The story of mice and men first brought fame to John Steinbeck, the future Nobel Prize laureate. Told with humor, it is at the same time permeated with pain for people who are noble, honest, devoted to one another, yet unable to find their place in life. The philosophical parable “The Pearl,” telling of the collapse of humanity’s most cherished aspirations and hopes, is “one of those stories that have been told and retold many times and have forever sunk into the human heart; everyone will understand it in their own way, and everyone will see in it their own life.”