The reason that Brett breaks up with Romero is because she
does not want to ruin him. She tells Jake,
"He is only nineteen...youo know I'd have lived
with him if I hadn't seen it was bad for him...I'm not going to be one of these bitches
that ruins children."
Romero
is a young bull fighter with amazing talent and a bright future before him. His handlers
have been trying to make sure that he not be "spoiled" by distractions which would
divert him from his goals, and they are quite disconcerted when Jake introduces him to
Brett. Brett, representative of the "Lost Generation," is self-centered and
aimless, accustomed to using people for her own edification. It is a sign of growth in
her that she is able to recognize that Romero really is something special, and that she
has the power to ruin him. It is difficult for Brett, because, as she says, she and
Romero "got along damned well," but she somehow finds the strength to make him leave,
after he expresses the desire to marry her. Brett recognizes the shallow emptiness that
characterizes her life, and does not want to drag Romero down with her. She resolves to
go back to Mike, who, like herself, is
"so damned nice and...awful...my sort of
thing."
Brett acknowledges
that it feels "rather good" to do the right thing, to decide "not to be a bitch." She
compares her noble action to "what we have instead of God;" in the morally bankrupt
landscape in which she and her contemporaries live, there is an absence of God and
hopefulness, and in lieu of these things, Brett can look for affirmation in the spark of
decency that still resides within her (Chapter 19).
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