The Pearl, Chapter 6 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. As the family leaves the town by night, why is Kino glad of the strong wind?

   • Correct answer: Its blowing sand will erase their footprints
   • Its howling covers the sound of their walking
   • Its noise frightens the coyotes and owls away
   • Its coolness relieves them as they travel

   Kino feels "the blown sand against his ankles" and is glad, "for he knew there would be no tracks." When the wind dies, he walks in a wheel-rut so that a passing cart can wipe out their footprints.

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2. 2

   Question 2. During the first day's rest, Kino looks into the pearl for his old visions. What does he see there instead?

   • The new clothing and harpoon he once imagined
   • A rifle, a church wedding, and Coyotito reading
   • Correct answer: A bleeding body and Juana's beaten face
   • The pearl buyers laughing behind their desks

   Kino speaks his old dreams aloud, but the pearl shows him "a huddled dark body on the ground" and Juana "with her beaten face crawling home through the night." The music of the pearl turns "sinister in his ears."

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3. 3

   Question 3. When Kino creeps back to the road to look along the way they came, whom does he see following their trail?

   • A heavy cart pulled by oxen, traveling toward town
   • Correct answer: Two trackers walking, followed by a rider carrying a rifle
   • Juan Tomás and two neighbors hurrying after them
   • Three horsemen riding together, carrying rifles

   Kino sees "three figures, two on foot and one on horseback": two trackers bent low, reading the ground, and behind them a dark man on a horse with a rifle across his saddle.

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4. 4

   Question 4. When Kino says, "Perhaps I should let them take me," what does Juana do?

   • She agrees that surrendering the pearl might protect the family
   • She urges him to abandon the pearl and escape alone
   • She insists he leave her behind and save himself
   • Correct answer: She argues the trackers would never let her or Coyotito live

   Juana is on her feet at once. "You have the pearl," she reminds him, and she asks, "Do you think they would let me live?" Her goading wakes Kino's fierceness, and he leads them toward the mountains.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Kino tells Juana to hide while he leads the trackers into the mountains. How does she answer?

   • She agrees, and carries the baby northward alone toward Loreto
   • She stays hidden, waiting patiently for his signal
   • She pleads with him to return to Juan Tomás's house
   • Correct answer: She refuses, insisting that she and the baby will go along

   Kino wants her to hide and then go north to Loreto or Santa Rosalia, but Juana answers, "We go with you." She will not give way, Kino takes strength from her, and when they move on "it was no longer panic flight."

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6. 6

   Question 6. Before hiding in the cave, why does Kino climb a hundred feet up the cliff beside the water and then come back down?

   • To discover a passage leading through the mountain range
   • Correct answer: To mislead the trackers into climbing farther upward
   • To collect wild grapes for the family's supper
   • To watch how quickly the trackers are approaching

   Kino claws at the ferns and wild grape as he climbs, then comes down and checks that the rock shoulder to the cave shows no trace. His plan is that when the trackers go up, the family will slip away to the lowlands. The trackers do see "Kino's progress up the cliff."

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7. 7

   Question 7. Why does the watcher raise his rifle and fire up toward the cave?

   • Correct answer: He hears a murmuring cry and suspects a coyote
   • He glimpses Kino's knife glinting in the moonlight
   • He notices Kino's shadow moving down the rock
   • He hears a pebble rolling loose under Kino's foot

   A little cry comes from above. The watcher says it sounded "like a baby," but the other man suggests a coyote pup. "Coyote maybe," the watcher says, and fires as Kino leaps. After the fight, Kino hears from the cave "the cry of death": the shot has killed Coyotito.

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8. 8

   Question 8. At the water's edge, Kino holds the pearl out to Juana. What does she do?

   • She suggests burying it in the sand beside the shore
   • She advises him to keep it and travel to the capital
   • Correct answer: She softly refuses, leaving the throwing to Kino
   • She accepts it, then hurls it toward the horizon

   Juana looks at the pearl, then into Kino's eyes, and says softly, "No, you." Kino draws back his arm and flings the pearl with all his might, and the two stand side by side watching the place where it fell "for a long time."

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events really happen in Chapter 6 of The Pearl?

   • Kino sweeps away their footprints with a branch where the family left the road.

     Happened

     At first light Kino breaks a branch and sweeps the footprints where they turned from the road, and he sweeps them again after a cart goes by.

   • Kino climbs down to the men at the pool with his knife held between his teeth.

     Didn't happen

     Kino hooks his amulet neck-string around the knife's horn handle so it hangs free, then turns it to hang down his back so it cannot clash against the stone.

   • Kino takes off his white clothes because they would show up against the dark night.

     Happened

     Juana sees him strip off his white clothes, which, dirty and ragged as they are, would show against the dark; his own brown skin hides him better.

   • Kino reaches the watcher and attacks before the moon comes up.

     Didn't happen

     He is too late: as he rises from his crouch, the edge of the moon slips above the horizon, and he sinks back behind his bush to wait for the watcher to turn his head.

   • The third man escapes up the cliff by climbing through the wild grapevine.

     Didn't happen

     The third man tries to climb the cliff through the wild grapevine, but Kino shoots him, and he tumbles backward into the pool.

   • Kino and Juana walk back into the town side by side, not in single file.

     Happened

     The townspeople see that the two do not walk Kino ahead and Juana behind, as usual, but side by side, Kino with a rifle and Juana with her bundle.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does "exhilaration" mean as used in: "there came a rush of exhilaration"?

    • Correct answer: A feeling of lively, thrilling excitement
    • A feeling of heavy, dragging weariness
    • The act of breathing out slowly and deeply
    • A feeling of calm relief after danger

    Exhilaration is a lively, thrilling excitement. Even through his fear of the dark, as the family flees by night, "some animal thing was moving in him" and Kino feels wary and dangerous.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does "germane" mean as used in: "Any sound that was not germane to the night would make them alert."?

    • Coming from a foreign country or people
    • Correct answer: Belonging naturally to; fitting the setting
    • Louder or sharper than what surrounds it
    • Hidden or kept secret from other people

    Germane means fitting or belonging to something. The tree frogs and cicadas belong to the night, but a sound that did not, such as "a rolling pebble or a sigh," would rouse the men by the pool.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does "malignant" mean as used in: "it was gray, like a malignant growth."?

    • Dull and colorless, without any shine
    • Harmless, gentle, and unlikely to spread
    • Misshapen or twisted out of its proper form
    • Correct answer: Harmful and spreading, tending to cause death

    Malignant means harmful and likely to spread and kill, as a deadly growth does. At the water's edge the pearl Kino looks into is "gray and ulcerous," no longer lovely but diseased.

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