Hemingway continues to celebrate male friendship in this chapter, as well as directing our attention to the specialness of combat veterans, by means of the character of Harris, the Englishman with whom Jake and Bill play bridge in the evening during their fishing trip. "I've not had much fun since the war," says Harris, before presenting Jake and Bill with a gift of hand-tied flies. Intimacy is possible between men, Hemingway shows us, though it must occur via sports and games (and/or war).
Jake is also intimate with the hotelier Montoya:
"He smiled as though bull-fighting were a very deep secret that we knew about. He always smiled as though there were something lewd about the secret to outsiders, but that it was something we understood. It would not do to expose it to people who would not understand."
This passage makes explicit a dichotomy that has been hinted at in this novel but never addressed directly before now, between what we might call insiders and outsiders. We have already observed the split between war veterans (including, even, the Count) and those, like Cohn, who did not participate. Other inside/outside sets in The Sun Also Rises include those who live life and those who merely read about living; Catholics vs. non-Catholics; and aficionados (of not just bullfighting but fishing and even eating and drinking) and those who lack passion for and knowledge about these activities.
