He felt the creeping of fate, the circling of wolves, the hover of vultures. It was comparative wealth to a man who was not wealthy. And after all, a thousand pesos was not to be thrown away. They had been suspicious of it from the first. The pearl was large, but it had a strange color. They had been afraid of something like this.
Just say that I will be pleased to see them.\" And his right hand went behind the desk and pulled another coin from his pocket, and the coin rolled back and forth over the knuckles. Ask them to step in here and do not tell them why. And when his servant looked through the rear door, \"Boy, go to such a one, and such another one and such a third one. Go to their offices and show your pearl-or better let them come here, so that you can see there is no collusion. And the dealer felt a little tremor of fear. You want to cheat me.\" And the dealer heard a little grumble go through the crowd as they heard his price.
I can give you, say, a thousand pesos.\" Kino's face grew dark and dangerous. As a curiosity it has interest some museum might perhaps take it to place in a collection of sea shells. \"No one has ever seen such a pearl.\" \"On the contrary,\" said the dealer, \"it is large and clumsy. \"It isĥ0 JOHN STEINBECK the Pearl of the World,\" he cried. You thought it was a thing of value, and it is only a curiosity.\" Now Kino's face was perplexed and worried. Who would buy it? There is no market for such things. \"You have heard of fool's gold,\" the dealer said. that it bounced and rebounded softly from the side of the vel vet tray. The dealer's fingers spurned the pearl so. \"It is a pearl of great value,\" Kino said. \"I am sorry, my friend,\" he said, and his shoulders rose a little to indicate that the misfortune was n� fault of his. The hand tossed the great pearl back in the tray, the forefinger poked and insulted it, and on the dealer's face there came a sad and contemptuous smile. tioned yet-They have not come to a price.\" Now the dealer's hand had become a personality. \"He is inspecting it-No price has been men. Kino held his breath, and the neighbors held their breath, and the whispering went back through the crowd. When the right hand came out of hiding, the forefinger touched the great pearl, rolled it on the black velvet thumb and forefin ger picked it up and brought it near to the dealer's eyes and twirled it in the air. And the fingers behind the desk curled into a fist. The coin stumbled over a knuckle and slipped silently into the dealer's lap.
But there was no sign, no movement, the face did not change, but the secret hand behind the desk missed in its precision. The third-person narrator indicates, however, that Mama realizes and fears that Pepe will become a man too soon, although she does not realize how soon.THE PEARL 49 took from it the soft and dirty piece of deerskin, and then he let the great pearl roll into the black velvet tray, and instantly his eyes went to the buyer's face. Mama merely scoffs and reminds him that he is a young boy. Pepe promises Mama that he will be careful, for he is a man now. Mama even lets Pepe wear his father’s hat and green silk scarf tied around his neck. Pepe, excited that his mother is allowing him to make such a journey alone, takes her decision as a sign that he will finally become a man and assume the responsibilities of his deceased father. One beautiful day Mama decides to send Pepe to Monterey to fetch medicine for the family. The protagonist in the story is Pepe, whom his mother refers to as nothing more than a “lazy peanut.” Apparently Pepe has spent his entire life in indolent ease, basking in the warm sunshine on his mother’s small farm in California. It is a carefully constructed coming-of-age tale that chronicles a 19-year-old boy’s ascent to manhood, quick regression to hunted animal, and thence to his “manly” and untimely death. John Steinbeck‘s “Flight” first appeared in his collection of short stories The Long Valley in 1938.