Continue..  The crystal merchant awoke with the day, and felt the same anxiety that he felt every morning. He had been in the same place for thirty years: a shop at the top of a hilly street where few customers passed. Now it was too late to change anything—the only thing he had ever learned to do was

Continue..  As he looked at the stones, he felt relieved for some reason. He had exchanged six sheep for two precious stones that had been taken from a gold breastplate. He could sell the stones and buy a return ticket. But this time I'll be smarter, the boy thought, removing them from the pouch so he could put

Continue..  The boy was relieved. He was thinking about omens, and someone had appeared.  "How come you speak Spanish?" he asked. The new arrival was a young man in Western dress, but the color of his skin suggested he was from this city. He was about the same age and height as the boy.  "Almost everyone here speaks

Continue..  " 'Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you,' said the wisest of wise men. 'The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.' "  The shepherd said nothing. He had understood the story the old king had

Continue..  "Because there is a force that wants you to realize your destiny; it whets your appetite with a taste of success."  Then the old man began to inspect the sheep, and he saw that one was lame. The boy explained that it wasn't important, since that sheep was the most intelligent of the flock, and produced the

Continue..  The boy began again to read his book, but he was no longer able to concentrate. He was tense and upset, because he knew that the old man was right. He went over to the bakery and bought a loaf of bread, thinking about whether or not he should tell the baker what the old man had

Continue..  "I'm the king of Salem," the old man had said.  "Why would a king be talking with a shepherd?" the boy asked, awed and embarrassed.  "For several reasons. But let's say that the most important is that you have succeeded in discovering your destiny."  The boy didn't know what a person's "destiny" was.  "It's what you have

Continue..  Actually, he was thinking about shearing his sheep in front of the merchant's daughter, so that she could see that he was someone who was capable of doing difficult things. He had already imagined the scene many times; every time, the girl became fascinated when he explained that the sheep had to be sheared from back to

Continue..  The old woman led the boy to a room at the back of her house; it was separated from her living room by a curtain of colored beads. The room's furnishings consisted of a table, an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and two chairs.  The woman sat down, and told him to be seated as

Continue..  "People from all over the world have passed through this village, son," said his father. "They come in search of new things, but when they leave they are basically the same people they were when they arrived. They climb the mountain to see the castle, and they wind up thinking that the past was better than what

Continue..  And now it was only four days before he would be back in that same village. He was excited, and at the same time uneasy: maybe the girl had already forgotten him. Lots of shepherds passed through, selling their wool.  "It doesn't matter," he said to his sheep. "I know other girls in other places."  But in

 PART ONE  The boy's name wasSantiago . Dusk was falling as the boy arrived with his herd at an abandoned church. The roof had fallen in long ago, and an enormous sycamore had grown on the spot where the sacristy had once stood.  He decided to spend the night there. He saw to it that all the sheep