Paris in the twenties Pernod parties & expatriate Americans loose-living on money from home Jake is wildly in love with Brett Ashley aristocratic & irresistibly beautiful with an abandoned sensuous nature that she cannot change When the couple drift to Spain to the dazzle of the fiesta & the heady atmosphere of the Bullfight their affair is strained by new passions new jealousies & Jake must finally learn that he will never possess the woman that he loves