The romantic character of the place delighted me; i was very much amused by the air of adventure and intrigue that prevailed in this region of masks and gondolas; and i was exceedingly smitten by a pair of languishing black eyes, that played upon my heart from under an italian mantle. so i persuaded myself that i was lingering at venice to study men and manners.

at least i persuaded my friends so, and that answered all my purpose. what statement best describes the narrator in this excerpt?
a. the narrator is satisfied with his studies in venice.
b. the narrator is not entirely truthful about his reasons for staying in venice.
c. the narrator has established lasting friendships during his stay in venice. d. the narrator is unfamiliar with the italian culture in venice.

What background knowledge would best support this inference about mario?

[1] nothing that comes from the desert expresses its extremes better than the unhappy growth of the tree yuccas. tormented, thin forests of it stalk drearily in the high mesas, particularly in that triangular slip that fans out eastward from the meeting of the sierras and coastwise hills. the yucca bristles with bayonet-pointed leaves, dull green, growing shaggy with age like an old [5] man's tangled gray beard, tipped with panicles of foul, greenish blooms. after its death, which is slow, the ghostly hollow network of its woody skeleton, with hardly power to rot, makes even the moonlight fearful. but it isn't always this way. before the yucca has come to flower, while yet its bloom is a luxurious, creamy, cone-shaped bud of the size of a small cabbage, full of sugary sap. the indians twist it deftly out of its fence of daggers and roast the prize for their [10] own delectation why does the author use the words "bayonet-pointed" (line 4) and "fence of daggers" (line 9) to describe the leaves of the yucca tree? . to create an image of the sharp edges of the plant to emphasize how beautiful the plant's leaves are to explain when and where the plant grows to show how afraid the author is of the plant

Attempting to transcend her condition the author tries to focus on nature as she lies limpin the dirt (lines 46-78).what does she realize about the earth and sky as she lies there