Chapter 9 Summary

Memoir--This short piece embodies all the cruelty, ineptitude, courage, and madness attendant on the blood-sport of bullfighting. It begins with the performances of two less-than-skilled matadors, one who gets booed by the crowd when he gets a horn through his sword hand and cannot continue, and a second bullfighter, who slips and gets gored, leaps up and tries to punch the men who are carrying him away, and then faints. Since the bullfight can have only three matadors, the third fighter, a young man whom the narrator calls the kid, has to kill all the remaining bulls. At the end of this marathon of killing, the matador is so exhausted, he sits down in the sand and vomits while the crowd hoots and throws things down into the ring.

Story--The story, "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot," paints a picture of the life of prudish...