The Devil and Miss Prym
Page 15
Miss Prym was right: it is very dangerous to believe in other people. It was as if everyone there had suddenly become aware of that, because they began to drift away from the clearing, the older people first, then the younger ones.
Silently, they all filed down the hillside, trying to think about the weather, the sheep they had to shear, the land that would soon need ploughing again, the hunting season that was about to start. None of this had happened, because Viscos is a village lost in time, where every day is the same.
They were all saying to themselves that this weekend had been a dream.
Or a nightmare.
Only three people and two torches remained in the clearing—and one of those people was fast asleep, still tied to the stone.
“There’s the village gold,” the stranger said to Chantal. “It looks like I end up without the gold and without an answer.”
“The gold doesn’t belong to the village, it belongs to me. As does the bar buried beside the Y-shaped rock. And you’re going to come with me to make sure it gets changed into money; I don’t trust a word you say.”
“You know I wasn’t going to do what you said I would do. And as for the contempt you feel for me, it’s nothing more than the contempt you feel for yourself. You should be grateful for all that’s happened, because by showing you the gold, I gave you much more than the possibility of simply becoming rich. I forced you to act, to stop complaining about everything and to take a stand.”
“Very generous of you, I’m sure,” said Chantal with a touch of irony in her voice. “From the very start, I could have told you something about human nature; even though Viscos is a village in decline, it once had a wise and glorious past. I could have given you the answer you were looking for, if only I had thought of it.”
Chantal went over to untie Berta; she saw that Berta had a cut on her forehead, perhaps because of the way her head had been positioned on the stone, but it was nothing serious. Now they just had to wait there until morning for Berta to wake up.
“Can you give me that answer now?” the stranger asked.
“Someone must already have told you about the meeting between St. Savin and Ahab.”
“Of course. The saint came, talked to him briefly, and the Arab converted to Christianity because he realized that the saint was much braver than he.”
“That’s right. Except that, before going to sleep, the two of them talked together for a while. Even though Ahab had begun to sharpen his knife the moment the saint set foot in his house, safe in the knowledge that the world was a reflection of himself, he was determined to challenge the saint and so he asked him:
“‘If, tonight, the most beautiful prostitute in the village came in here, would you be able to see her as neither beautiful nor seductive?’
“‘No, but I would be able to control myself,’ the saint replied.
“‘And if I offered you a pile of gold coins to leave your cave in the mountain and come and join us, would you be able to look on that gold and see only pebbles?’
“‘No, but I would be able to control myself.’
“‘And if you were sought by two brothers, one of whom hated you, and the other who saw you as a saint, would you be able to feel the same towards them both?’
“‘It would be very hard, but I would be able to control myself sufficiently to treat them both the same.’”
Chantal paused.
“They say this dialogue was important in Ahab’s conversion to Christianity.”
The stranger did not need Chantal to explain the story. Savin and Ahab had the same instincts—Good and Evil struggled in both of them, just as they did in every soul on the face of the earth. When Ahab realized that Savin was the same as he, he realized too that he was the same as Savin.
It was all a matter of control. And choice.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Chantal looked for the last time at the valley, the mountains and the woods where she used to walk as a child, and she felt in her mouth the taste of the crystal-clear water, of the freshly picked vegetables and the local wine made from the best grapes in the region, jealously guarded by the villagers so that no visiting tourist would ever discover it—given that the harvest was too small to be exported elsewhere, and that money might change the wine producer’s mind on the subject.
She had only returned to say goodbye to Berta. She was wearing the same clothes she usually wore, so that nobody there would know that, in her short visit to the city, she had become a wealthy woman. The stranger had arranged everything, signing all the papers necessary for the transfer in ownership of the gold bars, so that they could be sold and the money deposited in Miss Prym’s newly opened account. The bank clerk had been exaggeratedly discreet and had asked no questions beyond those necessary for the transactions. But Chantal was sure she knew what he was thinking: he assumed he was looking at the young mistress of an older man.
“What a wonderful feeling!” she thought. In the bank clerk’s estimation, she must be extremely good in bed to be worth that immense amount of money.
She passed some of the local residents: none of them knew that she was about to leave, and they greeted her as if nothing had happened, as if Viscos had never received a visit from the Devil. She returned the greeting, also pretending that that day was exactly the same as every other day in her life.
She did not know how much she had changed thanks to all she had discovered about herself, but she had time to find out. Berta was sitting outside her house—not because she was still on the watch for Evil, but because she didn’t know what else to do with her life.
“They’re going to build a fountain in my honor,” she announced. “It’s the price for my silence. But I know the fountain won’t last long or quench many people’s thirst, because Viscos is doomed whichever way you look at it: not because of a devil who appeared in these parts, but because of the times we live in.”
Chantal asked what the fountain would look like. Berta had decided that it should be a sun spouting water into the mouth of a frog. She was the sun and the priest was the frog.
“I’m quenching his thirst for light and will continue to do so for as long as the fountain remains.”
The mayor had complained about the cost, but Berta would not listen, and so they had no choice. Building work was due to start the following week.
“And now you are finally going to do as I suggested, my girl. One thing I can tell you with absolute certainty: life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it.”
Chantal smiled, gave her a kiss, and turned her back on Viscos for the last time. The old woman was right: there was no time to lose, though she hoped that her life would be very long indeed.
About the Author
PAULO COELHO is one of the most beloved authors of our time. With sales of more than 75 million copies worldwide, his books have been translated into 61 languages and published in 150 countries. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards, among them the Crystal Award by the World economic Forum, France’s Chevalier de l’ordre National de la légion d’Honneur, and Germany’s Bambi 2001 Award. He was inducted into the Brazilian Academy of letters in 2002. Mr. Coelho also writes a weekly column syndicated throughout the world.
www.PauloCoelho.com
www.PauloCoelhoBooks.com
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ALSO BY PAULO COELHO
The Alchemist
The Pilgrimage
The Valkyries
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
The Fifth Mountain
Veronika Decides to Die
Warrior of the Light: A Manual
Eleven Minutes
The Zahir
Credits
Jacket front photographs © Pat O’Hara/Getty Images
Copyright
THE DEVIL AND MISS PRYM. Copyright © 2000 by Paulo Coelho. English translation cop
yright © 2001 by Amanda Hopkinson and Nick Caistor. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition JUNE 2006 ISBN: 9780061844867
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coelho, Paulo.
[Demônio e a Srta. Prym. English]
The Devil and Miss Prym : a novel of temptation / Paulo Coelho ; translated by Amanda Hopkinson and Nick Caistor.
p. cm.
ISBN-10: 0-06-052799-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-052799-0
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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