Section 10: The Rope, Vocations, The Thyrsus & Get Yourself Drunk Summary

In "The Rope", the narrator opens with a paragraph stating that illusions and reality are often different except for a mother's love. The narrator tells a story from the point of view of an artist who is taken by the face of a young boy. He was so taken that he frequently had the child pose for him and eventually he begged the poor boy's parents to relieve him to his care. He provided the child with the fineries of life, but the child was yet stricken with fits of melancholy and thievery. The artist was taken away on business, and upon his return he found the boy hanging dead from an armoire. Fighting fear, the narrator musters the courage to tell the child's parents of his...