Step 2: Continue reading the short story and then answer the following questions.

. . . No matter how often we tell ourselves that years are made of days, and days of hours, and that nine years is an abstraction, an impossible sum, the story still horrifies and appalls. I suspect that in the darkness that his eyes learned to fathom, he came not to think of anything—not even his hatred or his danger. He was simply there, in the cellar. Now and again, echoes of that world he could not enter would reach him from above: his wife's footsteps as she went about her routine, the thump of the water pump and the pail, the pelting of rain in the patio. Every day, too, might be his last.

4     His wife gradually got rid of all the servants; they were capable of informing on them. She told her family that her husband was in Uruguay. She earned a living for the two of them by sewing for the army. In the course of time she had two children; her family, attributing the children to a lover, repudiated her. After the fall of the tyrant they got down on their knees to her and begged forgiveness.

5     What, who, was Pedro Salvadores? Was he imprisoned by terror, love, the invisible presence of Buenos Aires, or, in the final analysis, habit? To keep him from leaving her, his wife would give him vague news of conspiracies and victories. Perhaps he was a coward, and his wife faithfully hid from him that she knew that. I picture him in his cellar, perhaps without even an oil lamp, or a book. The darkness would draw him under, into sleep. He would dream, at first, of the dreadful night when the knife would seek the throat, or dream of open streets, or of the plains. Within a few years, he would be incapable of fleeing, and he would dream of the cellar. At first he was a hunted man, a man in danger; later . . . we will never know—a quiet animal in its burrows, or some sort of obscure deity?

6     All this, until that summer day in 1852 when the dictator Rosas fled the country. It was then that the secret man emerged into the light of day; my grandfather actually spoke with him. Puffy, slack-muscled, and obese, Pedro Salvadores was the color of wax, and he spoke in a faint whisper. The government had confiscated his land; it was never returned to him. I believe he died in poverty.

      We see the fate of Pedro Salvadores, like all things, as a symbol of something that we are just on the verge of understanding . . .

—Borges, Collected Fictions, trans. Andrew Hurley, p. 337

		6. "I suspect that in the darkness that his eyes learned to fathom, he came not to think of anything—not even his hatred or his danger." What does this statement contradict?    a. The author's admiration for the mazorcas.   b. Salvadores's promise to his wife.   c. The author's admiration for Rosas.   d. The author's earlier promise not to use speculative conjectures.
		7. The wife probably dismissed their servants because she     a. could not manage them alone.   b. no longer needed additional help.   c. was afraid they would discover her husband and tell the authorities.   d. was having an affair and did not want to be discovered.
		8. Which is not one of the difficulties Salvadores's wife experienced while her husband lived in the cellar?    a. She worked making uniforms.   b. She fell in love with one of the soldiers but did not want to endanger her husband's life.   c. She gave birth to two children.   d. She was shamed by her relatives, who believed she was unfaithful to her husband while he was absent.
		9. "After the fall of the tyrant they got down on their knees to her and begged forgiveness." By this sentence the author implies     a. Rosas' campaign was successful.   b. They were hoping that Salvadores would share his new wealth with them.   c. Salvadores returned safely from Montevideo.   d. They apologized when they learned the truth about all Salvadores' wife had endured for nine years.
		10. "We see the fate of Pedro Salvadores, like all things, as a symbol of something that we are just on the verge of understanding . . ." By this last sentence the author implies that     a. although self-preservation is a first natural reaction, Salvadores's decision was not worth the price.   b. saving himself was a courageous act.   c. Salvadores did what most wealthy men would have done in order to protect his property.   d. Salvadores made a great sacrifice for his wife.