The Paris Wife

The narrative switches to Ernest’s perspective. He remembers when his affair with Pauline began.

One night when Hadley is sick, Ernest walks Pauline home and kisses her. They meet again and go to her apartment, where their affair begins. Torn between Hadley and Pauline, he rationalizes the triangle by thinking of other writers with complicated marriages, like Ezra Pound and Ford Madox Ford.

Still in the Loire, Hadley watches Jinny comfort Pauline and realizes that Pauline loves Ernest. She asks Jinny, who confirms it. The three women return to Paris in silence.

At their apartment, Hadley confronts Ernest. He refuses to answer and storms out. Marie Cocotte, who is now helping with Bumby as well, finds Hadley crying. Ernest returns late and drunk. When Hadley tells him to go to Pauline, he says she has gone to Bologna. Hadley slaps him. He blames her for ruining their marriage by speaking of his affair. They agree he will still leave for Spain as planned.

By late May, Ernest is in Madrid. Hadley is too upset to perform and decides to cancel her concert. Kitty Cannell reveals that Ernest and Pauline’s affair is common gossip. Gerald and Sara Murphy invite Hadley and Bumby to their home, Villa America, in Cap d’Antibes. Bumby falls ill with whooping cough and must be quarantined. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald loan them their villa for the quarantine.

Ernest arrives. The Murphys throw a party where a drunken Scott makes a scene. The next morning, Scott helps Ernest edit The Sun Also Rises, cutting the first 15 pages. Zelda confronts Ernest and dives recklessly from high rocks. Pauline arrives and joins Ernest’s new social circle.

The narrative switches to Ernest’s perspective. Through the summer, Ernest feels trapped by the affair. He contemplates dying by suicide and writes out methods in a notebook. He remembers lying wounded in Fossalta and considering ending the pain. He promises himself that if he cannot resolve the situation by Christmas, he will kill himself. He loves Hadley but also accepts Pauline’s talk of marriage. Unable to choose, he returns to his writing.

In early June, the trio moves into two hotel rooms in Juan-les-Pins. Ernest writes in a separate studio each morning. Hadley and Pauline bicycle and swim together. Hadley soon realizes Pauline disappears each afternoon to visit Ernest in his studio.

Pauline proposes they all move to her family’s town in Arkansas. When Hadley confronts Ernest, he confirms the plan. That night, Hadley pretends to sleep as Pauline gets into bed with them.

The next morning, they have breakfast together. Hadley goes for a long swim, imagining letting the sea take her before turning back. Later, Pauline leads her to a high rock and encourages her to dive. Pauline and Ernest both leap and then look up at Hadley.

Hadley refuses to jump. She walks back to the hotel alone. After Pauline leaves her room, Hadley tells Ernest he has destroyed what they had and suggests he take Pauline to that night’s party as his wife.

The group’s trip to Pamplona is miserable. Pauline returns to Paris early. Hadley and Ernest continue to San Sebastian and quarrel until they accept that the marriage has ended. Back at Villa America, they tell the Murphys and Don Stewart that they will separate. Gerald offers Ernest his Paris studio.

On the night train to Paris, they share brandy. The train goes by a farmhouse burning in the dark, and they watch it together. In Paris, Hadley is distraught. Ernest takes her to the studio and stays until she sleeps. She wakes alone, leaves a note, and finds a hotel for herself and Bumby, not wanting to go back to their apartment. She never does.

Don Stewart urges Hadley to fight for her marriage. Hadley proposes terms to Ernest: a 100-day separation from Pauline with no contact. If he still wants Pauline after that, she will grant a divorce. Ernest accepts, and Pauline leaves for America.

Ernest starts visiting Hadley and Bumby for dinner. Their old comfort returns, and he spends the night. In the morning, he upsets her by focusing on Pauline’s suffering under the agreement, revealing his divided loyalties.

The narrative switches to Ernest’s perspective. He thinks about the pressures that led to the rupture. He recalls Gerald Murphy’s advice that Hadley was too careful for his art. He also remembers Pauline insisting that he declare he loves her more than Hadley. He considers his own duplicity and views the loss of his manuscripts as the moment his trust was broken, a “flawed keystone” warping everything he built.

In autumn, Ernest brings Hadley a finished copy of The Sun Also Rises, dedicated to her and Bumby. Friends take sides, and Hadley feels cut off. She travels with Kitty Cannell to Chartres. In the cathedral, she thinks about her vows. After a week, she returns to her hotel.

She writes to Ernest to end the 100-day pact, releasing him to marry Pauline. In his reply, he thanks her and confirms that she will receive the novel’s royalties. She accepts the finality of their choice.

In spring 1927, Hadley and Bumby sail to the United States and rent a house in Carmel, California. A letter arrives with news that Ernest and Pauline have married in Paris. She takes Bumby and the letter to the beach.

She folds the letter into a paper boat. They wade into the surf and set it on the water, watching the waves carry it away until it vanishes.

Hadley and Bumby later return to Paris, where she marries American journalist Paul Mowrer. In 1928, Ernest and Pauline leave Paris for the United States. Hadley keeps track of Ernest’s public triumphs and private turmoil through his subsequent marriages.

In May 1961, Ernest telephones Hadley while working on his Paris memoir, A Moveable Feast, and expresses deep regret. In July, his fourth wife, Mary, announces his death by suicide. Supported by Paul, Hadley grieves, looking back on her youth, holding both love and loss without bitterness.