Hemingway continues to perpetuate the illusion that the story Jake tells is improvised and unedited, with statements like, "Cohn made some remark about [the cathedral] being a very good example of something or other, I forget what." Also, "Why I felt an impulse to devil him I do not know. Of course I do know." When we read about the man who sells the fishing tackle being out of his store, necessitating a long wait by Jake, Bill, and Cohn, we are fooled momentarily into believing that the events described really happened (perhaps to Hemingway). After all, why would someone bother to invent such a trivial detail?
The theme of payment continues in this chapter, with an accounting of various monetary transactions and a great deal of space devoted to the bet between Bill and Cohn. And Jake's rage toward Cohn, because Cohn slept with Brett, begins to manifest itself: "I have never seen a man in civil life as nervous as Robert Cohn — nor as eager. I was enjoying it." Later, he is even more explicit: "I certainly did hate him." Again, if Jake can't have Brett, then he wants a man worthy of her to do so, not the boyish Cohn. The Count seemed to qualify — as will the matador Pedro Romero a few chapters on.
Book II of The Sun Also Rises takes place mainly in an area of northeast Spain/southwest France occupied by a people known as the Basques. Inventive, eccentric, and fanatically independent, the Basque peasants stand in sharp contrast to the followers of fashion we encountered in Paris.
