(no subject)
There were no means left untried by the grandmother in an attempt to rescue her granddaughter from the protection of the missionaries. Only when they had all failed, from the most direct to the most devious, did she turn to the civil authority which was vested in a military man. She found him in the courtyard of his home, his chest bare, shooting with an army rifle at a dark and solitary cloud in the burning sky. He was trying to perforate it to bring on rain, and his shots were furious and useless, but he did take the necessary time out to listen to the grandmother.
"I can't do anything," he explained to her when he had heard her out. "The priesties, according to the concordat have the right to keep the girl until she comes of age. Or until she gets married."
"Then why do they have you as mayor?" the grandmother asked.
"To make it rain," was the mayor's answer.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Innocent Eréndia and Her Heartless Grandmother"