Home › NY Regents English Language Arts › English › Reading Comprehension: Short Fiction › Read these lines: "He raised it to his lips with…
Read these lines: "He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled. I drink, he said, to the buried that repose around us. And I to your long life." The exchange of toasts is grimly funny because
Aeach man drinks to a fate the other is about to meet
Bneither man knows the names of the buried around them
Cthe wine has begun to work on both of the two men
Dthe bells announce the toast to everyone in the vaults
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. each man drinks to a fate the other is about to meet
1. The first man drinks to the dead who lie in the vault around them.
2. Within a short time he will be walled up among those same dead, so his toast lands on himself.
3. The second man answers by drinking to a long life for a man he has already decided to bury.
4. Each toast therefore points at the other speaker's fate, which is option A.
5. Option C notices the drinking but not the meaning, and the humour here comes from the words, not the wine.
_Source: Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado, public domain_
Related questions
Read these lines: "And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you note the peculiar coRead these lines: "It read in this fashion: THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE IS DISSOLVED. We surveyeRead these lines about the terms of a post: "Well, you have to be in the office, or at leaRead these lines: "I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now I only keep one; and Read these lines: "With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelleRead these lines about an assistant: "Never was such a fellow for photography. Snapping awRead these lines: "Our visitor bore every mark of being an average commonplace British traRead these lines from a newspaper notice: "There is now another vacancy open which entitle