"Steinbeck, John - The Pearl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steinbeck John)

THE PEARL
by

John Steinbeck









First published in the Woman's Home Companion as
"The Pearl of the World".
Copyright John Steinbeck, 1945.
Copyright renewed Elaine Steinbeck
John Steinbeck IV
and Thom Steinbeck, 1973.



"In the town they tell the story of the great pearl- how it was found and how it was lost again. They
tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story
has been told so often, it has taken root in every man's mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in
people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil
things and no in-between anywhere.
"If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes his own meaning from it and reads his own life into
it. In any case, they say in the town that..."



CHAPTER I

Kino awakened in the near dark. The stars still shone and the day had drawn only a pale wash of
light in the lower sky to the east. The roosters had been crowing for some time, and the early pigs
were already beginning their ceaseless turning of twigs and bits of wood to see whether anything to
eat had been overlooked. Outside the brush house in the tuna clump, a covey of little birds chittered
and flurried with their wings.
Kino's eyes opened, and he looked first at the lightening square which was the door and
then he looked at the hanging box where Coyotito slept. And last he turned his head to Juana, his
wife, who lay beside him on the mat, her blue head shawl over her nose and over her breasts and
around the small of her back. Juana's eyes were open too. Kino could never remember seeing them
closed when he awakened. Her dark eyes made little reflected stars. She was looking at him as she
was always looking at him when he awakened.
Kino heard the little splash of morning waves on the beach. It was very good- Kino closed
his eyes again to listen to his music. Perhaps he alone did this and perhaps all of his people did it. His
people had once been great makers of songs so that everything they saw or thought or did or heard
became a song. That was very long ago. The songs remained; Kino knew them, but no new songs
were added. That does not mean that there were no personal songs. In Kino's head there was a