The evening after being out at the dance club with Georgette, Brett and the others, Jacob waits for Brett at their arranged meeting place in the Hotel Crillon. After waiting nearly an hour, Brett has not arrived, and so Jacob leaves to go to a café. At Café Select, Jacob runs into a man named Harvey Stone, who tells Jacob he hasn't eaten in five days. Jacob offers to buy Harvey some food, but they sit and have a drink first, at which time Robert Cohn joins them. Harvey calls Robert a moron, and the two men argue before Harvey leaves to go eat elsewhere.

     Shortly after Harvey leaves, Robert's girlfriend Frances arrives for a prearranged date with Robert. After some brief conversation, Frances asks Jacob to go across the street with her to talk, while Robert stays at the café. Once they are alone, Frances tells Jacob that Robert wants to leave her despite previously making it seem as though they would be getting married. This is distressing to Frances, who believes that after being with Robert for three years she's now too old for anyone to want to marry. When Frances and Jacob return to the café where Robert has been waiting, Frances announces in front of Jacob that she's going to England, and that Robert is giving her money for the trip. Frances' speech devolves into an emotional outburst about Robert getting rid of her because he needs new material for his next book, and using her simply to fulfill the role of mistress in his life. As Frances continues, Jake makes up the excuse that he needs to go speak to Harvey Stone, and leaves the café as Frances continues to berate a silent Robert.

     When Jacob returns home, the concierge at his apartment tells him that Brett and the Count came by earlier, and would be back within the hour. Upon their return, Brett quickly sends the Count out for champagne so that she and Jacob can be alone. Jacob asks Brett if they can live together, but she insists - using the French word "tromper" - that she would cheat on Jacob and he wouldn't be able to handle it. Brett then reveals that she's planning to go away to San Sebastian the next day. The Count returns, and the three of them drink champagne before going out to eat dinner, and then out to a bar, where Jacob and Brett dance while the Count watches. Eventually, Brett and Jacob leave together, kissing before she retires to her hotel room and Jacob goes home to his apartment.

     While Brett is in San Sebastian, Jacob keeps himself occupied with work, and dinners with friends. Jacob's friend Bill Gorton comes to visit for a few days, then travels to Vienna and Budapest before returning again. Bill says he had a wonderful time in Budapest, but can hardly remember Vienna after being very drunk the entire time he was there. One of the few things he can recall is a boxing match where a black man defeated a local fighter and the outraged crowd threw chairs at him. After the fight, Bill loaned money to the black fighter when the promoter refused to pay him.

     After regaling Jacob with his stories, Bill wants to go out to eat. As they walk through the city, a clearly drunk Bill wants to stop for more drinks. When they continue walking, Brett passes by in a taxi having just returned from San Sebastian, and Jacob convinces her to come have a drink with them before going home to prepare for her fiancé Mike's return to Paris. Brett says she was unamused by her recent trip, and before she leaves asks Jacob and Bill to join her out with Mike that evening.

     Jacob and Bill go to eat dinner, and then walk around the city before deciding to go join Brett and Mike. When the arrive, Mike is very drunk, and continually declares how beautiful Brett is. After a short visit, Jacob and Bill decide to go see a boxing match, leaving Brett and a drunken Mike at the bar.

     The next morning, Jacob corresponds with Robert Cohn about Jacob and Bill meeting Robert in Spain for a fishing trip. Later that evening, Jacob meets Brett and Mike, where Mike is drunk again, and asks if he and Brett may join their fishing trip. Jacob politely agrees, and then walks Brett back to her hotel while Mike goes to get his hair cut. During their walk, Brett reveals that she was in San Sebastian with Robert Cohn, and wonders if it will be hard for him to see her with Mike on the fishing trip. When Jacob sees Brett again a few days later, she tells him that she wrote to Robert explaining the situation, and he responded that he would be happy to see her.

     The following morning, Jacob and Bill take the train to meet Robert Cohn in Bayonne, France. Once in Bayonne, the men plan to take a bus to Pamplona, Spain, but end up hiring a car when they are told that bus service hasn't begun yet. In Pamplona, Jacob, Bill and Robert discuss when Brett and Mike will arrive, and Robert seems sure that they won't be arriving that night as planned. Bill finds Robert's certainty to be smug, and they make a bet on when their companions will arrive. The three men separate for the afternoon, and at dinner they see that Robert has had a shave and his hair cut and styled, and is obviously nervous. Robert insists on leaving dinner to go to the train station to meet Brett and Mike in case they do arrive, and Jacob goes along with him. When the train arrives, Brett and Mike are not on it, and back at dinner a telegram is delivered to Jacob that reads, "Stopped night in San Sebastian." Jacob goes to bed early that night while Robert and Bill stay out late. In the morning, Jacob purchases bus tickets to Burguete, the town where they will fish. When Jacob sees Robert later that morning, Robert informs him that he won't be going to Burguete yet, because he made alternate plans to meet Brett in San Sebastian. This revelation annoys Jacob, and he doesn't understand why Robert left San Sebastian if he was planning to meet Brett there. When Robert goes off to the barber shop, Jacob sees Bill, who tells him Robert told him of his plans to meet Brett in San Sebastian the previous night. Robert and Bill go on to complain about Robert, saying that they find him awful in spite of his niceness.