The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Read Free Book Online Page B

thought the shepherd. But they really don’t know what they’re saying. Just as I hadn’t realized that for so many years I had been speaking a language without words to my sheep.
    â€œDo you want to go to work for me?” the merchant asked.
    â€œI can work for the rest of today,” the boy answered. “I’ll work all night, until dawn, and I’ll clean everypiece of crystal in your shop. In return, I need money to get to Egypt tomorrow.”
    The merchant laughed. “Even if you cleaned my crystal for an entire year . . . even if you earned a good commission selling every piece, you would still have to borrow money to get to Egypt. There are thousands of kilometers of desert between here and there.”
    There was a moment of silence so profound that it seemed the city was asleep. No sound from the bazaars, no arguments among the merchants, no men climbing to the towers to chant. No hope, no adventure, no old kings or Personal Legends, no treasure, and no Pyramids. It was as if the world had fallen silent because the boy’s soul had. He sat there, staring blankly through the door of the café, wishing that he had died, and that everything would end forever at that moment.
    The merchant looked anxiously at the boy. All the joy he had seen that morning had suddenly disappeared.
    â€œI can give you the money you need to get back to your country, my son,” said the crystal merchant.
    The boy said nothing. He got up, adjusted his clothing, and picked up his pouch.
    â€œI’ll work for you,” he said.
    And after another long silence, he added, “I need money to buy some sheep.”

T HE BOY HAD BEEN WORKING FOR THE crystal merchant for almost a month, and he could see that it wasn’t exactly the kind of job that would make him happy. The merchant spent the entire day mumbling behind the counter, telling the boy to be careful with the pieces and not to break anything.
    But he stayed with the job because the merchant, although he was an old grouch, treated him fairly; the boy received a good commission for each piece he sold, and had already been able to put some money aside. That morning he had done some calculating: if he continued to work every day as he had been, he would need a whole year to be able to buy some sheep.
    â€œI’d like to build a display case for the crystal,” the boy said to the merchant. “We could place it outside, and attract those people who pass at the bottom of the hill.”
    â€œI’ve never had one before,” the merchant answered. “People will pass by and bump into it, and pieces will be broken.”
    â€œWell, when I took my sheep through the fields some of them might have died if we had come upon a snake. But that’s the way life is with sheep and with shepherds.”
    The merchant turned to a customer who wanted three crystal glasses. He was selling better than ever . . . as if time had turned back to the old days when the street had been one of Tangier’s major attractions.
    â€œBusiness has really improved,” he said to the boy, after the customer had left. “I’m doing much better, and soon you’ll be able to return to your sheep. Why ask more out of life?”
    â€œBecause we have to respond to omens,” the boy said, almost without meaning to; then he regretted what he had said, because the merchant had never met the king.
    â€œIt’s called the principle of favorability, beginner’s luck. Because life wants you to achieve your Personal Legend,” the old king had said.
    But the merchant understood what the boy had said. The boy’s very presence in the shop was an omen, and, as time passed and money was pouring into the cash drawer, he had no regrets about having hired the boy. The boy was being paid more money than he deserved, because the merchant, thinking that sales wouldn’t amount to much, had offered the boy a high commission