“He was completely integrated now and he took a good long look at everything. Then he looked up at the sky. There were big white clouds in it. He touched the palm of his hand against the pine needles where he lay and he touched the bark of the pine trunk that he lay behind.”
This passage from the last chapter of the novel describes Robert Jordan at the moment when, wounded and alone, he realizes that he will be able to stay alive long enough to ambush the approaching Fascist cavalry, thereby buying the guerrilleros some time to escape. Also, the “looked up at the sky” is almost directly quoted in the For Whom the Bell Tolls song performed by Metallica where a line goes “look up to the sky just before you die, it’s the last time you will”
For Whom The Bell Tolls 