The Alchemist

After a month in the crystal store, Santiago realizes it will take a year to make enough money. The merchant treats him well, but Santiago wishes to accelerate his savings. He offers to build a display case for outside the store and address’s the merchant’s reticence by recycling Melchizedek’s philosophies. The merchant sympathizes with Santiago’s desire to travel as he wishes one day to make the Hajj. He allows Santiago to build the case. Two months later, the case has increased sales. Santiago has learned Arabic but Egypt is now a distant dream, much like Mecca. He has learned to recognize omens: After seeing a thirsty man, he suggested that they sell tea to those who climbed the hill outside the store. The merchant considers the idea; if implemented, it will be so successful that he will have to “change [his] way of life” (40). The shop is exactly the size he wants it to be. He agrees to the plan anyway because “sometimes, there’s just no way to hold back the river” (41).

The tea is a success. The merchant hires two more employees and begins to import tea. After 11 months in the position, Santiago wakes up early. He dresses in “Arabic clothing of white linen, bought especially for this day” (42). Sitting and smoking hookah, he withdraws his savings. It is enough to buy 120 sheep and a license to import African products. When the merchant wakes, Santiago announces his departure. The merchant knows that Santiago is not going to buy sheep, just as he is “not going to go to Mecca” (42). Santiago receives the merchant’s blessing.

As Santiago is packing, he rediscovers Urim and Thummim. For a year, he has been “working incessantly” (43) and has not thought about Melchizedek or Egypt. He considers what the old king told him and, as he is leaving the shop, he realizes that the merchant reminds him of Melchizedek. He leaves the store “without saying good-bye” (44). Santiago is beginning to doubt his decision to go back to Spain. He passes the bar he had visited on his first day in Tangiers. This is an omen, he decides. Santiago goes to the warehouse of one of the crystal merchant’s suppliers to ask about the journey to Egypt.

An Englishman sits in the warehouse. He believes in omens and wants to find “the one true language of the universe” (45). To that end, he has been studying alchemy but is not yet an alchemist. No alchemists seem to want to befriend him. Much of his vast inheritance has been spent fruitlessly pursuing the Philosopher’s Stone. One of his leads points him toward the Al-Fayoum oasis; he has joined a caravan that will pass through this area in the hopes of meeting the alchemist who dwells there. As he waits and reads, a “young Arab” sits opposite him and reads a book in Spanish. Santiago tries again to read the book he has had for the last two years. He has decided to join the caravan and is sitting opposite the Englishman. When he removes Urim and Thummim from his pocket, the previously distant Englishmen jumps up with a shout. He has a similar set of stones. They are the “only form of divination permitted by God” (47), the Englishman explains. The two bond over their belief in omens. They are to travel together to Al-Fayoum.

The caravan contains 200 people and 400 animals. The leader of the caravan tells them of the dangers of the desert, where “disobedience means death” (48). Santiago and the Englishman ride camels. The caravan travels in the morning, pauses when “the sun was at its strongest” (49), and continues in late afternoon. Once they are in the desert, everything is quieter. Santiago aims to learn from the desert as he learned from the sheep and the crystal. He thinks of the merchant’s daughter in Andalusia and assumes she has already married. The caravan must traverse rocks and sand too fine for the camels’ feet. It always moves toward the same compass point. Santiago watches carefully while the Englishman reads. Santiago befriends a camel driver, who once had a successful happy life. His land was ruined in a natural disaster, forcing him to become a camel driver. This taught him that “people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want” (51).

Occasionally, they meet other caravans or Bedouins and trade goods. Amid rumors of a tribal war, they accelerate their pace. They stop lighting fires at night and circle their animals around the camps. One night, Santiago and the Englishman walk around the camp and Santiago tells his story. The Englishman is impressed. They agree on the power of omens and Santiago decides to begin reading the Englishman’s books. All the books contain the same idea that “all things are the manifestation of one thing only” (53). Santiago reads the stories of the famous alchemists. He becomes “more and more convinced that alchemy could be learned in one’s daily life” (54). The Englishmen is growing bored with watching the caravan; the only thing he has learned is that “talk of war was becoming more and more frequent” (55). Santiago hands back the books.

A tribal war breaks out around the caravan. They arrive at the oasis. The alchemist watches the caravan arrive. He knows that the caravan contains “a man to whom he was to teach some of his secrets” (57) but he doesn’t know which man. Santiago is impressed by the oasis, which is larger than many towns in Spain and is home to a bustling community. The caravan will remain at the oasis (considered a neutral territory) until the tribal war is over; everyone must hand over their weapons and the Englishman hands over a “chrome-plated revolver” (58). Santiago feels that he is being tested. He is assigned a tent with five other young men, far from the Englishman. The Englishman finds Santiago and enlists him in the search for the alchemist. It takes them some time. Finally, Santiago asks a young woman with an uncovered face. As he looks her in the eye, Santiago falls in love.

The girl’s name is Fatima. She knows of the alchemist as the man who “communicates with the genies of the desert” (61). The Englishman goes to search for the alchemist and Fatima leaves. Santiago sits by the well and thinks. The next day, he returns to the well and hopes to see the girl. He meets the Englishman, who has been told by the alchemist to try and turn lead into gold before he can learn anything else. Fatima arrives and Santiago tells her that he loves her. Every day, he waits for her at the well and they talk for 15 minutes.

After a month, the caravan leader announces that “we can’t continue our journey” (62) because of the war. Santiago seeks out Fatima; he has told her about everything, including his dreams, the old king, and his treasure. She tells him to pursue his dream and, if she is truly a vital part of the dream, he will “come back one day” (63). She will wait for him. Santiago seeks out the Englishman, who has built himself a furnace and is attempting his Master Work. Santiago wanders out into the desert and sits and thinks. He watches the hawks fly above him and “it made a certain kind of sense” (64); he watches as one hawk suddenly attacks another and has a vision of an army attacking the oasis. He is unable to shake the image and decides to “heed the omens” (65). Visiting a camel driver whom he befriended, Santiago explains that “an army is coming” (65). The camel driver has experience with seers; he tells Santiago to inform the chiefs of the tribe.

Santiago goes to the chieftains’ tent and passes along the message of what he has seen. As night falls, “the oasis fell quiet as the desert” (67). Santiago is ushered into the opulent tent and introduces himself to the chieftains. After he tells them what he saw, the chieftains argue in a dialect he does not understand. They are brought to a halt by the smile of “the elder at the center” (68), who tells the biblical story of Joseph, a “stranger in a strange land” (68) who interpreted dreams, just like Santiago. Tomorrow, the man announces, the people of the oasis will arm themselves and prepare for war. Returning to his tent, Santiago is “alarmed by what had happened” (69). He has no regrets if he dies the following day, as “to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day” (69). Suddenly, he is thrown to the ground and he hears a “thundering sound” (69). The air fills with dust and an “enormous white horse” (69) appears before Santiago.

The dust settles and he sees the rider, who is dressed completely in black with a falcon on his shoulder, his entire face covered by a kerchief. The rider demands to know “who dares to read the meaning of the flight of the hawks” (70). Santiago confesses and then bows down, expecting an execution. The rider draws a single drop of blood with the tip of his sword and asks Santiago questions. The rider removes the sword and says that he had to “test [Santiago’s] courage” (71). If Santiago survives the battle, he is told to seek out the rider. When asked where he lives, the rider points his whip south as he rides away; now, “the boy had met the alchemist” (71). The next day, 500 tribesmen appear from the desert. The men of the oasis lure them into a trap and kill all but one of the attackers, the tribal chief. The chief explains that his men were thirsty and hungry. He is hanged from a dead palm tree. Santiago is given 50 pieces of gold and asked to become a counselor of the oasis.