Summary

In Chapter VI, “The Cage of Voices,” as Juan nears death, he begins to hear voices. People are coming to bid him goodbye. Meanwhile, Juan’s memory worsens (253).

Juan tells the narrator “fragments” and “snippets” of what the voices tell him during their visitations (254). The narrator realizes Juan will “soon die” (255).

Juan becomes increasingly preoccupied with the voices. Unable to reach Juan, the narrator loses himself in the books, desperate to understand their meaning. When the narrator asks Juan about what he is hearing and experiencing, Juan can only recall “shapes of color, impressions” (257). The narrator at times tries to draw Juan out of his trances. One day, Juan speaks “without consciousness,” revealing that he sees the narrator in the dark of his mind (260). In the hallucination, the narrator is “banished to limbo” because he “could” and “would not die” (260).

When Juan awakens...