By The River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept

by Paulo Coelho

  It was a trap. Later, if I heard the song played on the radio or at a club, I'd think of him, of Bilbao, and of a time in my life when autumn turned to spring. I'd recall the excitement, the adventure, and the child who was reborn out of God knows where.

  That's what he was thinking. He was wise, experienced; he knew how to woo the woman he wanted.

  I'm going crazy, I told myself. I must be an alcoholic, drinking so much two days in a row. He knows all the tricks. He's controlling me. leading me along with his sweetness.

  "I admire the battle you are waging with your heart," he had said at the restaurant.

  But he was wrong. Because I had fought with my heart and defeated it long ago. I was certainly not going to become passionate about something that was impossible. I knew my limits; I knew how much suffering I could bear.

  "Say something," I demanded, as we walked back to the car.

  "What?"

  "Anything. Talk to me."

  So he began to tell me about the visions of the Virgin Mary at Fátima. I don't know why he came up with that, but the story of the three shepherds who had spoken to the Virgin distracted me.

  My heart relaxed. Yes, I know my limits, and I know how to stay in control.

  We arrived at night in a fog so dense we could hardly see where we were. I could make out only a small plaza, a lamppost, some medieval houses barely illuminated by the yellow light, and a well.

  "The fog!" he exclaimed.

  I couldn't understand why he was so excited.

  "We're in Saint-Savin," he explained.

  The name meant nothing to me. But we were in France, and that in itself thrilled me.

  "Why this place?" I asked.

  "Because the house I want you to see is here," he answered, laughing. "Also, I promised that I would come back here on the day of the Immaculate Conception."

  "Here?"

  "Well, near here."

  He stopped the car. When we stepped out, he took my hand, and we began to walk through the fog.

  "This place became a part of my life quite unexpectedly," he said.

  You too? I thought.

  "When I first came here, I thought I was lost. But I wasn't—actually, I was just rediscovering it."

  "You talk in riddles sometimes," I said.

  "This is where I realized how much I needed you in my life."

  I looked away; I couldn't understand him. "But what does that have to do with losing your way?"

  "Let's find someone who'll rent us a room, because the two hotels in this village are only open during the summer. Then we'll have dinner at a good restaurant—no tension, no fear of the police, no need to think about running back to the car! And when the wine loosens our tongues, we'll talk about many things."

  We both laughed. I already felt more relaxed. During the drive here, I had looked back over the wild things I'd been thinking. And as we crossed over the top of the mountains that separate France from Spain, I'd asked God to cleanse my soul of tension and fear.

  I was tired of playing the child and acting the way many of my friends did—the ones who are afraid that love is impossible without even knowing what love is. If I stayed like that, I would miss out on everything good that these few days with him might offer.

  Careful, I thought. Watch out for the break in the dam. If that break occurs, nothing in the world will be able to stop it.

  "May the Virgin protect us from here on," he said.

  I remained silent.

  "Why didn't you say 'amen'?" he asked.

  "Because I don't think that's important anymore. There was a time when religion was a part of my life, but that time has passed."

  He turned around and began to walk back to the car. "I still pray," I went on. "I prayed as we were crossing the Pyrenees. But it's something automatic, and I'm not even sure I still believe in it."

  "Why?"

  "Because I've suffered, and God didn't listen to my prayers. Because many times in my life I have tried to love with all my heart, and my love has wound up being trampled or betrayed. If God is love, he should have cared more about my feelings.

  "God is love. But the one who understands this best is the Virgin."

  I burst out laughing. When I turned to look at him, I saw that he was serious—this was not a joke.

  "The Virgin understands the mystery of total surrender," he went on. "And having loved and suffered, she freed us from pain. In the same way that Jesus freed us from sin."

  "Jesus was the son of God. They say that the Virgin was merely a woman who happened to receive him into her womb," I said. I was trying to make up for my laughter and let him know that I respected his faith.

  He opened the car door and took out our bags. When I tried to take mine from his hand, he smiled. "Let me carry your bag." laul

  No one's done that for me in a long time, I thought.

  We knocked on the door of the first house, but the woman said she didn't rent rooms. At the second door, no one answered. At the third, a kind old man greeted us—but when we looked at the room, there was only a double bed. I turned it down.

  "Maybe we should head for a larger city," I suggested as we left.

  "We'll find a room," he said. "Do you know the exercise of the Other? It's part of a story written a hundred years ago, whose author…"

  "Forget the author, and tell me the story," I interrupted. We were once more walking along the only street in Saint-Savin.

  A man runs into an old friend who had somehow never been able to make it in life. "I should give him some money," he thinks. But instead he learns that his old friend has grown rich and is actually seeking him out to repay the debts he had run up over the years.

  They go to a bar they used to frequent together, and the friend buys drinks for everyone there. When they ask him how he became so successful, he answers that until only a jew days ago, he had been living the role of the "Other."

  "What is the Other?" they ask.

  "The Other is the one who taught me what I should be like, but not what I am. The Other believes that it is our obligation to spend our entire life thinking about how to get our hands on as much money as possible so that we will not die of hunger when we are old. So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover we are alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late."

  "And you? Who are you?"

  "I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life. Who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It's just that the Other, afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking action."

  "But there is suffering in life," one of the listeners said.

  "And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for."

  "That's it?" another listener asked.

  "Yes, that's it. When I learned this, I resolved to become the person I had always wanted to be. The Other stood there in the corner of my room, watching me, but I will never let the Other into myself again even though it has already tried to frighten me, warning me that it's risky not to think about the future.

  "From the moment that I ousted the Other from my life, the Divine Energy began to perform its miracles."

  In spite of the fact that my friend had long ago expelled the Other from his life, he still wasn't having much luck finding us lodging for the night. But I knew he hadn't told me that story for his own sake—he had told it for mine. He seemed to be talking about my fears, my insecurity, and my unwillingness to see what was wonderful because tomorrow it might disappear and then I would suffer.

  The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don't care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don't care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through h
ard work and persistence. The gods don't want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they're throwing the dice—and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck.

  The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy—depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free.

  For the moment, the wind was blowing in his favor. But the wind is as capricious as the gods—and deep inside myself, I had begun to feel some gusts.

  At last, as if fate wanted to show me that the story of the Other was true—and the universe always conspires to help the dreamer—we found a house to stay in, with a room with separate beds. My first move was to bathe, wash my clothes, and put on the shirt I had bought. I felt refreshed, and this made me feel more secure.

  After having dinner with the couple who owned the house—the restaurants were also closed during the autumn and winter—he asked for a bottle of wine, promising to replace it the next day. We put on our coats, borrowed two glasses, and went out.

  "Let's sit on the edge of the well," I suggested.

  And there we sat, drinking to keep the cold and the tension away.

  "It looks like the Other has gotten to you," I joked. "Your good mood seems to have disappeared."

  He laughed. "I knew we were going to find a room, and we did. The universe always helps us fight for our dreams, no matter how foolish they may be. Our dreams are our own, and only we can know the effort required to keep them alive."

  In the fog, which hung yellow under the glow of the street lamp, we couldn't see even as far as the other side of the plaza.

  I took a deep breath. We couldn't avoid the subject any longer.

  "We have to talk about love," I said. "You know how I've been these last few days. If it had been up to me, the subject would never have come up. But ever since you brought it up, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it."

  "It's risky, falling in love."

  "I know that," I answered. "I've been in love before. It's like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You're not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours.

  "But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he's not there, you feel like an addict who can't get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you're willing to do anything for love."

  "What a horrible way to put it," he said.

  It really was a horrible way to put it; my analogy didn't go with the romance of the evening—the wine, the well, and the medieval houses in the plaza. But it was true. If he was going to base so many of his actions on love, he needed to know what the risks were.

  "So we should love only those who can stay near us," I said.

  He looked out at the fog. Now he no longer seemed interested in whether we negotiated the dangerous waters of a conversation about love. I was being tough, but there was no other way.

  Subject closed, I thought. Our being together for these three days has been enough to change his mind. My pride was a bit wounded, but my heart was relieved. Do I really want this? I asked myself. I realized that I was already beginning to sense the storms brought on by the winds of love. I had already begun to feel the break in the dam.

  We drank for some time without bringing up anything serious. We talked about the couple who owned the house and the saint for whom the town had been named. He told me some of the legends about the church across the square, which I could barely see in the fog.

  "You're upset," he said at one point.

  Yes, my mind was wandering. I wished I were there with someone who could bring peace to my heart someone with whom I could spend a little time without being afraid that I would lose him the next day. With that reassurance, the time would pass more slowly. We could be silent for a while because we'd know we had the rest of our lives together for conversation. I wouldn't have to worry about serious matters, about difficult decisions and hard words.

  We sat there in silence—and that in itself was a sign. For the first time, we had nothing to say, although I only noticed this when he stood up to go find us another bottle of wine.

  Silence. Then I heard the sound of his footsteps returning to the well where we'd been sitting for more than an hour, drinking and staring at the fog.

  This was the first time we'd been silent for so long. It was not the awkward silence of the trip from Madrid to Bilbao. And not the silence of my fearful heart when we were in the chapel near San Martin de Unx.

  This was a silence that spoke for itself. A silence that said we no longer needed to explain things to each other.

  The sound of his footsteps halted. He was looking at me—and what he saw must have been beautiful: a woman seated on the edge of a well, on a foggy night, in the light of the street lamp.

  The ancient houses, the eleventh-century church, and the silence.

  The second bottle of wine was half empty when I decided to speak.

  "This morning, I convinced myself that I was an alcoholic. I've been drinking from morning to night. In these past three days, I've drunk more than in the entire past year."

  He reached out and stroked my hair without saying anything. I absorbed his touch without trying to pull away.

  "Tell me about your life since I last saw you," I asked.

  "There are no great mysteries to tell. My path is always there, and I do everything I can to follow it in a dignified way."

  "What is your path?"

  "The path of someone seeking love."

  He hesitated for a moment, fiddling with the near-empty bottle.

  "And love's path is really complicated," he concluded.

  "Because on that path we can go either to heaven or to hell?" I wasn't sure whether he was referring to us or not.

  He didn't respond. Perhaps he was still deep in the ocean of silence, but the wine had loosened my tongue again, and I had to speak.

  "You said that something here in this city altered your course."

  "Yes, I think it did. I'm still not absolutely sure, and that's why I wanted to bring you here."

  "Is this some kind of test?"

  "No. It's a surrender. So that She will help me to make the right decision."

  "Who will?"

  "The Virgin."

  The Virgin! I should have known. I was surprised that all his years of travel, of learning, of new horizons hadn't freed him from the Catholicism of his childhood. In at least this respect, my friends and I had come a long way—we no longer lived under the weight of guilt and sin.

  "I'm surprised that after all you've been through, you still keep the faith."

  "I haven't kept it. I lost it and recovered it."

  "But a faith in virgins? In impossible things and in fantasies? Haven't you had an active sex life?"

  "Well, normal. I've been in love with many women."

  To my surprise, I felt a stab of jealousy. But my inner battle seemed already to have subsided, and I didn't want to start it up again.

  "Why is she 'The Virgin? Why isn't She presented to us as a normal woman, like any other?"

  He drained the few drops remaining in the bottle and asked if I wanted him to go for another. I said no.

  "What I want is an answer from you. Every time we start to speak about certain things, you try to talk about something else."

  "She was normal. She had already had other children. The Bible tells us that Jesus had two brothers. Virginity, as it relates to Jesus, is based on a different thing: Mary initiated a new generation of grace. A new era began. She is the cosmic bride, Earth, which opens to the heavens and allows itself to be fertilized.

  "Because of the courage She showed in accepting her destiny, She allowed God to come down to earthand She was transformed into the Gr
eat Mother."

  I didn't understand exactly what he was telling me, and he could see that.

  "She is the feminine face of God. She has her own divinity."

  He spoke with great emotion; in fact, his words almost sounded forced, as if he felt he was committing a sin.

  "A goddess?" I asked.

  I waited for him to explain, but he couldn't say anything more. I thought about his Catholicism and about how what he had just said seemed blasphemous.

  "Who is the Virgin? What is the Goddess?"

  "It's not easy to explain," he said, clearly growing more and more uncomfortable. "I have some written material with me. If you want, you can read it."

  "I don't want to read right now; I want you to explain it to me," I insisted.

  He looked around for the wine bottle, but it was empty. Neither of us could remember why we had come to the well in the first place. Something important was in the air—as if what he was saying were part of a miracle.

  "Go on," I urged him.

  "Her symbol is water—like the fog all around us. The Goddess uses water as the means to manifest Herself."

  The mist suddenly seemed to take on a life of its own, becoming sacred—even though I still didn't understand what he was trying to say.

  "I don't want to talk to you about history. If you want to learn about the history, you can read the books I brought with me. But you should know that this woman—the Goddess, the Virgin Mary, the Shechinah, the Great Mother, Isis, Sofia, slave and mistress—is present in every religion on the face of the earth. She has been forgotten, prohibited, and disguised, but Her cult has continued from millennium to millennium and continues to survive today.

  "One of the faces of God is the face of a woman."

  I studied his face. His eyes were gleaming, and he was staring into the fog that enveloped us. I could see that I no longer needed to prompt him.

  "She is present in the first chapter of the Bible—when the spirit of God hovered over the waters, and He placed them below and above the stars. It was the mystic marriage of earth and heaven. She is present in the final chapter of the Bible, when