All manner of people grew interested in Kino — people with
things to sell and people with favors to ask. Kino had found
the Pearl of the World. The essence of pearl mixed with the
essence of men and a curious dark residue precipitated. Every
man suddenly became related to Kino's pearl, and Kino's pearl
went into the dreams, the speculations, the schemes, the plans,
the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers,
of everyone, and only one person stood in the way, and that
was Kino, so that he became curiously every man's enemy. The
news stirred up something infinitely black and evil in the town;
the black distillate was like the scorpion, or like hunger in
the smell of food, or like loneliness when love is withheld.
The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture venom, and the
town swelled and puffed with the pressure of it.