Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo & Margaret Sayers Peden (translator)

Author:Juan Rulfo & Margaret Sayers Peden (translator)
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fantasy, Classics, Literature
ISBN: 9780802133908
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1955-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

"Miguel's going to give you a lot of headaches, don Pedro. He likes to wrangle."

"Give him his head. He's just a boy. How old is he now? Going on seventeen, Fulgor?"

"About that. I can remember when they brought him here; it seems like yesterday. But he's wild, and he lives so fast that sometimes it appears to me he's racing with time. He'll be the one to lose that game. You'll see."

"He's still a baby, Fulgor."

"Whatever you say, don Pedro; but that woman who came here yesterday, weeping and accusing your son of killing her husband, was not to be consoled. I know how to judge grief, don Pedro, and that woman was carrying a heavy load. I offered her a hundred and fifty bushels of maize to overlook the matter, but she wouldn't take it. Then I promised we'd make things right somehow. She still wasn't satisfied."

"What was it all about?"

"I don't know the people involved."

"There's nothing to worry about, Fulgor. Those people don't really count."

Fulgor went to the storage bins, where he could feel the warmth of the maize. He took a handful and examined it to see whether it had been infested with weevils. He measured the height in the bins. "It'll do," he said. "As soon as we have grass we won't have to feed grain anymore. So there's more than enough."

As he walked back he gazed at the overcast sky. "We'll have rain for a good while." And he forgot about everything else.

The weather must be changing up there. My mother used to tell me how as soon as it began to rain everything was filled with light and with the green smell of growing things.

She told me how the waves of clouds drifted in, how they emptied themselves upon the earth and transformed it, changing all the colors. My mother lived her childhood and her best years in this town, but couldn't even come here to die. And so she sent me in her place.

It's strange, Dorotea, how I never saw the sky. At least it should have been the sky she knew."

"I don't know, Juan Preciado. After so many years of never lifting up my head, I forgot about the sky. And even if I had looked up, what good would it have done? The sky is so high and my eyes so clouded that I was happy just knowing where the ground was. Besides, I lost all interest after padre Renteria told me I would never know glory. Or even see it from a distance. . . . It was because of my sins, but he didn't have to tell me that. Life is hard enough as it is. The only thing that keeps you going is the hope that when you die you'll be lifted off this mortal coil; but when they close one door to you and the only one left open is the door to Hell, you're better off not being born. . . . For me, Juan Preciado, heaven is right here.

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