For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 32 Summary & Analysis

In Madrid on the same night, many people have gathered at the Hotel Gaylord. A car pulls up at the hotel, and a small man in riding boots and a “gray, high-buttoned jacket” steps out and enters the hotel. There are two sentries at the door, meant to serve as security, but they let the man pass through freely. The hotel is crowded with men and women drinking, some of them in uniform. The man, Karkov, goes to a woman in uniform; she is his wife, and he says something to her in Russian. His eyes light up as he sees the “love-lazy face” of his mistress, and he goes to speak with her. She asks if she can go with him to the offensive the next day, but he says that she can’t. He asks her who told her about it, and she says that it was “Richard.”

A man of “middle height” with a “gray, heavy, sagging face” asks Karkov if he has heard the good news. The man says that the fascists have been “fighting among themselves near Segovia,” “bombing their own troops with planes.” “Dolores” brought the news herself, the news “shining” from her “with a light that was not of this world.” “Not for nothing is she called La Pasionaria,” the man says. Karkov sends the man away.

Karkov goes over to another man, “short, chunky, jovial-looking,” a Hungarian divisional commander. Karkov asks him about the news from Dolores (La Pasionaria), and the commander says that “all the journalists should be shot,” including “the intriguing German unmentionable of a Richard.” Karkov says that Robert Jordan is in the area where “this business” is supposed to happen. The commander says that the fascists were probably “having maneuvers,” and that General Golz might be able to “maneuver” them a little, too. Karkov leaves the room to go to his bedroom, though he doesn’t bother to undress, because at two o’clock he is leaving for the front where Golz will be attacking in the morning.