Second night attack and Kino kills a man
The second night attack on Kino's house marks the irreversible point of no return in The Pearl. After the pearl buyers' collusive lowball offer and Kino's defiant refusal, the forces of greed and violence that had been gathering around the great pearl finally strike directly. Kino kills a man in the darkness, and the discovery of the corpse by Juana shatters any remaining hope that the family can return to their old life. This event transforms Kino from a hopeful father into a hunted fugitive and seals the tragic trajectory of the story.
The Attack and the Killing
After the failed attempt to sell the pearl, Kino sits brooding on his sleeping mat, his senses burningly alive to the "wary, watchful evil outside the brush house." He feels the dark creeping things waiting for him, and though it is shadowy and dreadful, it calls to him and challenges him. He stands up, walks to the doorway, and steps outside into the night. Juana wills to stop him, raising her hand with terror, but she cannot. She hears a little rush, a grunting struggle, and a blow. Frozen for a moment, she then seizes a stone from the fireplace and rushes outside, but it is over. Kino lies on the ground struggling to rise, with no one near him—only the shadows, the strike and rush of waves, and the hiss of distance. The evil is all about, hidden behind the brush fence, crouched beside the house in the shadow, hovering in the air. Juana drops her stone, puts her arms around Kino, and helps him into the house. Blood oozes down from his scalp, and there is a long deep cut in his cheek from ear to chin, a deep, bleeding slash. Kino is only half conscious, shaking his head from side to side, his shirt torn open and his clothes half pulled off. Juana sits him down on his sleeping mat, wipes the thickening blood from his face with her skirt, and brings him pulque to drink. When she asks who attacked him, Kino answers, "I don't know. I didn't see."
Juana's Discovery of the Body
Later that night, Juana arises silently before the first rooster crows and moves toward the fireplace. She works so carefully that Kino hears only the lightest sound when she moves the fireplace stone. Then, like a shadow, she glides toward the door, pauses beside the hanging box where Coyotito lies, and disappears into the darkness. Kino, enraged, follows her to the shore, where he catches her as she tries to throw the pearl back into the sea. He strikes her in the face with his clenched fist, kicks her in the side, and she falls among the boulders. After the rage leaves him, he turns away and walks back up the beach. He hears a rush, gets his knife out, and lunges at a dark figure, feeling his knife go home. He is swept to his knees and then to the ground as greedy fingers go through his clothes, frantic figures search him, and the pearl, knocked from his hand, lies winking behind a little stone in the pathway. Juana drags herself up from the rocks, her face a dull pain and her side aching. She climbs painfully to her feet, washes her bruised face with the stinging salt water, and creeps up the beach after Kino. As she walks, the moon dips in and out of strands of clouds, and in a moment of light she sees the glimmer of the great pearl in the path behind a rock. She sinks to her knees and picks it up. Then the light comes again, and she sees two dark figures lying in the path ahead of her. She leaps forward and sees that one is Kino and the other a stranger with dark shiny fluid leaking from his throat.
The Irreversible Break with the Past
In an instant, Juana knows that the old life is gone forever. A dead man in the path and Kino's knife, dark-bladed beside him, convince her. All the time she had been trying to rescue something of the old peace, of the time before the pearl, but now it is gone and there is no retrieving it. Knowing this, she abandons the past instantly. There is nothing to do but to save themselves. Her pain is gone, her slowness gone. Quickly she drags the dead man from the pathway into the shelter of the brush. She goes to Kino and sponges his face with her wet skirt. His senses are coming back and he moans, saying the pearl is gone. Juana quiets him as she would quiet a sick child, telling him she found the pearl in the path and that he has killed a man. They must go away before the daylight comes. Kino says he was attacked and struck to save his life, but Juana asks if he thinks that will matter, if he remembers the men of the city. Kino draws a great breath and fights off his weakness, his will hardening as he becomes a man again. He tells Juana to go to their house and bring Coyotito and all the corn they have, while he drags the canoe into the water. But when he stumbles toward the beach and comes to his canoe, he sees that a great hole has been knocked in the bottom. The canoe of his grandfather, plastered over and over, is broken with a splintered hole. This is an evil beyond thinking: the killing of a man is not so evil as the killing of a boat, for a boat does not have sons and cannot protect itself. There is sorrow in Kino's rage, but this last thing has tightened him beyond breaking. He becomes an animal now, for hiding, for attacking, living only to preserve himself and his family. He leaps up the beach toward his brush house, and as he runs he sees a tall flame leap up in the dark—his house is burning. Juana runs toward him with Coyotito in her arms, saying the house was torn up and the floor dug, and then they put the fire to the outside. The fierce light of the burning house lights Kino's face strongly. He asks who did it, and Juana answers, "I don't know. The dark ones."
