"Not as much as I need it," said Gabriel. "What is it we need at Petaca?" he wanted to know.
"Friendship."
"Can that be it, Raul?"
"You taught me that, Gabriel. You've looked after the cuts and bruises and listened to the bitter stories. You've found ways of expressing friendship in the little things, a new altar cloth, medicine for Motilinia, a straw horse for a boy's birthday."
Quiet, Gabriel thumbed the leather book; for years he had encouraged one after another; it pleased him that Raul should speak out. What he had accomplished he could not say.
One force had worked consistently against him and that was Don Fernando.... As enemies, they had stormed over every sector of the hacienda. Already Raul had re-opened the school and secured a teacher, an able young man from Manzanillo, handy with guitar and songs. Secretly, Gabriel was a little jealous of Raul's successes. But he knew the inner man, the inner conflicts, and probed no more.
Both read in the shuttered, still living room. The bookcase occupied a corner, the top of it strewn with bric-a-brac: silver cup, barometer, Dresden doll, porcelain animals, the deed box.
Raul took down the Journal of Las Casas and after reading a while at random he said, "I never find much time for reading any more."
"In Italy, I read a book a fortnight ... that was my goal."
"Perhaps life was easier in Italy."