Finally, Hemingway makes the nature of Jake's problematic condition clear (or as clear as he will ever make it, in this extremely subtle story). Reading between the lines, and keeping in mind the hints dropped during the book's prior chapters, one can deduce the following: While fighting on the Italian front during World War I, Jake was somehow castrated. (This is what the Italian liaison colonel means when he says to Jake, "You . . . have given more than your life.") "Of all the ways to be wounded," indeed!
Thus, Jake can never consummate his love for Brett. Valiantly, he tries to think of his disability as some sort of cosmic joke — and Brett sees it as punishment for being free with her sexuality. Their plight is genuinely tragic, however, because of the particular nature of the wound. Recall Jake's lascivious description of Brett's body in Chapter III ("She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey"), as well as the erotically-charged way he sees her in the cab at the start of this chapter. Jake's castration has not eliminated his sexual desire, only his ability to fulfill that desire. (Erection and ejaculation are both physiologically impossible.) Therefore, even looking at Brett is agony for him, and for her as well, because she understands the pain he's in. No wonder Jake feels rage toward Brett's gay companions, men who presumably could make love to her but are uninterested in doing so. And yet Jake will spend much of the story watching Brett go off with other men (like the Count, in this chapter), even encouraging her to do so.
