Chapter 10

Bill, Jake, and Cohn have breakfast and, around about midmorning, start drinking. They rent a car to leave Bayonne for the river to fish. It’s hot out and the landscape is beautiful and distinctly Spanish.

We discover that Jake is the only one of the three who can semi-competently speak Spanish.
They stop in a small town, find a hotel, and have a lunch.
Cohn is acting super awkward because he doesn’t know if Jake and Bill know that he was in San Sebastian with Brett. Cohn’s Spanish is particularly atrocious.

Jake, Bill, and Cohn go off separately for a while. Jake prays  in the Catholic Church in the square. Mostly he thinks about bull-fights.
During dinner, Cohn and Jake leave to check if Brett and Mike have arrived at the train station. Cohn is nervous. Jake, in a particularly nasty mood, lets him suffer, then accuses Cohn of bringing out the worst in everyone. Mike and Brett don’t show up on the train. Jake receives a telegram saying that they have decided to spend the night in San Sebastian. 

Jake’s jealousy has transformed his feelings for Cohn – while he showed fondness for Cohn in earlier chapters, now he admits that he hates the other guy. Clearly Brett is the cause.

Jake buys bus tickets to Burguete, where they plan to fish. Cohn bails, claiming that he should go meet Brett and Mike in San Sebastian. 

Chapter 9

Jake receives word from Cohn that he’s in Spain. Bill and Jake agree to meet Cohn in Bayonne, Spain and travel together to Pamplona. Brett and Mike decide to join the trip to Pamplona. The men want to fish, but Brett wants to party.

Brett has Jake walk her back to her hotel to bathe again.
Brett reveals to Jake that she’s been in San Sebastian not with Mike but with Cohn. Sex is implied, but Brett says she finds Cohn dull.Brett is worried Cohn will freak out if he comes on the trip, since Brett will be with Mike. Cohn insists on coming, anyway. Jake is sort of disgusted by the whole thing.

Jake and Bill head for Spain by train. They try to bribe the dining car conductor to seat them for lunch but he refuses.Bill and Jake make small talk with an American family to pass the time.
They arrive at the station and meet Cohn, who’s a little shy around Bill. Apparently, Cohn has read all of Bill’s books..

Chapter 8

Frances is away and Cohn is out of the country for a few weeks. Jake is happy to have gotten rid of them for a while. Jake plans a trip to Spain with a friend named Bill Gorton at the end of June. Bill arrives and recounts a trip he’s just taken to Vienna and Prague.

Bill and Jake have a drink at a café and chat.

Brett jumps out of a cab, newly returned from her trip. Bill-Brett introductions are made, and they go for a drink.
Brett leaves to go bathe.
Jake and Bill go to eat at a little restaurant Jake knows. Hemingway reinforces the fact that Jake, unlike the majority of his fellow American expats, knows Paris like the back of his hand.
Jake suggests they have a drink but for the first time ever they decide not to have one. We are shocked.
Bill and Jake meet up with Mike and Brett (who’s now supposedly quite clean and is not wearing stockings…. more scandal) in one of their regular cafés. Mike turns out to be kind of nutty and extremely drunk; he’s taken home by Brett. Jake and Bill go to watch a fight.

Chapter 7

Jake learns from the concierge that Brett and a man stopped by his flat and plan to return in an hour. The concierge, who thought Brett was fairly trashy after her 4 a.m. arrival the previous evening, now speaks highly of her as a woman of class.

Jake digresses a little, and gives us a brief and hilarious description of Madame Duzinell, the concierge, who seems to think it’s her job to decide who gets to see Jake and who doesn’t. It’s a good thing Brett won her over.
Brett and the Count show up right as Jake jumps out of the shower. He’s struck once again with love pains and Brett sends the count off for champagne while she comforts Jake. Again, they discuss their love for one another, but agree they can’t be together. Brett admits that he’s her true love, but if they were together, she’d cheat on him all over the place. She tells him she’s leaving Paris for San Sebastian, a resort town in Spain.

The count, who is something of an odd duck (but a nice one), tells Brett that she’s got class written all over her, even if she’ll lose her title with her divorce.
They go for dinner and drink some expensive brandy, then head up to Montmartre to dance. Brett and Jake dance while the count watches.

Brett and Jake discuss her relationship with Mike – even though they’re engaged, she never thinks of him. Brett doesn’t want to stay at the club. Jake has major déjà vu – he has the feeling that he and Brett are going to go through something they’ve already been through. The pair take their leave of the count, and Jake drops Brett off before heading home.

Chapter 6

Brett  misses her evening date with Jake. He has a few conciliatory drinks and then takes a cab through a part of Paris he despises. He wonders why he hates this particular section of the city so much, then wonders why Cohn seems to despise the whole city so much.

Jake heads to Café Select, where he encounters a very odd friend, Harvey Stone. Harvey, like everyone else, is a writer, and he wheedles some money out of Jake. The two men have a drink and chat about Mencken.

Cohn shows up. Harvey provokes him and then leaves. Cohn states his dislike for Harvey.
Cohn tells Jake he’s fighting to write.
Jake, attempting to reveal more of the true Robert Cohn , remarks that, before falling for Brett, Cohn had been a fairly charming  well trained by the women he’d been with. Before met Brett, he had a kind of simple, cheerful, nice mentality, and was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none type. His passion for Brett, however, changes everything.

Frances shows up at the Café. She’s snotty to Cohn but pleasant to Jake. She asks to speak privately with Jake. She’s all worked up, thinking that Cohn’s going to leave her since he won’t agree to marry her. SO EMBARRASSING!

Frances repeatedly attacks Cohn. She suspects that he’s trying to dump her to enjoy his literary success alone or with a newer model. Jake doesn’t understand why everyone can be such a stupid to Cohn and why he doesn’t defend himself. Disgruntled, Jake heads back to his flat.

Chapter 5

Jake has coffee and a brioche and goes to work. Despite his melancholy evening, he feels much better this morning. He works all morning, then chats pleasantly with his colleague, Krum, until Robert Cohn shows up to whisk him off to lunch.

He and Cohn talk each other about South America over a lunch of beer.
Cohn asks Jake about Brett. He reveals that she is in the midst of a divorce with a British aristocrat and is already engaged to a man with great financial prospects named Mike Campbell. Cohn remarks again that he thinks Brett’s super hot. Jake responds cynically.

We discover that Jake met Brett when she worked as a VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse) in a hospital during WWI.
Cohn doubts Brett will marry Mike if she doesn’t love him. Not terribly surprisingly, Jake doesn’t agree. Cohn already has an unrealistically romantic and idealized view of Brett, despite the fact that he really doesn’t know her at all.
Cohn gets agitated and Jake tells him to go to hell. They reconcile and Cohn admits rather embarrassingly that Jake is his best friend.

Chapter 4

In the cab, Jake and Brett kiss passionately, but Brett pulls away. She says she loves Jake but they agree they can’t be together. Love’s too hard and they have a history with one another. Brett alludes to Jake’s mysterious war wound, which is presumably the cause of their separation; he doesn’t want to talk about it.

They agree to go to Café Select for more drinks. Brett asks Jake to kiss her again.

At the café, a Greek duke/artist with the improbable name of Zizi introduces Brett, whose formal title is Lady Ashley.

Georgette was thrown out of the restaurant rather spectacularly after Jake and Brett left.

Jake, tired and frustrated, decides to head home. He says his goodbyes to everyone, and agrees to meet Brett the following evening.

Jake can’t sleep. He’s all worked up about WWI, the injury he sustained in the War and about Brett. We have already guessed that his injury is sexual in nature – he never says the word, but I think that he’s impotent.

Thinking of his troubles (mostly caused by Brett ) Jake begins to cry.

Jake wakes to the noise of a fight outside between Brett and his building’s concierge. Jake lets Brett upstairs. She’s totally wasted. He invite her  another drink. It’s after 4 a.m. They are talking.After a few minutes Brett leaves and Jake.