Chapter 2 Summary

The narrator describes the room in which he is writing his memoirs, the library of his home. The room is filled with many books, books he inherited from his parents and could not part with. The narrator has no pets and no companions, only the housekeeper who continues to come once a week to care for him despite her own failing health. The narrator thinks about his mother and relates the story of how on her deathbed she asked her only child to get married and have a daughter whom he would name after his mother, a name that has been in her family for many generations. Once the narrator came close to fulfilling that promise. The narrator had been visiting the home of a family friend when he accidentally walked in on their daughter, Ximena, naked. The narrator fell in lust for...