For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Anselmo, Pablo, and Jordan come up to the “cup-shaped upper end” of a valley and see the camp in front of a large cave. A Roma man (described as a “gypsy” throughout) is sitting in front of the camp, cutting a stick with a knife, and he tells Robert Jordan not to leave his pack too close to the cave, since there is a fire inside. The man is making a figure four trap for foxes; Anselmo says that he tends to exaggerate about what he traps.

Robert Jordan promises to help the “gypsy” make a trap to catch a tank, and the man introduces himself as Rafael. Jordan opens one of the packs and gives Pablo some cigarettes. Pablo says that “the other with the rare name,” Kashkin, had the same kinds of cigarettes. As the men drink wine, Pablo asks how Kashkin died, and Jordan tells him that he was captured and killed himself. Jordan lies and says that he doesn’t know anything else, and Pablo recalls that he used to make them “promise to shoot him in case he were wounded,” and that he had “a prejudice against killing himself” and a “fear of being tortured.”

Robert Jordan says that Kashkin was crazy to have talked about asking for his own death. Pablo asks Jordan if he would be willing to be left behind if wounded in “such a thing as this bridge.” Jordan responds that if he ever has “any little favors to ask of any man,” he will “ask him at the right time.”

A girl (Maria) emerges from the cave and greets them with a cooking platter. Robert Jordan notices her white teeth, brown face, skin, and hair, and her high cheekbones, merry eyes, and cropped hair. Jordan thinks that she would be beautiful if “they hadn’t cropped her hair” (referring to the fascists). The girl says that they gave her the haircut in Valladolid. She sits down and watches him, and he looks back at her, feeling a “thickness in his throat.”

The men eat their food silently, and the girl continues to watch Robert Jordan. He asks for her name, and she tells him that she is called Maria, and that she has been in the mountains for three months. Her hair was shaved in the prison at Valladolid; she was on the train being taken to the south, and though many prisoners were caught when the train was blown up, she was not. Rafael says that he found her after the explosion. Maria asks Jordan about the other foreigner who was with them at the train, and Jordan says that he died ten days after the train in April.

Jordan tells Maria that he has “done” three days in Estremadura, and that he has come to take the place of the “other blond one,” Kashkin. He says that he will learn this area quickly, since he has a good map and a good guide. Anselmo thanks him, and Jordan realizes that he and the girl are not alone, and that he has been ignoring the other men to speak with her: though it is Spanish custom to leave women alone, he does not care. He tells Maria that she has a very beautiful face and that he wishes he had seen her before her hair was cut. She says that it will grow out in six months. Jordan asks if she is Pablo or Rafael’s woman, but she is neither; Rafael calls her a “very strange woman.”

Maria says that she will be no one’s woman, including Robert Jordan’s, and he says that he has no time for any woman. Maria blushes and clears the table. Anselmo reveals that the group has seven members, with two women; the other woman, “Pablo’s mujer” (woman), is in the cave. Rafael says that she is ugly and barbarous but brave. Anselmo replies that Pablo used to be brave, but he has become “flaccid,” and Rafael remarks that at the start of the movement, he killed more people than the typhoid fever. Pablo would like to retire like a matador (bullfighter), but he cannot, since if he becomes a Fascist, they will take his horses and conscript him.

There are two other fighters in the cave and two on guard with a gun. Jordan asks what kind of gun it is, but Rafael doesn’t know; he says it has “an infinity” of rounds, and Jordan tries to figure out what type it is. Jordan, Rafael, and Anselmo discuss machine guns, which fire continuously—unless you run out of ammunition or the weapon overheats, as Jordan says in English. Anselmo asks him what he said, but Jordan says it was “nothing”: he was only “looking into the future.” Rafael says that Pablo’s mujer can read palms, and Jordan asks to see her, though Rafael cautions him against it. He says she is of “gypsy” blood but is “against” gypsies, though she is sometimes kind to others (she treats Maria well).

Rafael recounts their rescue of Maria, telling Jordan that she refused to speak when they first found her, though lately, she has been better. Pablo’s wife tied a rope to Maria after they found her by the train, and when Maria refused to walk further, Pablo’s wife would beat her with the rope. The old woman, Rafael, and Pablo also took turns carrying Maria. Anselmo recollects the explosion of the train, and Rafael explains how they found Maria after a shoot-out.

Pablo’s wife emerges from the cage, cursing: she is wearing a peasant skirt, and her brown face looks “like a model for a granite monument.” She tells Rafael to send her Andrés and greets Robert Jordan kindly. Jordan tells her that he is an explosives expert like Kashkin, though he has come to blow up a bridge this time, not a train, and she recalls the explosion at the train with Kashkin. Jordan explains that the bridge is close, and the woman says that it is for the best, since she is sick of the place. She spots Pablo through the trees and calls him a drunkard, and then turns back to Jordan to tell him that she is pleased that he has come.

Pablo’s wife tells Jordan that Pablo was a very good man, but that now he is “terminated.” She tells him to be “good and careful” about Maria, since she has had a bad time, and that she “begins to be beautiful,” though she is not beautiful. Jordan tells her that there are homes on the coast near Valencia that will take care of Maria after the war is over. The woman asks to see Jordan’s palm, and after she looks at it, she drops it and stands up. He asks her what she saw in it, but she refuses to tell him.

Pablo’s wife says that they have five “good” men, since Rafael is worthless and she does not trust Pablo, and El Sordo, another leader of a guerrilla group and a “very practical man,” has eight. The woman thinks highly of El Sordo, and she reminds Jordan that after the bridge, the group must move down from the mountain. Jordan thanks her for her frank advice and goes to wake Anselmo to travel to El Sordo and discuss the operation with him.