From Chapter One of The Devil and Miss Prym For almost fifteen years, old Berta had spent every day sitting outside her front door. The people of Viscos knew that this was normal behavior among old people: they sit dreaming of the past and of their youth; they look out at a world in which they no longer play a part and try to find something to talk to the neighbors about. Berta, however, had a reason for being there. And that morning her waiting came to an end when she saw the stranger climbing the steep hill up to the village, heading for its one hotel. He did not look as she had so often imagined he would: his clothes were shabby, he wore his hair unfashionably long, he was unshaven. And he was accompanied by the Devil. "My husbands right," she said to herself. "If I hadn't been here, no one would have noticed." She was hopeless at telling peoples ages and put the mans somewhere between forty and fifty. "A youngster," she thought, using a scale of values that only old people understand. She wondered how long he would be staying, but reached no conclusion; it might be only a short time, since all he had with him was a small rucksack. He would probably stay just one night before moving on to a fate about which she knew nothing and cared even less. Even so, all the years she had spent sirring by her front door waiting for his arrival had not been in vain, because they \^\d i So
taught her the beauty of the mountains, something she had never really noticed before, simply because she had been born in that place and had always tended to take the landscape for granted. As expected, the stranger went into the hotel. Berta wondered if she should go and warn the priest about this undesirable visitor, but she knew he wouldn't listen to her, dismissing the matter as the kind of thing old people like to worry about. So now she just had to wait an see what happened. It doesn't take a devil much time to bring about destruction; they are like storms, hurricanes, or avalanches, which, in a few short hours, can destroy trees planted two hundred years before. Suddenly, Berta realized that the mere fact that Evil had just arrived in Viscos did not change anything: devils come and go all the time without necessarily affecting anything by their presence. They are constantly abroad in the world, sometimes simply to find out what's going on, at others to put some soul or other to the test. But they are fickle creatures, and there is no logic in their choice of target, being drawn merely by the pleasure of a battle worth fighting. Berta concluded that there was nothing sufficiently interesting or special about Viscos to attract the attention of anyone for more than a day, let alone someone as important and busy as a messenger from the dark. She tried to turn her mind to something else, but she couldn't get the image of the stranger out of her head. The sky, which had been clear and bright up until then, suddenly clouded over. "That's normal; it always happens at this time of year," she thought. It was simply a coincidence and had nothing to do with the stranger's arrival. Then, in the distance, she heard a clap of thunder, followed 190
by another three. On the one hand, this simply meant that rain was on the way; on the other, if the old superstitions of the vil- lage were to be believed, the sound could be interpreted as the voice of an angry God, protesting that mankind had grown in- different to His presence. "Perhaps I should do something. After all, what I was waiting for has finally happened." She sat for a few minutes, paying close attention to every- thing going on around her; the clouds had continued to gather above the village, but she heard no other sounds. As a good ex- Catholic, she put no store by traditions and superstitions, especially those of Viscos, which had their roots in the ancient Celtic civilization that once existed in the place. "A thunderclap is an entirely natural phenomenon. If God wanted to talk to man, he wouldn't use such roundabout methods." She had just thought this when she again heard a peal of thunder accompanied by a flash of lightning—a lot closer this time. Berta got to her feet, picked up her chair, and went into her house before the rain started; but this time she felt her heart contract with an indefinable fear. "What should I do?" Again she wished that the stranger would simply leave at once; she was too old to help herself or her village, far less assist Almighty God, who, if He needed any help, would surely have chosen someone younger. This was all just some insane dream; her husband clearly had nothing better to do than to invent ways of helping her pass the tune. But of one thing she was sure; she had seen the Devil. In the flesh and dressed as a pilgrim.
GIFT EDITION Featuring a beautiful slipcase, ribbon marker, and full-color map endpapers and illustrations throughout. Available in bookstores everywhere. ZWzhzmiit "[This] Brazilian wizard makes books disappear from stores." —New York Times "[Coelho's] books have had a life- enchanting effect on millions of people." —London Times "A magical little volume." —San Francisco Chronicle Al HarpcrSanFrancisc division of H.trperCollins/W>O Ushers dmWkM R E i
About the Author PAULO COELHO Paulo was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August 1947, the son of Pedro Queima Coehlo de Souza, an engineer, and his wife, Lygia, a homemaker. Early on, Paulo dreamed of an artistic career, something frowned upon in his middle-class household. In the austere surroundings of a strict Jesuit school, Paulo discovered his true vocation: to be a writer. Paulo's parents, however, had different plans for him. When their attempts to suppress his devotion to literature failed, they took it as a sign of mental illness. When Paulo was seventeen, his father had him committed to a mental institution, twice, where he endured ses- sions of electroconvulsive "therapy." His parents brought him back there once more after he became involved with a theater group and started to work as a journalist. Paulo was always a nonconformist and a seeker of the new. When, in the excitement of 1968, the guerrilla and hippie re movements look hold in a Brazil ruled by a repressive military j2 regime, Paulo embraced progressive politics and joined the .— peace and love generation. He sought spiritual experience, q> traveling all over Latin America in the footsteps of Carlos -E Castaneda. He worked in the theater and dabbled in journal- j2 ism, launching an alternative magazine called 2001, He began JJ4) to collaborate with music producer Raul Seixas as a lyricist, transforming the Brazilian rock scene. In [973, Paulo and Raul iqs 0) o c/>
joined the Alternative Society, an organization that defended the individual's right to free expression, and began publishing a series of comic strips, calling for more freedom. Members of the organization were detained and imprisoned. Two days later, Paulo was kidnapped and tortured by a group of paramilitaries. This experience affected him profoundly. At the age of twenty-six, Paulo decided that he had had enough of living on the edge and wanted to be "normal." He worked as an ex- ecutive in the music industry. He tried his hand at writing but didn't start seriously until after he had an encounter with a stranger. The man first came to him in a vision, and two months later Paulo met him at a cafe in Amsterdam. The stranger suggested that Paulo should return to Catholicism and study the benign side of magic. He also encouraged Paulo to walk the Road of Santiago de Compostela, the medieval pilgrim's route. In 1987, a year after completing that pilgrimage, Paulo wrote The Pilgrimage: Diary of Magus. The book describes his ex- periences and his discovery that the extraordinary occurs in the lives of ordinary people. A year later, Paulo wrote a very differ- ent book, The Alchemist. The first edition sold only nine hundred copies and the publishing house decided not to reprint. Paulo would not surrender his dream. He found another publishing house, a bigger one. He wrote Brida (a work still unpublished in English) that received a lot of attention in the press and both The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage appeared on bestseller lists. The Alchemist went on to sell more copies than any other book in Brazilian literary history. 196
Paulo's story doesn't end there. He has gone on to write many other bestselling books that have touched the hearts of people everywhere: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Warrior of the Light: A Manual, The Zahir} and Eleven Minutes. O re "> "<7> 1 s 9
Also by Paulo Coelho ]AtB PS I - if § m P§ li& PS 1% P© P&" ws p(r PS PaPS PS PS PS PS fog PS 1% PS PS PS lv_- •*£ i, - V>'' US tiZ P; PrP* » | IKTEftNAl ' THE VALKYRIES PAULO COELHO PAULO COFLHO A? W \RlllOR OF Nil l.K.III THE FIFTH MOUNTAIN jiyij^ffiWfflJ THE ALCHEMIST A D ELEWN UINl>rE< 1 111 IMl GRIM \(.l
DISCOVER. THE BOOK THAT HAS CHANGED MILLIONS OF LIVES "This Brazilian wizard makes books disappear from stores." —New York Times " [Coelho's] books have had a life-enchanting effect on millions of people." — London Times "A magical little volume." — San Francisco Chronicle "Beneath this novel's compelling story and the shimmering elegance with which it's told lies a bedrock of wisdom about following one's heart." — Booklist "As memorable and meaningful as Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. "—Austin American-Statesman PAULO COELHO is one of the bestselling and most influential authors in the world. The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, The Valkyries, By the River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept, The Fifth Mountain, Veronika Decides to Die, Eleven Minutes, The Zahir, and others have sold more than 65 million copies in 150 countries and have been translated into 60 languages. Visit the author online at www.paulocoelho.com. PLUS is a special feature in select paperbacks. Get PLUS only from y HarperSanFrancisco ^B ^^^^ A Division of H.arperCo\\insPublisbers mvmk. Insights, Interviews, and More ISBN-13 978-0-06-112241-5 ISBN-10 0-06-112241-6 5 13 9 5 IA USA $13.95 Canada $17.95