Explore "The Nine Guardians" by Rosario Castellanos on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
We have a number of fairs every year in Comitán, but none so gay and lively as that of San Caralampio. He is renowned for his miracles, and flocks of pilgrims come from long distances to pray before his image. It was carved in Guatemala, and shows him kneeling, with a long white beard and a glow of saintliness, while over his head the executioner has poised his axe for the death blow. (It's known the executioner was a Jew.) But nowadays people have to remain outside the church door, which is closed like the rest of them by government orders. That isn't sufficient reason to put off the fair, so in the plaza round the church they are setting up stalls and switchbacks.
Hawkers come down from San Cristobal loaded with wares: dried fruit; pickles; badly made rag dolls with their cheeks painted a scandalous red to leave no doubt they're from the cold lands; clay shepherds with thick ankles; legs of mutton made of cotton wool; caskets of varnished wood; coarse-woven cloth.