Summary: Chapter V
Cohn meets Jake at his office to have lunch. Cohn asks
about Brett, and Jake says that she is a drunk and that she is going
to marry Mike Campbell, a Scotsman who will be rich someday. Jake
also says that Brett’s true love died of dysentery during the war.
Jake explains that he met Brett while she worked as a V.A.D. (Volunteer
Aid Detachment) in the hospital where he was taken for his injury.
Cohn gets annoyed that Jake doesn’t describe Brett in positive terms;
Jake tells Cohn to go to hell. Cohn gets angry at this insult and
threatens to leave lunch. Jake smoothes things over and persuades
Cohn to stay. Afterward, Jake perceives that Cohn wishes to talk
about Brett but avoids bringing up the subject again.
Summary: Chapter VI
That evening, Jake goes to meet Brett, but she stands
him up. After looking for her in a few places, Jake wanders through
the streets of Paris and runs into his friend Harvey Stone, a compulsive
gambler. Harvey is broke and claims he has not eaten in days. Jake
gives him money. They happen upon Cohn, who is waiting to meet Frances. Harvey
insults Cohn, calling him a moron, before leaving to eat. When Frances
arrives, she asks to speak to Jake privately. She tells him that
Cohn has refused to marry her and that she fears that no man will
marry her now. Jake tries to remain neutral. Frances says that she
will not receive alimony from her husband because she got divorced
in the quickest way; adding to her woes, no one will publish her
writing. Trying to remain bright and cheery, she suggests that they
rejoin Cohn. In front of Cohn, she tells Jake that Cohn has paid
her two hundred pounds to go to England but that she had to wrangle
it out of him. In a falsely cheerful manner, she bitterly describes
the unpleasant visits to “friends” in England she will have to make,
just so Cohn can get rid of her in an orderly manner. She claims
that Cohn won’t marry her because he wants to tell people that he
once had a mistress. Cohn sits through her barrage. Jake excuses
himself and leaves them alone.
Summary: Chapter VII
Couldn’t we live together, Brett? Couldn’t
we just live together?
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Jake returns home, and Brett and Count Mippipopolous show
up. Jake asks why she missed their appointment but does not believe
her when she says she forgot it out of drunkenness. Brett offers
to send the count away. Jake tells her not to, but she sends him
for champagne. Jake asks why they cannot live together, and she
tells him that she would only make him unhappy by cheating on him.
She announces that she is leaving Paris for San Sebastian, in Spain, because
it will be better for both of them.
The count returns with the champagne, and he begins to
describe his philosophy of life. He has been in seven wars and four
revolutions. Because he has lived so much, he says, he is able to
enjoy everything fully. He thinks the secret to living is to get
to know the right values. He is always in love because his values
include love. The three of them have a pleasant dinner before going
out to a club. The count asks why Brett and Jake do not get married,
and they offer curt, false answers. Brett begins to feel miserable
and wants to leave. Jake accompanies Brett to her hotel; she does
not want him to come up to her room, however. They kiss several
times before she pushes him away.
Analysis: Chapters V–VII
What Jake actually says, both as a narrator and as a character,
differs sharply from what we can infer about what he actually thinks. The
conversation at his lunch with Cohn demonstrates this difference.
Jake tells Cohn not to believe him when he says nasty things, but
in fact these vicious comments are frequently Jake’s most honest expressions
of his thoughts and feelings. Very often he hides how he feels,
expressing emotion only indirectly within his narration. Harvey
Stone stands in stark contrast to Jake. Harvey is totally blunt. For
example, he tells Cohn that he considers him a moron and then walks
away. Jake does not like Cohn very much either—he even says that
he hates him. But he hides this hatred to the point that Cohn considers
him his best friend. As with his conversation with Georgette about
the war, Jake seems disinclined to communicate openly with other
people—even the reader.
Frances and Cohn’s messy breakup reveals how little true
affection ever existed between them. Cohn abandons Frances as soon
as he gains the confidence to do so and finds a woman who interests him
more, namely Brett. Frances’s main complaint is that she is now too
old to find a husband and has wasted her time pursuing Cohn. She
is not so much concerned with losing Cohn as with losing the chance
to marry. Among Jake and his friends, there are almost no healthy,
loving relationships between men and women. Although Jake and Brett
seem to truly love one another, Brett is unwilling to commit to
Jake. Moreover, she frequently exploits Jake’s love for her. She
often goes to him for emotional support and then abandons him to
pursue affairs with other men, as when, directly after unloading
her emotional troubles on Jake, she breaks her appointment with
him to spend more time carousing with the count. Although her ill
treatment causes Jake pain, he never mentions it to her and only
rarely acknowledges it to himself. He essentially allows himself to
be abused, unable to stand up to Brett. Ironically, in this respect Jake
resembles Cohn, who stoically endures Frances’s verbal assaults.
