The Pearl by John Steinbeck Page A

faces and cast down their eyes. Kino and Juan Tomás, his brother, stood up. The priest came in—a graying, aging man with an old skin and a young sharp eye. Children, he considered these people, and he treated them like children.
    “Kino,” he said softly, “thou art named after a great man—and a great Father of the Church.” He made it sound like a benediction. “Thy namesake tamed the desert and sweetened the minds of thy people, didst thou know that? It is in the books.”
    Kino looked quickly down at Coyotito’s head, where he hung on Juana’s hip. Some day, his mind said, that boy would know what things were in the books and what things were not. The music had gone out of Kino’s head, but now, thinly, slowly, the melody of the morning, the music of evil, of the enemy sounded, but it was faint and weak. And Kino looked at his neighbors to see who might have brought this song in.
    But the priest was speaking again. “It has come to me that thou hast found a great fortune, a great pearl.”
    Kino opened his hand and held it out, and the priest gasped a little at the size and beauty of the pearl. And then he said, “I hope thou wilt remember to give thanks, my son, to Him who has given thee this treasure, and to pray for guidance in the future.”
    Kino nodded dumbly, and it was Juana who spoke softly. “We will, Father. And we will be married now. Kino has said so.” She looked at the neighbors for confirmation, and they nodded their heads solemnly.
    The priest said, “It is pleasant to see that your first thoughts are good thoughts. God bless you, my children.” He turned and left quietly, and the people let him through.
    But Kino’s hand had closed tightly on the pearl again,and he was glancing about suspiciously, for the evil song was in his ears, shrilling against the music of the pearl.
    The neighbors slipped away to go to their houses, and Juana squatted by the fire and set her clay pot of boiled beans over the little flame. Kino stepped to the doorway and looked out. As always, he could smell the smoke from many fires, and he could see the hazy stars and feel the damp of the night air so that he covered his nose from it. The thin dog came to him and threshed itself in greeting like a windblown flag, and Kino looked down at it and didn’t see it. He had broken through the horizons into a cold and lonely outside. He felt alone and unprotected, and scraping crickets and shrilling tree frogs and croaking toads seemed to be carrying the melody of evil. Kino shivered a little and drew his blanket more tightly against his nose. He carried the pearl still in his hand, tightly closed in his palm, and it was warm and smooth against his skin.
    Behind him he heard Juana patting the cakes before she put them down on the clay cooking sheet. Kino felt all the warmth and security of his family behind him, and the Song of the Family came from behind him like the purring of a kitten. But now, by saying what his future was going to be like, he had created it. A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes a reality along with other realities—never to be destroyed but easily to be attacked. Thus Kino’s future was real, but having set it up, other forces were set up to destroy it, and this he knew, so that he had to prepare to meet the attack. And this Kino knew also—that the gods do not love men’s plans, and the gods do not love success unless it comes by accident. He knew that the gods take their revenge on a man if he be successful through his ownefforts. Consequently Kino was afraid of plans, but having made one, he could never destroy it. And to meet the attack, Kino was already making a hard skin for himself against the world. His eyes and his mind probed for danger before it appeared.
    Standing in the door, he saw two men approach; and one of them carried a lantern which lighted the ground and the legs of the men. They turned in through the opening