them and recognize the four enemy cars that went up. He decides he must go soon, with or without theInglés. He sees smoke and thinks it is curious that the fascists are warm when tomorrow night they will kill them. It is only orders that come between them; they are all just poor men who should not be fighting each other. He knows that they are Gallegos, because he heard them speaking the dialect. He wonders what they, from their green country, think of the snow. He thinks of Otero, where he first killed, and Pablo throwing bombs into all of the windows; at that point he was still aggressive, though now he has become a neutered boar. Anselmo wishes to win so that he can return to his house and have done all he can as an old man in the war.

Inside, the enemy soldiers talk about the weather and disagree upon the month. They say that the guard is easy and without too much violence. They wish it could be that way through the whole war. They too fear planes.

Anselmo hopes that there will be a penance for the killing – if not religious, then civic, like working for the State. He knows the killing is necessary in the context of war, but wonders how Robert Jordan can be so detached; perhaps foreigners, or those without religion, do not feel the same need to repent. He feels lonely, but does not say his prayers because he does not want to ask for different treatment. No one can take away the Republic for which he has worked so hard.

Robert Jordan and Fernando arrive. Robert Jordan and Anselmo joke, calling the cave the palace of Pablo, the Palace of Fear, and the Cave of the Lost Eggs. Anselmo says he was about to leave, but Robert Jordan knows that he would not have and is impressed with his loyalty. They joke like old friends and Anselmo no longer feels lonely. Robert Jordan wonders about Fernando’s loyalty. He asks what he is thinking and the man replies he is thinking of supper.

chapter 16

Back at the camp, Pilar tells them that El Sordo left to look forhorses. Maria bustles about to take Robert Jordan’s wet clothes. Pilar is not pleased at the way she serves him as if he is a child, especially when Robert Jordan jokes that Maria should dry his feet with her hair. This is a New Testament reference to how Mary Magdalen, a reformed whore, dried the feet of Jesus with her hair. Robert Jordan says he is joking because he is happy. He drinks whiskey and thinks about how thoughtful it was of El Sordo to get it for him when he could have been thinking about himself-this is a truly Spanish quality. He warns himself not to romanticize; there are all kinds of Spanish.

He invites Maria to eat with them, as women do in the U.S. Pablo is very drunk and asks him if the men wear skirts like the women. Robert Jordansays that is Scottish, and Pablo ignores him and insistently continues,asking him what he wears under his skirt. Robert Jordan makes everyone laugh when he replies that he wears cojones.

To change the topic, Robert Jordan talks of the beauty of his state, Montana. They are surprised to hear that the farmers own the land. He explains about land, income, and inheritance taxes, and Primitivo says that when they feel threatened by the government, they will fight, as in Spain. Robert Jordan says that they educate the people to recognize fascism so they can combat it. Andrés grins, saying that there are no fascists in Pablo’s town, and Pablo says that Robert Jordan has not heard the whole story, but will not tell it, for he was very barbaric in those days. Pilar says she liked him better barbaric than drunk. Pablo says that he would be a happy drunk if not for all those he had killed, and would like to either restore them to life, or have killed every one.

Agustín and Pilar are disgusted at his lack of manhood. They change the subject, asking Robert Jordan how he came to Spain. He tells them he was a professor of Spanish, and Pablo says he is a false professor since he has no beard. Fernando thinks it is presumptuous that a foreigner teaches Spanish. Agustín is disgusted about fighting for foreigners, and Pilar tells him that they fight so that everyone will be comrades. Pablo makes several sharp comments toward Robert Jordan, who all of a sudden doubts Pablo is that drunk, and is ready to kill him, so he provokes him by calling him a coward. Pablo plays the situation, telling Pilar that she will not get rid of him thus, and toasts to Robert Jordan, who tells him he is learning much from him. Agustín is disgusted by the companionship. Pablo first calls Agustín negrp (black, dark) and when he objects, he calls him blanco (white). Agustín tells him that he is rojo, red, for the star of the army and the Republic. When Pablo mocks Agustín, the man hits him, but Pablo is still not provoked. The situation is tense, but Pablo remains calm even when Agustín claims he rapes horses. Pablo replies that they are smarter than the people, and says he has been thinking all day about the bridge, since they are led by a woman with her brains between her thighs and a foreigner who will destroy them. Pilar is enraged and tells him to leave.

chapter 17

All, even Pilar and Agustín, are for killing Pablo now. They cannot keep him as a prisoner, for that would take two men, and when the gypsy says they should sell him to the fascists, Agustín says that one filthiness does not justify another. Pilar says that Anselmo and Robert Jordan are not involved, because he is not their leader. The gypsy Rafael suggests that they blind him, and Pilar is embarrassed that he talks of blinding in front of the foreigner. Fernando says he is a threat to the Republic, and Pilar tells him to fill his mouth with stew and talk no more. Robert Jordan says he will do it that night. Maria objects and Pilar tells her to stay out.

Pablo comes back in and knows they have been speaking of him. He tells Maria to get him wine. Robert Jordan knows that Pablo knows there will be no shooting with the dynamite around, and takes Agustín outside to remind him. RobertJordan sees that Pablo’s way is to push to the breaking point and then to drop it and start again.

Pablo announces that he is back with them, and they cannot believe it. Pilar accuses him of eavesdropping, but he says he just sobered up. Fernando asks if he is with them and Pablo says yes, and that he has confidence inthe plan. Agustín says he is leaving the madhouse for criminal lunatics before he becomes crazy too.

chapter 18

Robert Jordan compares the situation to a merry-go-round; they keep turning, twice now, get nowhere, and win no prizes. He is working on his sketches when Maria stands over him, and he smells her skin. He resents being dragged into the business with Pablo. When he talks to Pablo, who is working on the retreat, it is very tense and barely stays civil, and Agustín is the same way. Pilar watches the men play cards. He observes, “Here it is the shift from deadliness to normal family life that is the strangest.”

Two days ago, his world was simpler. Now that Maria is in his life, the planmust change, and she will wait for him while he is there. He expected to get time off after the bridge and go to Madrid, the capital, where he will stay at a hotel and get a hot bath and absinthe. He planned to talk to Karkov about the war atGaylord’s, a hotel the Russians took over. He is embarrassed that there he enjoys food too good for a besieged city. He knows that he could not take Maria there without first telling Karkov about her. At first he was repelled by the air of luxury and corruption, but then enjoyed it. At Gaylord’s one met famous Spanish commanders. They were once peasants and workers who spoke Russian, having fled to Spain when the 1934 revolution failed. He learned that a leader known as El Campesino, or The Peasant, was really an ex-sergeant who had deserted theSpanish Foreign Legion. One must have peasant leaders, RobertJordan thinks. Gaylord’s is the place where he needs to complete his education, and someday he will tell the truth to everyone. It is a long way from Gaylord’s to the cave, longer from the cave to Gaylord’s.

At Gaylord’s, Kashkin introduced him to Karkov, who was the most intelligent man he had ever met. Kashkin is not well liked there, and was in Spain to work something out, what, RobertJordan does not know. Karkov has good taste in women: a wife who is incredibly thin, dark, loving and nervous, and a mistress who is more sensual, gossipy, with reddish hair. Golz will make fun of him about Maria, after he told him that he had no time for women. He looks over at Pablo and wonders what kind of a guerrilla leader he would have been during the American Civil War. He sees that there are no big heroes and no military geniuses. All of the leaders follow dual controls, using a great deal of what they learned from the Russians, but soon they will have to fly solo. He wonders what the Russian stand is on the whole thing, and hopes to learn at Gaylord’s. He compares being there to being in a crusade, a feeling of achieving a duty toward the oppressed, a brotherhood, as inspiring as being in a cathedral, a pure feeling which disappeared after six months of fighting. He has seen discipline enforced: men who ran as cowards were shot and their valuables stolen. He remembers how it feels to fight: “You learned the dry-mouthed, fear-purged purging ecstasy of battle and you fought that summer and that fall for all the poor in the world against all tyranny, for all the things you believed in and for the new world you had been educated into.”

He knows that with his initial naiveté and selfless pride, he would have been a bore at Gaylord’s. He and Karkov have talked about the days before Gaylord’s, where everyone felt so lost that even the government abandoned the city. Karkov was responsible for hiding three wounded Russian soldiers so that the fascists would not find out about Russian intervention. If the city were to be abandoned, Karkov would poison the soldiers and eliminate their existence. He even has cyanide for himself. Robert Jordan wonders how people keep their chastity of mind in the war, and considers Karkov. There was a British economist, Mitchell, who Karkov liked very much, telling him about how everybody trusts the man; because he looks impressive, people do not see he is a fool. He gets money from the government of one nation by falsely claiming his connections to a larger, more threatening nation. RobertJordan does not like it and Karkov says it is only important that he understands it. Karkov is for political assassination when the leader is unfaithful to his trust, and tells him that the Spanish will live to regret that they did not shoot certain generals. Karkov knows he is reliable in his work, and wants to speak seriously about politics, but Robert Jordan tells him that his mind is suspended until after the war. They discuss how even reading twenty newspapers does not give a full picture of the war.

Karkov knows they are building a dangerous army, one with many unreliable people, without true army discipline. Robert Jordan says he likes it better behind the enemy lines than in the cities, where the “fine people” live. Karkov tells him that the fascists have fine people behind their lines as well. He then leaves to go upstairs and continue talking. Robert Jordan knows he learns a lot at Gaylord’s. Karkov wrote a two thousand-page novel which was not a success, and he tells things to Robert Jordan because he knowsthat the man writes honestly. Robert Jordan thinks to himself that the things he has come to know in the war are not simple.

Chapter 19

They discuss the Russians, and Maria says that Kashkin was brave and beautiful. Pilar thinks he was ugly. Robert Jordan says that he was a good friend and comrade. They are silent when he confirms that he shot him, and he wishes he had not told them. RobertJordan does not think he saw ahead to his own death, and dismisses this as superstition, but says that fear produces evil visions, and Kashkin’s fear became an obsession. Pilar tells him Kashkin smelled of death, and Robert Jordan says that maybe it was fear. Pilar insists she is right, and refers to Robert’s inability to sense this as deafness; she cites a bullfighter who smelled of death before being gored. The man who smelled it,  did not even have gypsy blood. No one believed him.

Pablo and even Anselmo believe in Pilar’s abilities. She says that all the gypsies smelled death on another bullfighter. Robert Jordan says that after death such things can be invented, but Pilar insists they knew before. She describes the odor proudly: it is the smell of a brass handle of a screwed-tight porthole on a ship swaying nauseatingly in a storm, the kiss of an old woman with facial hair (the gypsy comments on how this sickens him, and Pilar retorts that gypsy women age fast because they are always pregnant); a sewage pail with flowers in it, and a refuse pail from a whorehouse. Pilar tells him that he must put a sack full of this all over his head and try to breathe through it, and Robert Jordan tells her that if this is what Kashkin smelled like, it is a good thing he shot him. They laugh. Naïve Fernando asks Pilar if he really expects a man of Robert Jordan’s education to do such a thing, and she tells him he is a fool.

Robert Jordan goes outside and sees that the snow has stopped; this means that El Sordo will leave tracks if he tries to steal horses.

Chapter 20

Robert Jordan makes a rough bed with spruce wood. Pilar will guard his bags with the dynamite. He lies in bed and remembers a mixture of Montana odors like raked leaves, spring, bacon, and fresh bread. He is worried that Maria might not come, and they have so little time left. She comes, apologizing for her cold feet and asks him to say he loves her. He says it, and she says she loves him and is his wife.

She says they are one, and she will be him when he is not there. They make love, and she does not climax as she had in the afternoon. One does not need to die. Robert Jordan sees a double meaning and says he hopes not. He says he loves her name, though she thinks it is common. He feels her body against his and is not lonely but wakes in the night and cannot fall back to sleep, thinking how she is all of life and is being taken from him. He keeps his pistol nearby.

Chapter 21

Jordan wakes and feels the warm air, and knows the snow will be gone soon. A man on a horse comes very close, and he shoots him from his bed. He tells Primitivo to catch the big horse. He knows that the cavalry will miss the man and follow tracks to look for him.

He will go to the gypsy, and tells Pablo to lead the horse out so that the tracks will lead away. Pablo remarks on how quick he thinks. They are amazed at the modernity of the dead man’s gun. Pilar and Maria prepare the camp for leaving. Pilar remarks on how having a horse has made Pablo seem brave. Pablo tells Robert Jordan that danger is his horse.

Maria wants to come with him but he says she cannot. She wants him to say he loves her but he does not want to feel love and war all at the same moment. He is cold to her, for work has taken over his thinking. The goodbye is intense, and in his last glimpse of her, she has tears in her eyes. Primitivo asks how she is in bed, and Robert Jordan tells him to watch his mouth.

Chapter 22

Anselmo and Robert Jordan prepare. The automatic gun was brought by porters without instruction, and Anselmo and the others had to experiment to learn to use it. Robert Jordan builds a holder, and a cover for two men who will use it. He fears there are not enough horses to escape, and fears what will happen to El Sordo if they pick up the horse trails. He knows they are not ready to fight that day, but if they move they leave tracks. He hopes the aerial offensive gets up on time, and he knows Pablo can take care of himself but does not trust him. He does not know how they willescape if there is no one to cover them.

The gypsy arrives, having caught two fat hares who were making love in thesnow. He is embarrassed to have been away from his post, distracted by the hares, and did not see the cavalry man. He is surprised that RobertJordan is not angry. Robert Jordan thinks to himself that he is undisciplined, and gypsies in general are physically and mentally unfit for war.

He gives them advice on aim and technique and tells them to avoid combat. He tells Agustín to aim low, because the gun jumps. Agustín says that if not for the bridge they could make a massacre and escape, but Robert Jordan says that with it, they could perhaps take Segovia, the provincial capital. Robert Jordan says he can massacre the enemy posts tomorrow, and Agustín is glad, for Pablo has rotted them with inaction. They see another observation plane, probably headed for Segovia, where the feared attack brews.

Chapter 23

They see four cavalry very close and hide. Robert Jordan watches them over the barrel of his gun, where they look twice as big, and thinks about how usually he sees them running. They leave, and all are relieved. Agustín says they could have killed them, but RobertJordan is unsure of who what might have come if they had. They see from a distance twenty more mounted men like the others, and they know that they would have had to fight them too. He feels very talkative, and knows it is because he is still nervous. He tells Anselmo to go watch the road, but not until the snow is gone, to avoid tracks. Anselmo wants to go to La Granja and ask around.

Robert Jordan asks what the chances are that Pablo will be caught, and Agustín tells him: “If he were not of great ability he would have died last night. It seems to me you do not understand politics, Inglés, nor guerrilla warfare. In politics and this other the first thing is to continue to exist. Look how he continued to exist last night. Robert Jordan regrets his remark.

They all carry dual identity papers, and know they would have to eat the wrong ones quickly if found. The government is moving toward fascism each day, and Robert Jordan says that if they do not win the war, there will be no revolution, no Republic, and only hell. Agustín says they should shoot everyone but the Republicans, and Anselmo wants only to teach the others. Agustín says they should teach them to jump from planes without parachutes. Anselmo says that with that kind of talk there will never be a Republic. Agustín says that he felt an urgency strong as a cat in heat to kill the four. Robert Jordan thinks about how the Spanish kill as an act of faith. He tells himself he too must admit that he has enjoyed killing at some time. He contemplates Anselmo, how he is an exception, a hunter and not a soldier. He knows that Agustín had fear as well as heat, for he felt the man’s muscles twitch in hiding. He stops thinking and orders for food.

Chapter 24

They eat onions, meat, and cheese, and Agustín says their breath will alert the fascists. He says the difference between RobertJordan and Kashkin, is that Kashkin suffered greatly. Robert Jordansays he is of those who suffer little, and Agustín agrees, adding that he suffers for others, and Robert Jordan says all good men should. Agustín says Pilar guarded Maria like a nun, and does not understand why she saved her for Robert Jordan, when any of them could have sexually serviced her.

Robert Jordan tells him to stop, that he cares for her seriously, and Agustín says he has too, and that Robert Jordan must take care, since she has suffered. Robert Jordan reassures him that that he will marry her. Agustín tells him that the matter of Maria is separate and will follow him in battle, and reassures him about the others. He mumbles how he still has the whores. Robert Jordan hears rifle fire, from El Sordo’s direction. Agustín wants to go help, but they will stay.

Chapter 25

Robert Jordan tells Agustín not to fire prematurely, and tells Anselmo to help with the gun. He tells them they can do nothing to help El Sordo. He has known they were a lost cause since last night. Primitivo is persistent, extremely upset that they cannot help their comrades. Robert Jordan keeps telling him it is useless. Pilararrives and commiserates.

She says the gypsy exaggerated the four cavalrymen, and attributes this to his gypsy race.

They are very tense and sad, listening to the gunfire that they know is the massacre of Sordo.Pilar too tells Primitivo that it would be suicidal to go help. He says that there are women who are stupid and brutal, and she retorts that they are aids to those men poorly equipped for procreation. They see another observation plane, which she fears greatly. She apologizes to Primitivo because she knows they are all in the same situation, and he accepts, but tells her to watch her mouth, for he was close to Sordo. She says that she is too, but that “in war cannot say what one feels.”

Chapter 26

Robert Jordan reads the letters of the dead man, one from the man’s sister with a list of boys from his town that had been killed; Robert Jordan thinks it is too many for a small town. There is another from the man’s fiancé, hysterical for his safety. He is incredibly conflicted inside.

“It is right, he told himself, not reassuringly, but proudly. I believe in the people and their right to govern themselves as they wish. But you mustn’t believe in killing, he told himself. You must do it as a necessity but you must not believe in it.

If you believe in it the whole thing is wrong. He tries to rationalize but ends up interrogating himself, wondering how many of those he killed were real fascists. He tells himself he has no business being in his position if he is not right in the head. He tells himself that he has a right to not keep count, then berates himself that he has no right to close his eyes. He asks himself if it is right for him to love Maria. He knows he is lucky to love, even if he dies tomorrow, and then tells himself not to talk about dying. He wonders how it is at Sordo’s, and knows he got him into a mess by asking him for horses. He wishes they were in the type of war where if they were surrounded, they could surrender, but he knows that Sordo will be killed. He sees planes.

chapter 27

El Sordo climbs a hill with his men. He does not like the hill, but has no other choice, and he has to kill his dying horse. He has only stolen three horses. Three of the five men are wounded, including himself (injured in the calf and arm), and he is nauseated and in pain. They build dirt mounds for cover. Joaquin, who is eighteen years old, says inspirational communist slogans, which the others tell him are shit. One says that if he believes so much in the Communists, tell them to get them off the hill. Another jokes that the fascists will get them off the hill (they will kill them). Joaquín tells him not to speak such, and they tell him to wipe his mother’sbreast milk off his chin. El Sordo compares the hill to a sore, and them to the pus, but knows that there is no way for the fascists to approach it. They have killed many fascists, who are brave but stupid. He has not seen any planes, but knows they are lost if the fascists bring a mortar. He feels very vulnerable. One of the men calls Pilar a whore, saying she knows they are dying there, but Sordo tells him there is nothing she could do. They mock Joaquín and say the communist leader Pasionaria hides her son in Russia, and he does not believe them. They curse those who have gone to study in Russia and do not aid them.

Sordo is in much pain and knows this is the last time he will see the sky. He does not fear death, for he has no picture ofit, but he is angry that it must be on that hill, and thinks of the alternative.

“Living was a hawk in the sky. Living was an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing with the grain flailed out and the chaff blowing. Living was a horse between your legs and a carbine under one leg and a hill and a valley and a stream with trees along it and the far side of the valley and the hills beyond.”

They hear a voice telling them to surrender, and Sordo pulls himself behind the gun. He shoots into the body of the dead horse, diverting the enemy, and grins when they yell insults. They see a sniper, one more man, and then there is no more movement on the slopes. Below, a captain and lieutenant talk about how the bandits have nothing to expect but to die, and how they are wasting their men and power laying siege to dead men. Captain Mora is very agitated and steps out and challenges the Red swine who shot his mother and sister to shoot him, and fires at the dead horse. Lieutenant Paco Berrendo, whose best friend lies dead on the slope, tells the sniper to go see if there is anyone alive on the hill and is enraged when he says he does not want to. Captain Mora thinks this is ridiculous and once again challenges the bandits to shoot him, again with no result, and shouts obscenities. “There is no language so filthy as Spanish. There are words for all the vile words in English and there are other words and expressions that are used only in countries where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion.” El Sordo laughs at them above. Mora calls them cowards and strides up the slope, and El Sordo says that this one is for him, his company for the Voyage(or death), shoots him, and shouts mockingly laughing, imitating Mora calling for the bandits to shoot him. El Sordo is planning on getting the other man when Joaquín, ashen-faced, points out the planes. Sordo orders them into position with the automatic rifles. Joaquín begins a Communist slogan, but shifts into a Hail Mary as the explosions start and all he can remember is “at the hour of our death. Amen.” There is a huge explosion and Ignacio falls onto him.The planes bomb three times and then leave in the direction of Segovia.

Lt. Berrendo arrives. Joaquín is the only one alive. Berrendo shoots him in the back of the head and orders the bodies brought to La Granja, heads removed. He remarks on the evils of war, crosses himself, and leaves, not wanting to see his orders carried out.

chapter 33

Pilar wakes him to say that Pablo left with some dynamite and equipment from the packs she was guarding. She feels terribly guilty. He does not want to quarrel, and says they will improvise. He says he will guard the packs, not against her, but so that he can sleep.

Chapter 34

Andrés is on his way. He thinks about how they will avenge Sordo. When he was sent, he felt as when he was a boy and the bull baiting was rained out, though he looked forward to it all year. Once, to save a fallen man, he held onto the bull and gripped its ear in his teeth, and acquired the nickname “bulldog.” He knows he must go back for his comrades and brother and will enjoy killing fascists.

If his father had not been a Republican, he and Eladio would have fought with the fascists, and it would have been simpler: “It was easier to live under a regime than fight it.”  He does not worry, for he believes in the cause, but it is a time of great difficulty and a life of responsibility. He wishes he could do small, regular things like raising animals. Everything he has – a message, a carbine, some grenades – he can give away.

chapter 35

Robert Jordan lies with Maria and berates himself for not following his instincts about the smart bastard Pablo, and regrets leaving the dynamite with Pilar. He tries to reassure himself, and says to stop lamenting for what is gone. He curses everything, including his grandfather, and Spanish treachery, egotism, and conceit. He says God pity them, for their leaders always screw them.

His anger dies down. He whispers to the sleeping Maria that they will be killed, but they will blow the bridge. “That isn’t much of a wedding present. But is not a good night’s sleep supposed to be priceless? You had a good night’s sleep. See if you can wear that like a ring on your finger.”

chapter 36

Andrés shouts up to the government post that he is alone and unarmed. They say he is a fascist and he repeats that he is a guerrilla with a message for the General Staff. One says they should throw a bomb at him. They demand he walks with his hands up, even when he gets stuck in the wire, and they joke it would have been easier to bomb him. He tells them they are unfriendly and they remind him it is war. He tells them he is of no importance but the affair is serious.

They shout about liberty and he realizes that he is dealing with the crazies with the black and red scarves, anarchists. He shouts “long live us,” and they embrace him and welcome him as a comrade. He shows his papers and they ask details about his village to authenticate. He is in a hurry, but the officer insists on talking, saying they should stop the guerrilla nonsense and join the Republic. The officer is suspicious because has not heard of the attack and says he will accompany him. The suspicious officer insists on carrying his gun.

chapter 37

Robert Jordan lies awake, looking at his watch. He does not want to wake Maria, but he does not want to leave her alone this last time. She wakes and wants to make love. He asks about the pain and she tells him not to speak. They make love and she tells him she reached glory again.

They say they have good luck, and he tells her he is not worried. He thinks about how much he has learned about life in the past four days and tells her she taught him much. She says he is the educated one, and he tells himself that if he dies it will be a waste, for he knows a few things now. The days on the hill were his life, Anselmo his oldest friend; Maria is his love, wife, sister, daughter. He tells her he cannot be with her at the start, but will hurry back. It is ten of three, a.m. when she rolls the blanket and he enters the cave.

chapter 38

Agustín is loaded with ammunition, but he says he will climb like a goat. Eladio is very nervous for his brother Andrés, and defensive when Agustín mocks him. Robert Jordan asks about the reliability of their bombs, holding up examples. At one point Pilar mentions Pablo, and Agustín spews obscenities. Tension is very high in the cave.

Robert Jordan thinks they are as sunk as Sordo; they can only take one post with what they have. If there is no miracle and Golz does not get the message, the others, including Maria, will be killed and he will not even get his bridge. He thinks instead ofsleeping with her, he should have searched for more people. But he knows that he could not have risked losing men. He calms himself: “There isn’t any need to deny everything there’s been just because you are going to lose it.”  Pilar also knows there are too few. She says the palm reading was nonsense. He tells her he did not believe and was not worried. She tells him she cares for him very much and he says that he does not want to hear that now. She tells him again that they will be well. With a forced smile he agrees. Pilar makes a witty joke about death and Agustín says she speaks like a black cat.

Pablo enters, and they are shocked. He brings five men. He threw the detonator he stole in the river but has figured out a way to explode it with a grenade (as has Robert Jordan). Pablo tells them that at the bottom he is not a coward. He tells Robert Jordan that he does not come back to help him, that he hates him for bringing this upon them, but that he became lonely and knows they must finish together. He will be the leader because this is what he has told the five men. Pilar welcomes him but with an edge. She says that his predecessor Judas Iscariot hanged himself, making reference to the man in the New Testament who betrayed Jesus. She tells him that there are good men and stupid men, all ready to die, the way he likes them. He looks her in the eye and says he is ready for what the day brings. She tells him that if a man has something once, it does not leave, but adds that he was indeed a long way gone.

chapter 39

They are climbing the hill heavily loaded, with horses and materialto make camp. Pablo tells Robert Jordan that the men he brought think the mission will be successful, and asks him not to disillusion them. Robert Jordan says they should make it successful. Pablo reiterates the plan, and he wonders why. He has felt better since Pablo came back with the men and feels confident: the happiness before action.

“This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be. This quality was destroyed by too much responsibility for others or the necessity of undertaking something ill planned or badly conceived.”

He greets Maria, who tells him she is not worried, and that she would rather stay with him, but will stay with the horses and the gypsy. Pablo introduces him to the men and leads them to where they will leave the horses.

chapter 40

Andrés and the suspicious man at the post go to battalion headquarters and meet commander Gomez, who is chummy with Andrés because he wanted to be a guerrilla. They go to brigade headquarters, where Gomez bickers about politics with the officer. Gomez says conservative professionals like him make the armyrotten. Lt.Col. Miranda asks Andrés about life in the hills and is surprised to hear that there is an American in the war. He gives a message for Golz and offers them liquor. He has met Andrés before and asks about Anselmo. They leave and he says he is glad it is Golz and not him.

chapter 41

The guerrillas proceed softly. Robert Jordan reminds them tediously of the plan, angering Pilar. Pablo worries that Agustín will shoot him “accidentally.” He says they still lack horses but subtly implying death, says they will all “leave on horses.” Robert Jordanwonders if he is planning a suicide mission and is glad not to know the five men. He shakes Pablo’s hand and expects it to be like touching a reptile or leper, but it is honest and strong. Pablo apologizes again for taking the material and says he foresees success. Pilar asks if they are faggots and tells Robert Jordan to go before Pablo steals the rest of their explosives. Pablo says RobertJordan understands him and she replies neither God nor his mother could understand him. They bicker cheerfully.

Robert Jordan and Maria’s goodbye is awkward, and he feels like a schoolboy not knowing whether or not to kiss a girl goodnight. He feels young, as when he left for school for the first time, embarrassed by his father’s sentimentality. He tells himself all of them feel too young for what they are about to do, but this is no time for a second childhood.

He leaves with Agustín and Anselmo and they and Fernando wish each other good luck. Agustín comments on Fernando’s naive lack of fear. They climb down through the pines to the point where Anselmo and Robert watched the first day, and see where the bridge joins the road, and decide where to put the machine gun. Agustín will stay with the gun, where he can see the road and the bridge, and Anselmo and Robert Jordan will kill the sentries. If they cannot, then Agustin must shoot the sentries. After the explosion, when Pablo and the men come, he must fire above them so the enemy cannot follow. He asks if Agustín understands and the man says that it is the same as he has explained before. Agustín seems to have faith that they will make it, asking for cigarettes for afterward.

Robert Jordan asks if Anselmo is sure about the location of the sentry, and when Anselmo tells him yes, he has a feeling of deja vu, having asked a question after already knowing the answer. Anselmo asks him to repeat it once more. Robert Jordan tells him again, and advises him to look at the soldiers as if they were onlytargets, and not human. As a hunter, he should have no problem. Robert Jordan remembers what Anselmo said about killing-how it must be an order, and battle must be described exactly, so that he has no urge to run. He thinks again of his father and remains unsentimental. He prepares the gun, lying on the pine-needle floor, waiting for daylight.

chapter 42

Andrés and Gomez reach the control on the road to Navacerrada, on which trucks go back and forth from the mountains. They show the safe-conduct pass from Lt.-Col. Miranda and he and Gomez are told to continue, but to turn off their lights. They reach another control, where there has been an accident and an officer frantically tells trucks to back up so that they can clear it, but more keep arriving. Gomez finally gets their safe-conduct pass back, and they proceed quickly, passing more troops. Andrés sees their tense faces. Gomez does not notice, and feels pride for this army of theRepublic. Andrés is excited, having never been on a motor cycle before, and the army impresses him too.

They stop to ask where headquarters is. André Marty, who Gomez recognizes as one of France’s great modern revolutionary figures, arrives. “His gray face had a look of decay. His face looked as though it were modeled from the waste material you find under the claws of a very old lion.”  Gomez does not know that the man has become embittered, and that to question him is dangerous. He tells him that they have a message from behind fascist lines. He gives Marty the dispatch and the man orders them arrested. The guard tells them Marty may be a great leader, but he is crazy, with a mania for shooting people whose politics he does not like. He tells them Golz’ location two miles away, but Marty would have his head if he let them go. They are brought to him and have a strong drink. Andrés knows that he will not make it back in time, but must get the dispatch back and deliver it.

Gomez tries to tell him that the dispatch is urgent and the man replies that everything is and interrogates him, suspicious that the dispatch came from behind fascist lines. Gomez wonders with horror if Golz is a fascist too. Marty orders them taken away and Andrés is in disbelief that he will not deliver the dispatch. They both shout curses, that he is a crazy murderer. Marty is unfazed. He knows that he and Golz are of different politics, and Golz disapproves of his military maneuvers. He looks at the map. “In his mind he was commanding troops; he had the right to interfere and this he believed to constitute command.”  writes that it is doubtful that things would have gone any differently even without Marty, for the events were already in motion, and it is as hard to stop military movement as to initiate it.

Karkov enters and they talk; Marty is nervous, for Karkov always seems to have the upper hand. Karkov asks contemptuously about the message for Golz and Marty realizes maybe he was wrong and asks innocently what dispatch. Karkov tells him to give it up, for it has been delayed long enough, and says he will find out how untouchable Marty is. Andrés and Gomez give the dispatch to a man who gives it to Duval, who Robert Jordan said to give it to. Duval knows the enemy anticipates the surprise attack, and tries to cancel the bombardment. He wonders if it is just a holding attack and will take responsibility if he is wrong. He finally reaches Golz, who says it is too late, it is a shame, and they are screwed.He knows that if all goes as planned, the bombs will fall and the tanks will proceed and those guerrillas on the two ridges will fight along with his brigades. He is nauseated to know from the dispatch that there is no one on the ridges. He thinks of how things could be and how they have become and tells Duval they must do the little that is possible. Duval cannot hear over the roar of the planes, and thinks desperately that maybe something will happen in their favor.

chapter 43

Robert Jordan lies in the forest at dawn. Even the steel bridge looks spidery in the mist. He can see the sentry. He wonders if Andrés made it. He asks himself why he never thinks of how it would be to win; he has been on the defensive so long. He is conflicted with optimism and pessimism. He sees two men relieve the sentry. One spits, and Robert Jordan wonders if it is a superstition. Robert Jordan can see the details of the new sentry’s face and does not want to look anymore. He sees a squirrel and wishes he had something he could touch. All he wants is for Rabbit(Maria) to make it. He watches the road. He hears the beginning of the bombs. The sentry man stands up. There is no more mist and Robert Jordan takes a clear shot. He hears Anselmo shoot twice and then the automatic fire of Pablo’s cavalry. Agustín yells “nice hunting,” and thinks, like hell it was hunting. When Anselmo tells him he killed the man, tears are running down his cheeks.

Robert Jordan quickly begins to set up the explosives with Anselmo’s help. He hears a grenade and more firing at the upper post and wonders what is going on. It is cool and clean under the bridge and he hopes no one comes over it. He sees that Anselmo’s face is composed again, and knows the man is in a bad position on the bridge. He curses Pablo again for throwing the detonator in the river. His thoughts spin from Anselmo, to football, to Israelites; nothing seems to make much sense. He hooks up the grenades, which will explode the dynamite, and tells Anselmo to pull hard when the time comes.

The remainder of Pilar’s band arrives. Primitivo and Rafael the gypsy are holding up Fernando, who has been shot in the groin. Robert Jordan tells him to blow the bridge only if tanks or armored cars come onto it. Robert Jordan runs across the bridge and out of sight. Fernando is in much pain and wants to be left, but the two who hold him want to take him up the hill. They leave him with a gun.

Anselmo calls for Robert Jordan and says that all is going well. Soon they will blow the bridge; he feels brave again and wants to atone for killing the sentry. Anselmo knows he has achieved all he could as an old man in the war and it will be all right if he dies today. He is not excited but calm, and does not feel lonely with the wire in his hand. Up the hill, Pilar asks Primitivo if the gypsy is dead, and he says not yet, and she says if they had more men, it would not have happened. The gypsy asks if the fragments will reach him when the bridge blows and Pilar reassures him that Agustín is even closer to it. He remembers the blowing of the train. Pilar is impatient and asks Anselmo with much obscenity if Robert Jordanis blowing up a bridge or building one, that it is the speed and not the skill that counts. Suddenly Robert Jordan hears a different sound from Pablo’s automatic rifle. He feels nauseated. He looks at the road and it is clear, then sees the truck and tells Anselmo to blow the bridge, which he does, and there is a cracking explosion as the bridge rises like a wave. He shields his head with his hands and when it is done, he realizes he is still alive. Robert Jordan sees the center of the bridge is gone and there is jagged steel on the road. He sees that Fernando is still alive but Anselmo is dead, impaled by steel from the bridge.

He tells Pilar to tell Maria that he is all right. She tells him they lost two at the sawmill, and when he asks her if she did something stupid she tells him to screw himself, that Fernando and Eladiowere men too. He changes his mind about going to cover Pablo, telling Pilar that Pablo can cover himself in shit. She stands up for Pablo, reminding him that he came back, and that he is fighting now. Robert Jordan is angry and she tells him to calm down. He says that if Pablo had not thrown the detonator, Anselmo would still be alive. Now that the bridge is blown, he is angry and lonely and hates everyone he sees. Pilar repeats if, if, if and the anger slowly drains from him and he begins to accept things. He tells the gypsy to go farther down so he can see the road, and to help him aim for trucks and men. Pilar tells him to stop lecturing – they are fine.

Not even the horses comfort Maria. They are nervous too. She wants to stop worrying but the firing scares her. She hears Pilar and wishes she would not jinx them with obscenities. She prays for Robert Jordan, almost breaking down when she hears the bridge blow, thinking the Republic is one thing, but her love is another. She hears Pilar yell that he is all right and yells back thanking her, choked with emotion.

They see the planes coming from Segovia, and Robert Jordanreassures Pilar that they will not bother with them in the hills. He gets to Agustín, who is angry and wonders what Pablo is doing. They listen to the heavy machine gun fire which Robert Jordanheard even before blowing the bridge and wonder what it is. The planes are now bombing at the pass and more are coming. They are new, not the ones from the other morning, and he feels as if they threw a stone, which came back as a tidal wave. He is glad not to be with Golz at the pass. It feels unreal to be alive, and he tells himself to be calm, he is just coming down off the high of the responsibility.

They see Pablo running around the bend of the road, firing his gun. He reaches the bridge and disappears. They know that the wall below the bend is too steep to climb, but someone could circle above. Suddenly they see a tank and fire on it. Agustín wants to fire more, but Robert Jordan does not want him to know where they are. It is the strange noise they had heard before. Agustín mocks the tank. Pablo finds them and reports that his men are dead; now they have plenty of horses. Robert Jordan thinks he is a murdering bastard, for he used the men then got rid of them when he was done. He tells him of the loss of Fernando, Eladio, and Anselmo. Pablo escaped when the tank was distracted. Agustín asks him bluntly what he was shooting at from around the bend, and Robert Jordan tells himself not to judge, that he knew he was a murderer. Agustín asks why he does not just admit he shot the five men, and Pablo tells him to shut up, for he has fought hard. Pablo says he has a plan, and Agustín, still bitter, says that ifthe plan is to shoot any of them, he will kill him now. Pablo tells them of all he and the men shot. Agustín continues to hound him about the men and Pablo continues to tell him to shut up.

Maria arrives and Robert Jordan holds her tight, never having thought before that love and battle could coexist. He pats her bottom and tells her to get on the horse. Primitivo wants to cut some of the loads from the horses, but Pilar says they will build a life with it. They must cross the road, but high enough so that they are out of firing range. Maria will go second and he tells her he will go suddenly. Pablo goes quickly, with the others behind him, and shells fall nearby. Robert Jordan sends the packhorse ahead, and hits it with a branch so it will hurry. He rides the big gray horse Pablo was so proud of. He makes it across, but the tank shoots and the gray horse falls on his left leg, breaking it. Primitivo and Agustín drag him up the last of the slope. Pilar says they can bind it, but he tells them to go on and motions for Pablo. He tells Pablo it does not hurt much, for the nerve is crushed, but he is screwed.

He asks to talk to Maria, and tells Pablo she will want to stay, but to make her go. He tells Pablo again to go to the Republic instead of Gredos. Maria comes with her face twisted like a child’s before it cries. Pilar looks the same way. He begins, telling her they will not be going to Madrid, and she starts to cry. He is calling her rabbit, and says they will not go to Madrid, but he will go with her wherever she goes. She says she will stay with him, and he says what he does he must do alone. She insists she will stay, for it is worse for her to go. He agrees, but says he has become part of her. He tells her she must not be selfish, that she must do her duty. He tells her again that she is he. She is silent. He tells her to put her hand in his; she understands and is obeying; now they both go when she goes. He tells her to stand, repeating now she is both of them, but she will not. He tells her there is no goodbye, for they do not part. He tells her not to turn around. She gets on the saddle with Pablo. She turns and shouts that she wants to stay, and he shouts that he is with her, and to go. Agustín asks if he wants him to shoot him. He says it is no problem to do it, but he is crying. He tells Robert Jordan that his gun is clean, and the gypsy caught the packhorse. They have an intense goodbye during which Agustín clenches his fist, waving it as if to curse the situation as he leaves.

He is exhausted after they leave. He reassures himself that Pilar will take care of Maria and he must believe what he told her. He tells himself it could be worse. He hates to leave life, and hopes he has done some good with the talent he had. He has fought for what he believed in for a year. He had as good of a life asGrandfather. He would like to talk to Karkov, and to pass on what he has learned. He thinks back to how Pilar would not tell him what she read in his palm and reconsiders whether there is really something to the gypsy ESP. He reaches for his absinthe and even that is gone. He pulls himself and his leg. The bone has not punctured the skin and is into the muscle; the nerve is crushed so he cannot feel the great pain and he feels lucky. He reaches for his gun and hopes they come soon before he gets delirious. He wonders if those with religion have an easier time of dying. He thinks that dying is only bad when it is humiliating and takes a long time, and he is lucky that is not the case for him. He is glad the others were able to go. The attack was not a success, but he was lucky that he was able to make Maria leave him. He wishes he could tell Grandfather about it, and wonders if he did fifty attacks like it. He knows they were screwed as soon as Golz gave the orders, and this is probably what Pilar sensed. Next time they must plan better, with short wave transmitters. He grins and thinks that next time he ought to have a spare leg too. His leg starts to hurt and he hopes the enemy comes soon. He knows he must act soon, for if he passes out, they will ask him questions and make him give away secrets and plans.

His thoughts get more and more frantic and fast. He tells himself to think of the others being away, crossing through forest, creek, and up the slope, and then he cannot think of them any farther. He is conflicted, talking back to himself: he tells himself to think of Montana, Madrid, a cool drink of water – but he replies to himself that he cannot, that he is a liar. He tells himself to go ahead, that it will be nothing, to let go and die, but then tells himself that he must wait to make a move and that to shoot even an officer will make all the difference in saving the others. He is slipping away from himself as snow slips on a mountain slope. He sees the cavalry come up the slope and find the dead cavalry man that he killed the morning before. He looks at the sky and touches the ground. He rests on his elbows with the muzzle of the gun against the tree. He plans to shoot the officer when he comes on the trail of the horses. The officer, as it happens, is Lt. Berrendo, who led the offensive against El Sordo and his band, a man with a thin and serious face. Robert Jordan holds onto himself carefully to keep his gun steady. He is waiting to shoot until the officer reaches the sunlit place where the forest meets the meadow. He feels his heart beating against the pine needle-covered ground.