This is a climactic chapter structurally, in that it resolves the conflicts of most of the book's central characters.
Apparently accepting that he will never have Brett, Robert Cohn leaves Pamplona and the novel; we will not see him again.
Pedro Romero, on the other hand, gets exactly what he wants: a victory over the bull he was scheduled to fight (not to mention survival in this mortally-dangerous activity) as well as Brett herself — and this despite long odds, considering Romero's sickly state following his fight with Cohn.
Brett too gets what she wants: Romero, who seems to be the only man since Jake for whom she has felt true passion. (As a result, she is "radiant . . . happy." "I feel altogether changed," she tells Jake.)
Bill, of course, never quite had a conflict, other than his desire for a good time, which he seems to have fulfilled.
The jury is still out on the fate of poor Mike, who desperately wants his fiancée Brett, as always.
Jake's handpicked substitute has triumphed, but at the end of Book II, Jake, as ever, remains alone. "The three of us sat at the table," Jake says of himself, Bill, and Mike in the concluding sentence of Book II, "and it seemed as though about six people were missing." Brett, Romero, Cohn, the Count, Harris, and Edna — six characters are, indeed, gone from the book, most of them never to return.
