For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 20 Summary & Analysis

Robert Jordan lies in his robe outside and waits for Maria to come to him. Earlier in the night, he cut down a spruce tree to make a bed for himself. Pilar says that she will take care of the explosives for him that night. Jordan thinks about the smell of the pine boughs beneath him, which he loves. He thinks of different odors that he can remember: “sweet grass,” “smoked leather,” “the wind from the land” coming in toward Cuba, “frying bacon,” “coffee in the morning.”

Maria comes out from the cave, running toward Robert Jordan. She is wearing her “wedding shirt,” and she tells him that she loves him again; he says that his heart is her heart, and that they have become “one.” He holds her in the night, feeling that “she was all of life there was.”