The Pearl

by John Steinbeck

Song of the Family.

Kino watched with the detachment of God while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the sand trap an ant lion had dug for him.

They had spoken once, but there is not need for speech if it is only a habit anyway.

Kino sighed with satisfaction—and that was conversation.

In his mind a new song had come, the Song of Evil, the music of the enemy, of any foe of the family, a savage, secret, dangerous melody, and underneath, the Song of the Family cried plaintively.

Thus it might be that the people of the Gulf trust things of the spirit and things of the imagination, but they do not trust their eyes to show them distance or clear outline or any optical exactness.

There was no certainty in seeing, no proof that what you saw was there or was not there. And the people of the Gulf expected all places were that way, and it was not strange to them.

But the pearls were accidents, and the finding of one was luck, a little pat on the back by God or the gods or both.

It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with God or the gods.

In this Gulf of uncertain light there were more illusions than realities.

it was the hand he had smashed against the doctor’s gate, and the torn flesh of the knuckles was turned grayish white by the sea water.

A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns, so that there are no two towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion.

The doctor looked past his aged patient and saw himself sitting in a restaurant in Paris and a waiter was just opening a bottle of wine.

Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, and Kino’s pearl went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers, of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so that he became curiously every man’s enemy.

The news stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town; the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld. The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.

For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.

“This is what the pearl will do,” said Kino.

the Song of the Family came from behind him like the purring of a kitten.

He must break out of the pot that holds us in.”

“We do know that we are cheated from birth to the overcharge on our coffins.

“What have I to fear but starvation?”

He heard every little sound of the gathering night, the sleepy complaint of settling birds, the love agony of cats, the strike and withdrawal of little waves on the beach, and the simple hiss of distance.

Sometimes the quality of woman, the reason, the caution, the sense of preservation, could cut through Kino’s manness and save them all.

He was an animal now, for hiding, for attacking, and he lived only to preserve himself and his family.

“This pearl has become my soul,” said Kino. “If I give it up I shall lose my soul. Go thou also with God.”