Critical Reading The questions below are based on the following selection. The following excerpt comes from the short story “Mushrooms in the City” by Italo Calvino. . . . Thus, one morning, as he was waiting for the tram that would take him to Sbav and Co., where he was employed as an unskilled laborer, he noticed something unusual near the stop, in the sterile, encrusted strip of earth beneath the avenue’s line of trees; at certain points near the tree trunks, some bumps seemed to rise and, here and there, they had opened, allowing roundish subterranean bodies to peep out. Bending to tie his shoes, he took a better look: they were mushrooms, real mushrooms, sprouting right in the heart of the city! To Marcovaldo the gray and wretched world surrounding him seemed suddenly generous with hidden riches; something could still be expected of life, beyond the hourly wage of his stipulated salary, with inflation index, family grant, and cost-of-living allowance. On the job he was more absent-minded than usual: he kept thinking that while he was there unloading cases and boxes, in the darkness of the earth the slow, silent mushrooms, known only to him, were ripening their porous flesh, were assimilating underground humors, breaking the crust of clods. “One night’s rain would be enough,” he said to himself, “then they would be ready to pick.” And he couldn’t wait to share his discovery with his wife and his six children. “I’m telling you!” he announced during their scant supper. “In a week’s time we’ll be eating mushrooms! A great fry! That’s a promise!” And to the smaller children, who did not know what mushrooms were, he explained ecstatically the beauty of the numerous species, the delicacy of their flavor, the way they should be cooked: and so he also drew into the discussion his wife, Domitilla, who until then had appeared rather incredulous and abstracted. “Where are these mushrooms?” the children asked. “Tell us where they grow!” At this question Marcovaldo’s enthusiasm was curbed by a suspicious thought: Now if I tell them the place, they’ll go and hunt for them with the usual gang of kids, word will spread through the neighborhood, and the mushrooms will end up in somebody else’s pan! And so that discovery, which had promptly filled his heart with universal love, now made him wildly possessive, surrounded him with jealous and trusting fear. “I know where the mushrooms are, and I’m the only one who knows,” he said to his children, “and God help if you breathe a word to anybody . . . ” In the course of this passage, a conflict is seen to develop a. between Marcovaldo and his family. b. between Marcovaldo and the mushrooms. c. within Marcovaldo. d. between Marcovaldo and the world. Please select the best answer from the choices provided A B C D