Page 12 - The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

“I’ll work for you,” he said.

And after another long silence, he added, “I need money to buy some sheep.”

“I’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.”

“I’ve never had one before,” the merchant answered. “People will pass by and bump into
it, and pieces will be broken.”

“Well, 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.”

“Business 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?”

“Because 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.

“It’s called the principle of favorability, beginner’s luck. Because life wants you to
achieve your Personal Legend,” the old king had said.

“The fifth obligation of every Muslim is a pilgrimage. We are obliged, at least once in
our lives, to visit the holy city of Mecca.

“Mecca is a lot farther away than the Pyramids. When I was young, all I wanted to do
was put together enough money to start this shop. I thought that someday I’d be rich, and
could go to Mecca. I began to make some money, but I could never bring myself to leave
someone in charge of the shop; the crystals are delicate things. At the same time, people
were passing my shop all the time, heading for Mecca. Some of them were rich pilgrims,
traveling in caravans with servants and camels, but most of the people making the
pilgrimage were poorer than I.

“All who went there were happy at having done so. They placed the symbols of the
pilgrimage on the doors of their houses. One of them, a cobbler who made his living
mending boots, said that he had traveled for almost a year through the desert, but that he
got more tired when he had to walk through the streets of Tangier buying his leather.”

“Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?” asked the boy.

“Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive. That’s what helps me face these
days that are all the same, these mute crystals on the shelves, and lunch and dinner at that
same horrible cafe. I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on