For Whom the Bell Tolls Chapter 12 Summary

  • When they're finished eating, Maria, Pilar, and Robert Jordan leave El Sordo's, bidding goodbye until that night. Pilar and El Sordo are very serious as they part.
  • As they walk, in full silence, Pilar starts looking very tired, sweating heavily and panting. After turning down a rest once, she sits down at Maria's urging.
  • Pilar confesses that today she is in quite a temper. Maria puts her head in Pilar's lap. Pilar responds by telling Robert Jordan that he can have her shortly.
  • Maria asks Pilar not to speak so, and Pilar tells Maria that she is very jealous. Maria is for Robert Jordan, she says, but she is jealous, because she cares for Maria very much (though not in any "perverted" way, as she puts it).
  • Speaking truthfully, Pilar says Robert Jordan pleases her, and that she wishes she could take him from Maria, and Maria from him, both for herself. But she promises them that she will leave them alone with each other soon.
  • Although she is "gross," Pilar says she is also delicate. She was angry at Joaquin because she felt ugly in front of him. And she is jealous of Maria's age (nineteen), though Maria will not always be nineteen.
  • Maria and Robert Jordan try to convince Pilar to go to camp all together, but she leaves. Maria asks Robert Jordan to let her go.