Explore "The Nine Guardians" by Rosario Castellanos on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"It's been impossible for us to obtain an audience with the Governor yet. Jaime and I have been to the Palace every day. We sit and wait in a cramped, stuffy room, with dozens of people who have come from all over the State to set their affairs in order. They don't call us by turn, but according to the importance of our business. And judging by the way the politicians of today are thinking, it's much more urgent to patch the peasant-farmer's homespun trousers than to see justice done to the patrón. Perhaps that's why a lot of those who were with us earlier, asking for their lands to be returned, have got tired of waiting and have gone away. But I still believe we mustn't give up hope. Chactajal will be ours again. Not under the same conditions as before, we mustn't deceive ourselves about that. But we'll be able to go back there and live. So that Mario can grow up on the land that will one day be his, and so that he'll be able to take care of it and love it.
"The whole thing is to have patience and be sly. We've had dealings with lots of people since we've been here. Of course we try to see that such people are important and influential in the Government. It's essential to treat them well, wait on them, manoeuvre them. It's the done thing here to take cool drinks or iced beer because it's so hot. It's not thought beneath one's dignity as it is in Comitán for gentlemen to go into a drinking house. Anyway it's difficult at first sight to distinguish an educated man from a common one. The climate allows only of light-weight garments, and everyone goes about in the same rough dress. The waistcoats you packed for me aren't much use here. I haven't had a chance to wear them even once. But apart from the climate and the clothes, there are really no gentlemen, because practically all the inhabitants of Tuxtla live at the expense of the exchequer and have jobs with miserable salaries. It shouldn't be difficult to bribe them and get them to help us fix our affairs. You know how ashamed I am to resort to such measures, but we have no alternative. I don't propose to stop at anything to gain my ends. I swear to you I won't return to Comitán without the necessary papers guaranteeing that we can live on the farm again.