Explore "The Nine Guardians" by Rosario Castellanos on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It is already broad day when we leave Comitán. Father and Ernesto ride ahead on horseback. My mother, brother, and I in sedan chairs carried by Indians. We go at the pace of the slowest. The sun pricks through the canopy hung over our heads, made of Guatemalan cloth. The air is thick and hot under the cloth, and suffocates me.
The moors are long in passing. And when they do, the mountains rise with their hundred flinty knives and their rugged paths. I measure the height we're at by the panting of the Indian who carries me. Level with us go the pines. They catch the wind with their hands so crowded with fingers, and by the time they set it loose again it is anointed with wholesome resins. Among the rocks grows a sturdy blue flower that sends out a sharp scent of pollen where the bee buzzes drunkenly. The earth is thick-grained and black.