For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 17 Summary & Analysis

Pilar says that Pablo is “capable of doing anything,” and Robert Jordan asks where the automatic rifle is; Pilar says that Pablo won’t do anything with the rifle, since he has no practice with it. She then encourages Jordan to kill Pablo, and Agustin says that he is in favor of the murder, too, though he was against it before. Eladio and Andrés (the brothers) and Primitivo agree, though Fernando asks if they could hold him as a prisoner instead and sell him to the fascists. Rafael suggests that they turn him over to El Sordo, who will sell him to the fascists for them, but Primitivo says that the fascists will pay nothing for him.

After deliberating, Fernando says that because it is “impractical” to hold Pablo as a prisoner and “repugnant” to offer him up as a means of negotiation, he should be “eliminated.” Maria protests, but Pilar tells her to keep her mouth shut. Pablo suddenly reenters the cave and asks the group if they were speaking about him. Jordan wonders if Agustin is going to kill Pablo, since he hates him, and he reflects that though Pablo is “disgusting,” he himself doesn’t hate him; still, he is “perfectly willing to liquidate him.”

Jordan asks Agustin if he has “forgotten what is in the sacks,” and Agustin says he did forget. He turns back to Pablo and asks if he thinks that the snow will stop. Pablo seems friendly again: Jordan thinks that he “has shifted like the wind.” Indeed, Pablo declares that he is now for the bridge. Pilar asks him if he was listening by the entrance to the cave after he left, and he says that he was, though he heard nothing. Agustin asks Pablo why he changed his mind, and he says that he was drunk. Maria tells Jordan quietly that Pilar thinks Pablo heard about their plan to murder him. Fernando asks Pablo if he thinks that the plan for the bridge will be successful, and Pablo replies, “Why not?” Agustin says that he can no longer stay in the cave, which has become a manicomio (“insane asylum”).