Page 11 - The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

world.

“All things are one,” the old man had said.

...the crystal merchant had no choice. He had lived thirty years of his life buying and
selling crystal pieces, and now it was too late to do anything else.

“I can clean up those glasses in the window, if you want,” said the boy. “The way they
look now, nobody is going to want to buy them.”

The man looked at him without responding.

“In exchange, you could give me something to eat.”

The man still said nothing, and the boy sensed that he was going to have to make a
decision—Taking the jacket out, he began to clean the glasses. In half an hour, he had
cleaned all the glasses in the window, and, as he was doing so, two customers had
entered the shop and bought some crystal.

“You didn’t have to do any cleaning,” he said, “The Koran requires me to feed a hungry
person.”

“Well then, why did you let me do it?” the boy asked.

“Because the crystal was dirty. And both you and I needed to cleanse our minds of
negative thoughts.”
“Do you want to go to work for me?” the merchant asked.

“I can work for the rest of today,” the boy answered. “I’ll work all night, until dawn, and
I’ll clean every piece 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 cafe, wishing that he had died, and that everything
would end forever at that moment.