The scenery and the characters!
As we know Cather talks about the setting a great deal in this book. And the reason is because she tells the characters feeling and emotions in the story as they happen. Which I think is very talented and smart. But in book five Father Latour and Jacinto are on their way to Taos. They are in the mountains and they are close to the city so the mountain range is disappearing slowly. I thought of this in the same as the characters are coming into a new city that they didn’t really know. All there securities disappeared as well. Once they get there they understand that this city is very different. The priest are very materialistic as shown through there vibrant gardens and the church was very loud and not tasteful. The crucifix was very bright. At dinner with Martínez, the head priest at Taos, he told him what the priesthood was like there. He asked him questions about celibacy and whether it was right. And Latour was very respectful in his answer that concluded in a no. Martíez got mad and told him, “you are a young man, my Bishop, and you know nothing about Indians or Mexicans.” He said that if you try to change their beliefs you will see a youthful death. So Latour went to bed feeling very in doubt of his surrounding like the air was not to his taste and there were many noises that kept him awake through the night. So he felt very uncertain of his environment. This was the complete opposite of his feelings in book nine. In book nine it tells us that he retires. He bought a house out near the Tesuque pueblo. He got a small number of acres across the red sand-hills. He planted an orchard the one he talked about earlier in the book when he had dinner with Father Vaillant. He had chosen this place because of the plant life around in the sand-hills. One of the plants was juniper. His friends told him to not be around that kind of plant but he did any ways because they grow fruit. And on page 264 it says, ”he surmised that the heat of the sun, reflected from the rocky hill-slope up into the tree, gave the fruit an even temperature, warmth from two sides, such as brings the wall peaches to perfection in France.” When I read this I felt that he was beyond very happy and kind of felt like he was backing home in France. But he was at peace in this place that was foreign to him and he made it his own place to relax and to teach young men to become priest.