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mush, as if nothing had happened, as if the most beautiful pearl ever found in the Vermilion Sea was not tucked away in my shirt.
    I went to my room and put the pearl under my pillow and lay down to sleep. I tried to be calm. I tried not to think of the pearl nor of what my
father would say nor of the Sevillano. But half the morning passed without sleep and as I lay there I remembered suddenly that I had forgotten to lock the door of the office, so I got up and put the pearl back in my shirt and started down the hill.
    As I passed the calabozo the woman who was selling chocolate beckoned me over. Sometimes she had small pearls to sell. She also had a long nose with which to scent things out.
    "You walk back and forth much this morning," she said.
    "It is a nice morning to walk," I answered.
    She beckoned me closer. "Do you know Cantu the fisherman who lives at Pichilinque?"
    I nodded.
    "Well, this Cantu, a crazy man, came by just now and said that a great pearl has been found. Have you heard this news?"
    "Every week a great pearl is found," I said, "and every week the story is untrue."
    I did not want her or anyone else to learn about the pearl until my father came back. It was he who must decide how and when the news would be given to the town. It was not proper for me as his son to take this honor from him, so I bowed respectfully and quickly left.
    As I rounded the corner and started down the Malecón, I saw that a crowd was gathering outside the office of Salazar and Son. I decided to turn around and go home, but someone shouted, "Hola, Ramón."
    Everyone turned to look and I knew that if I went home they would follow me, so I walked on and made my way into the crowd.
    A dozen voices cried, "The Pearl. The Pearl." A dozen more cried, "Show us."
    I tried to look surprised. "What pearl?" I asked.
    I threw up my hands and looked puzzled and went into the office, bolted the door and put the pearl in the safe and sat down at the desk. In a moment a boy peered through the slit in the wall. He was standing on someone's shoulders and soon he began to tell the crowd what he saw. I opened the ledger and this he reported. I wrote something down and this too he reported.
    Outside, the throng grew until by noon it filled the street. The boy peering in at the slit got tired and disappeared. But I sat at my desk and wrote
down things that I made up, and thought of the great pearl and hoped that the fleet would come before it was time for me to leave and face the throng again.
    The fleet sailed in at two o'clock. My father must have wondered about the crowd, for he was the first ashore. He came running up the beach and as I opened the door he burst into the office out of breath, fearful of bad news.
    "What passes?" he said.
    The boy was again looking through the slit, but I opened the safe and removed the pearl and held it out to my father.
    "This," I said.
    My father took it in his hand. He turned the pearl over in his palm and said nothing, as if he could not believe what he saw.
    "This is not a pearl," he said.
    "Yes," I said, "a pearl!"
    My father stared at me. "It is a joke," he said. "There is nothing in all the seas of the world like this." He looked at the pearl. "You have made it. You have taken blister pearls and glued them together and polished them carefully on a wheel. You are a very clever young man, Ramón."

    "I have glued nothing," I said. "It is a pearl. I found it."
    The boy who peered at us through the slit shouted to the crowd, repeating my words. A shout went up in the street. My father turned the pearl in his hand and held it to the light and then slowly turned it again. Then he opened the door and held up the pearl so that the sun shone on it and all could see.
    Silence fell over the crowd. There was not a sound except the small waves breaking on the beach. Then my father closed the door and looked at me and said, "Madre de Dios." He said these words three times over and sat down and stared at the great