Pablo then responds with 'I am more wolf than thee' (1.147). Anselmo responds: 'Yes, it is the principle of the fox when we need the wolf' (1.146). Pablo calls himself a fox, referring to its caution and its cunning. Some of them include: Fox: Pablo Wolf: Pablo There are lots of occasions in which a person is compared to a particular animal. We're not really going there (because that seems a little too Symbolist for Hemingway's taste), but if you want to, the possibilities are endless. We're in Spain, drinking and fighting for that glorious Spanish-ness! If you want to do something more specific with those pine-needles, be our guest. In their other occurrences, then, the pine needles would serve as momentary zoom-outs, to let us know that, whatever in particular might be happening (fighting, sex…).

(We also learn at one point that Robert Jordan particularly loves their smell – further evidence.) So it's fitting that the story should begin and end with his heart pressed to the land he loves, and that he should die upon it. Reading a little more into it, it's likely that the pine needles on the ground are meant to be the singular image for the land of Spain itself, for Spanish earth, which Robert Jordan loves. Regardless of whether they have any larger meaning, Hemingway's use of the same image at the beginning and end of the book – not just pine needles, but Robert Jordan lying on them – gives the novel nice bookends, and a nifty little sense of circularity. It's really up to you how much you want to read into the pine needles. (43.402) You also get frequent mention of them whenever Robert Jordan is in his sleeping robe at night (usually before Maria comes to join him), and occasionally at other times too, as when he feels them under his feet as he walks to the bridge on the morning of the mission (41.79). (1.1) And the very last sentence: He could feel his heart beating against the pine-needle floor of the forest. You get them in the very first sentence: He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees.

So what the heck is up with all those pine-needles? The pine-needles are probably the most noticeable recurrent image in the book.

Robert jordan for whom the bell tolls