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Summary

The narrator notes that Holly no longer calls him Fred and has stopped mentioning her brother. José moves into Holly’s apartment, and Holly begins to throw herself into homemaking, cooking with such ingredients as remain available under wartime rationing, and learning Portuguese. She happily tells the narrator that she is pregnant and fantasizes about moving to Brazil with José. Holly and the narrator fall back into their former, easy friendship.

One day, the two of them go horseback riding in Central Park. Holly tells the narrator that she and José leave for Brazil next week. Suddenly, a gang of boys appears. They deliberately startle the horses. The narrator’s horse bolts into the streets, taking the hapless narrator with it. Holly, with the help of a policeman on horseback, stops the narrator’s horse and saves him in front of a large crowd. He falls off its back, and Holly helps him home.

That night, Holly’s picture is on the front page of newspapers. She has been arrested for passing coded instructions (the “weather reports”) from Sally Tomato to his right-hand-man, Oliver O’Shaughnessy, on how to run Sally’s drug ring. The narrator and Joe wonder whom they could call to get Holly released. The narrator tries calling Mag, but she threatens to sue him if he publicly associates her and Rusty with Holly. The narrator eventually calls O.J. Berman, who bails Holly out. The next day, when the narrator goes to Holly’s apartment to feed her cat, he encounters José’s cousin collecting José’s belongings from the apartment. The cousin has a letter from José, to be given to Holly. 

The narrator visits Holly in a hospital room, where she tells him she lost the baby and nearly died. She has the narrator read her José’s letter, in which José breaks off their engagement because he is worried that Holly’s scandal will hurt his political career and his family name. Holly decides that she plans to skip bail and fly to Brazil without José, despite the narrator’s protestations that she will never be able to return home. She says the police want her to testify against Sally, but she never will because he treated her kindly. 

On the day of Holly’s flight, the narrator brings Holly’s belongings and her cat to Joe Bell’s bar, where Holly is waiting. The two of them toast her departure. Joe disapproves, but he calls a car for Holly. The narrator rides with Holly to the airport. On the way, Holly stops the car and leaves her cat on a sidewalk corner. She immediately regrets abandoning the cat and goes back to look for him, but to no avail. The narrator promises to go back to look for the cat and take care of him. 

The authorities make no serious attempt to find Holly overseas. The narrator receives one message from Holly, but she never provides a mailing address where she could be reached. He reflects on what he’d tell Holly if he could, and especially wishes that he could tell her that he found her cat living in a loving home, and that he hopes that she has found one, too.

Analysis

The last section of the book shows Holly throwing herself into the idea that a life with José might be her new future home. Having lost forever the dream of a future with Fred, she busies herself with distractions in the form of becoming a homemaker and learning Portuguese. Although the climax of Holly’s story comes during her arrest, the climax of the narrator’s story comes during his and Holly’s horseback ride, after she has told him she is flying to Brazil with José next week. He lets go of any complicated feelings about Holly and says that in that moment he “loved her enough to forget myself, my self-pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen.” The narrator’s emotional arc has been shaped by insecurity about his place in Holly’s life. Any jealousy he may have harbored dissolves, and he is freely, contentedly happy for Holly. A minute later, however, the narrator is jolted out of that peaceful, accepting state of mind as his startled horse breaks into a gallop.

Read an explanation of a quote about Holly’s relationship with Jose.

Holly’s arrest—the climax of the novella—is her greatest fear come true. Throughout the narrative, she has expressed a fear of being caged. Having her freedom stripped away, if only for a short time, is one of the worst things that could happen to her. Being asked to testify against Sally Tomato, someone who has been kind to her, violates her moral code. The fallout that comes in the wake of her arrest – José breaking their engagement off and Holly miscarrying – represents losing her new dream of home that she worked so hard to build after losing her dream of a home with Fred. To Holly, flying away, both literally and figuratively, is her only option. She seems to give up on the dream of home and belonging when she releases her cat into a random neighborhood on the way to the airport. Despite this, hope for Holly finding a place to belong remains when the narrator finds that the cat has found a loving home, where he most certainly has a name.

Read more about the theme of Freedom in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

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