Reading Response: Chinua Achebe's The Sacrificial Egg

In Chinua Achebe's "The Sacrificial Egg," the language lends an air of uncertainty and provides cultural depth. The description of smallpox as an evil goddess lent intensity to the seriousness of the threat, without any doubt about its veracity. However, I had a hard time determining what else was real or not. Did Julius cause his finance's death by stepping on the egg? Julius is obviously terrified of the the spirits, and he says they are real. Yet he acknowledges near the end that the spirits are teenagers dressed up in costumes.