After receiving telegrams from both Mike and Cohn, however, Jake and Bill return to Pamplona. There they meet up with Brett, Mike, and Cohn before walking to the corrals outside of town to see the unloading of the bulls for the coming bullfights. At a café afterward, Mike browbeats Cohn for tagging after Brett. Apparently, Cohn returned to San Sebastian while Jake and Bill were fishing in Burguete.
Pamplona's yearly fiesta of San Fermin, which will last for seven days, begins. Musicians and dancers fill the streets and shops — including the wine store, where Brett is placed on a cask so the Basque peasants can dance around her as if she were a pagan idol. Jake sleeps while his friends stay out all night and then attend the running of the bulls from the corrals to the bullring, through the streets of town. Jake meets the 19-year-old matador Pedro Romero, and the next day, after Romero performs admirably in the ring, Brett cannot help talking about her attraction to him.
The hotelier Montoya visits Jake to express his concern that mixing with rich tourists will corrupt Romero. Later, at dinner, Brett invites the bullfighter to her table. Montoya looks on with disapproval. Once again, Mike picks on Cohn. Brett too lashes out at him, then tells Jake that she feels guilty for having slept with Cohn while engaged to Mike. She asks Jake if he loves her, and when Jake says that he does, Brett says she is in love with Romero. So Jake helps Brett find the matador in a café, where they flirt openly. Jake leaves; when he returns, the two are gone. Later, Cohn calls Jake a pimp, and in the ensuing fistfight, Jake is beaten up. The next day, Mike reports that Cohn found Brett in Romero's room and beat the bullfighter up, too, after which Cohn cried. Mike admits that he is upset by his fiancée's promiscuity.
