Explore "The Nine Guardians" by Rosario Castellanos on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Nana leads me through the street by the hand. The pavements are flagstones, polished and slippery. The street is cobbled. Little stones are arranged like petals in a flower. From between the joints grows short grass which the Indians tear up with the points of their machetes. There are carts drawn by sleepy bullocks; and ponies that strike sparks with their hoofs; and old horses tied to posts by their halters. All day they remain there, heads hanging, ears sadly twitching. We've just passed one. I held my breath and pressed close to the wall, afraid that any minute the horse would bare its great yellow teeth-and he has such lots of them-and bite my arm. I'd be ashamed, because my arms are very skinny and the horse might laugh.
The balconies are forever staring into the street, watching it go uphill and down and the way it turns the corners. Watching the gentlemen pass with their mahogany canes; the ranchers dragging their spurs as they walk; the Indians running under their heavy burdens. And at all times the diligent trotting donkeys loaded with water in wooden tubs. It must be nice to be like the balconies, always idle, absent-minded, just looking on. When I'm grown up. .