For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 31 Summary & Analysis

Robert Jordan and Maria are alone in Jordan’s sleeping robe together, and she says that she doesn’t wish to disappoint him, since she has a “great soreness and much pain” from when “things” were done to her. Jordan lies and says that he likes feeling her against him in the dark as much as he likes making love. He says that the most “intelligent” thing to do is not to talk about tomorrow, or what happened during the day. Maria says that she is so afraid for Jordan that she is not thinking of herself, and Jordan tells her to talk about Madrid and their future life there instead.

Jordan reflects that he needs Maria’s talk of Madrid for tomorrow, and he “surrenders” into “unreality.” He says that he wouldn’t leave Maria at the hotel while he went to Gaylord’s, because he wants to stay with her: they will go buy clothes and stay in the hotel on the Plaza del Callao, which has a “wide bed with clean sheets.” Maria says that she would like to try whiskey, but Robert Jordan says that it is not “good for a woman.” He also says that it is possible that she was “hurt” and has a scar—which is why she has “soreness” and “pain”—and he reassures her that she is beautiful and that he wants to marry her. Until he met her, he did not know he could “love one deeply.”

Pilar told Maria that she thinks that they will all die tomorrow, and that Robert Jordan knows it as well as Pilar does, though he gives it no importance. Jordan thinks that Pilar is a “crazy bitch,” and he tells Maria to talk about Madrid again instead. Now, though, when they talk about the future, he feels that he is lying to Maria “to pass the night before battle.” He tells Maria that in Madrid, they will go together to the coiffeur’s, where she can have her hair cut neatly on the sides so that it looks better while it is growing back.

Robert Jordan says to Maria that they will get an apartment on the street that runs along the Parque of the Buen Retiro in Madrid, and that they will walk in the park and row on the lake; he describes the park to her. Jordan says that he might be able to get work in Madrid, and he says that before he met Maria, he had never asked for anything, nor wanted anything—nor thought of anything except the movement and winning the war. He loves Maria as he loves Madrid, as he loves his “comrades” who have died. Maria promises to be a good wife for Jordan.

Pilar has told Maria what she needs to do to be a good wife: she says that Maria needs to take care of her body, and she has explained things that Maria needs to do to please Robert Jordan as a wife. Jordan says that there is no need for Maria to do anything, but Maria insists that she will always do as he wishes. She explains that she never “submitted” to “anyone,” and that she fought back while “one would sit on [her] head.”

Maria also explains that her father was the mayor of her village and her mother was “an honorable woman and a good Catholic”: the Falangists (members of a fascist splinter group) shot both of them. Maria was not shot, but instead there was “the doing of the things.” As her father was shot, he said, “Viva la Republica,” and as her mother was shot, she screamed “long live my husband who was mayor of the village,” since she was not a Republican. The women and girls of the village were “tied by the wrists” and herded up a hill toward a barbershop in the town square, where one of the fascists said that Maria was the daughter of the mayor, and that they should “commence with her.”

One of the soldiers slashed off Maria’s braids, hitting her in the face with her hair as he cut it off, and her head was forcibly shaved; she then had “U. H. P.” written on her forehead with iodine. As she was taken out of the barbershop, one of her friends was brought in, screaming, and Maria was forced into her father’s office in the city hall, where “the bad things were done.” Maria says that she would like to kill some of the fascists with Robert Jordan, if she can. Jordan says that the Falangists do not fight in battle, though they can be killed in train explosions.

Pilar has told Maria that it is possible that she is infertile, since she didn’t become pregnant after “the things which were done.” Jordan assures her that he wouldn’t want to bring a son or daughter “into this world as this world is,” but she says that she would like to give him a child, since “how can the world be made better if there are no children […] who fight against the fascists?”

Robert Jordan and Maria say good night, and Jordan lies awake, angry, feeling “pleased there would be killing in the morning” after hearing Maria’s story of the Falangists. He knows that they (the Republicans) have done “dreadful” things to “them” (the fascists) too, but only because the Republicans were “uneducated”; “they” (the Falangists) did “that” (raped Maria) “on purpose and deliberately.” Jordan reflects that there are no “finer and no worse people in the world” than Spaniards, and that he does not understand them, because if he did, he would “forgive it all”: “to understand is to forgive.” The Spaniards are “paying for the Inquisition” now. Jordan realizes that he was never supposed to “live forever,” and that he has lived all his life in three days.