For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

A young man lies on his stomach on the floor of a forest, looking at an “oiled road” with a stream beside it. He asks if it is a mill, and a voice responds, “Yes.” The man says he doesn’t remember it, and the voice tells him that it was built since he was here. The man looks at a military map, and an old man wearing a peasant’s smock, breathing heavily, looks over his shoulder. The man says to the older man that he cannot see the bridge from this point in the forest. The older man describes a road nearby that leads to a gorge where the bridge is. The younger man asks where the posts are, and the older man tells him that there is a post at the mill. The younger man wipes his glasses lenses and looks up to see the mill, the stream, and a dam.

The younger man says that he doesn’t see any sentry, but the older man says that the sentry might be in the shade. He promises to figure out how many men are positioned at the mill and the bridge, and the younger man asks him how many men they can get for their side. The younger man says that he would like to hide his explosive in “utmost security” about half an hour from the bridge, and the older man says that they will have to climb to get there. The younger man then asks the older man what his name is.

The older man’s name is Anselmo, and he comes from Barco de Avila. He offers to help the younger man, who is tall with fair hair and peasant’s clothes, with his pack. The younger man swings the pack onto his back and says that he can handle it. The two men work their way through the pine forest of the mountainside, around the face of the mountain and across a stream. The young man begins to sweat, and the older man says he will go ahead to warn “them,” saying that the younger man will not want to be shot at while carrying stuff.

The older man asks what the younger man’s name is, and he replies, “Roberto.” He takes off his pack, and the older man says he will return for him. He watches the man leave, noticing that he seems acquainted with the mountainside, since he is adept at climbing it. The younger man’s name is Robert Jordan, and he is hungry and worried. He is often hungry, but he is not usually worried because he does not care about what happens to himself; he knows it is easy to move behind enemy lines. Getting caught, he believes, only becomes difficult when you “give importance” to what happens to you, and you must trust the people you work with.

Robert Jordan trusts Anselmo, but he has not yet “had an opportunity to test his judgment.” He knows how to blow up the bridge, since he has blown up many before, and he feels that there are enough explosives and equipment to destroy it even if it were twice as big as Anselmo claims it is. Jordan remembers the bridge being particularly large when he walked over it in 1933; it also seemed large from Golz’s description of it two nights before, when they were together in a house outside of the Escorial.

In a flashback, Golz tells Jordan that “to blow the bridge is nothing”: “merely to blow the bridge is a failure,” since the bridge must be blown up “at a stated hour based on the time set for the attack.” When Jordan questions him, Golz responds angrily, asking if “any attack” has “ever been as it should.” Jordan claims that it will be on time if it is Golz’s attack, but Golz says that he only makes the attacks. Golz believes that someone or something will interfere with the operation.

Golz tells Jordan that the bridge must be blown up after the attack starts and that he will tell Jordan when the attack is to take place, though he must “use the date and hour only as an indication of a probability.” Golz also tells Jordan that there are only two sentries, and that he will be accompanied by a reliable man with “people in the mountains,” whom he will gather to help with the attack.

Jordan asks Golz how he will know if the attack has started, and Golz tells him that there will be an aerial bombardment. Jordan says that he does not like the plan very much, but that he will undertake it. Golz makes him promise that “nothing will come up over that bridge”—that it will be destroyed after the attack begins, and that no enemies will be able to use it. Jordan asks Golz how they will advance on La Granja after the bridge is destroyed, and Golz says that they will repair it and use it again.

Jordan says that he would rather not know about the specific details of the attack, since he does not want information that he might be exploited for. Golz suggests they have a drink, calling him “Comrade Hordan.” Jordan asks Golz how they say his name in Spanish, and Golz replies “Hotze,” explaining that he was allowed to pick out any name he wanted when he came to command a division. He asks Jordan how he likes partizan work, using the Russian term for “guerilla work behind the lines.” Jordan says he likes it very much, and Golz says that he liked it very much, too, when he was younger. He teases Jordan, asking him if he is able to actually blow up bridges.

Jordan replies that he is able to blow up bridges “sometimes,” and Golz changes the subject, asking if there are “many girls on the other side of the lines.” Jordan says that there is no time for girls, and Golz disagrees. He then tells Jordan that he needs a haircut. This time, Jordan disagrees, responding that he has “enough to think about without girls.” Golz says that he is a Soviet general who never thinks at all, and a nearby soldier says something in a language Jordan doesn’t understand. In English, Golz tells him to shut up and that he is joking. Jordan and Golz shake hands, and Jordan goes out to the staff car where Anselmo is waiting, asleep; they ride up the Navacerrada road to the Alpine Club hut where they rest before climbing in the mountains.

This was the last time Jordan saw Golz. He envisions Golz and the infantry tomorrow night, loading equipment, but quickly reminds himself not to think about what is Golz’s business: he is supposed to think about one thing only, and worrying makes things as difficult as fear does.

Jordan sits by a stream and notices a bed of watercress, which he picks and eats; he also drinks from the stream. He turns around and sees Anselmo with another man carrying a carbine (later revealed as Pablo), in the same kind of dark gray trousers that Anselmo wears. Jordan greets the new man and looks at his face, which is “heavy, beard-stubbed,” with small eyes, a broken nose, and a scar on his upper lip and jaw. Anselmo introduces the man as “the boss,” “a very strong man.”

The man with the carbine (Pablo) asks Jordan to justify his identity, and Jordan shows him a folded paper. He realizes that the man cannot read it, and he tells him to look at the seals on the paper, from the service of the military intelligence and the General Staff. The man asks Jordan and Anselmo what they have in their packs, and Anselmo replies that they have dynamite. The man says that he can use dynamite, but Jordan tells him that they have another purpose for the dynamite. He asks the man what his name is, and Anselmo tells him that it is “Pablo.”

Jordan says that he has heard that Pablo is an excellent fighter, “loyal to the Republic,” from different sources all over the country—“from Buitrago to the Escorial.” Pablo says that he does not know anyone in either of those places. Pablo asks Jordan what he is going to do with the dynamite, and Jordan tells him that he is going to blow up a bridge, though he will not tell him which one. Pablo says that it's not possible to blow up bridges that are close to where they have camped. Pablo refuses to help Jordan and Anselmo with their packs, and Anselmo sharply rebukes him in old Castilian. Pablo says that the only reason he and his group are able to operate in the mountains is because they are quiet, and he and Anselmo spar verbally.

Pablo offers to help Jordan with his pack, saying that Anselmo, “an old man of great strength,” can handle his own. The three men begin to climb again, and Jordan spots a trail through the grass made by horses that have been brought to the stream to drink. Jordan wonders how many horses Pablo has, and he worries about Pablo’s sadness; “that’s the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray.” The men approach the horses, and Jordan admires them. Pablo tends to them proudly, telling Jordan that he has taken all of them from civil guards he has killed. Anselmo tells Jordan that Pablo “blew up the train at Arevalo,” and that there was a foreigner with him. Jordan recognizes the foreigner as Kashkin, and says that he was killed in April.

Pablo says that all he can “look forward to” is “to be hunted and to die,” nothing more, and that he is tired of being hunted. He believes that Jordan has come to tell him what to do, but Jordan tells him that he is only fulfilling orders, and that although he is a foreigner, he wishes he had been born in the country. Anselmo tells Pablo that he has changed since becoming obsessed with his horses, and that he is now a capitalist, more concerned with protecting his horses than helping with the Republican cause.

Jordan reflects that there are “no people like them when they are good and when they go bad there is no people that is worse.” He realizes that Pablo is starting to “go bad”: the horses have made him rich, and now all he wants is to enjoy life. Jordan feels overwhelmed, and he thinks that “all the best ones […] were gay,” including Golz. It is better to be happy while fighting, but there are not many of the “gay ones” left.