PART TWO 10

  The boy went to look for the Englishman. He wanted to tell him about Fatima. He was surprised when he saw that the Englishman had built himself a furnace outside his tent. It was a strange furnace, fueled by firewood, with a transparent¹ flask² heating on top. As the Englishman stared out at the desert, his eyes seemed brighter than they had when he was reading his books.

"This is the first phase of the job," he said. "I have to separate out the sulfur³. To do that successfully, I must have no fear of failure. It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the Master Work. Now, I'm beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I'm happy at least that I didn't wait twenty years."

He continued to feed the fire, and the boy stayed on until the desert turned pink in the setting sun. He felt the urge to go out into the desert, to see if its silence held the answers to his questions.

He wandered for a while, keeping the date palms of the oasis⁴ within sight. He listened to the wind, and felt the stones beneath his feet. Here and there, he found a shell, and realized that the desert, in remote times, had been a sea. He sat on a stone, and allowed himself to become hypnotized by the horizon. He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn't separate them. But Fatima was a woman of the desert, and, if anything could help him to understand, it was the desert.

As he sat there thinking, he sensed movement above him. Looking up, he saw a pair of hawks⁵ flying high in the sky.

He watched the hawks as they drifted on the wind. Although their flight appeared to have no pattern, it made a certain kind of sense to the boy. It was just that he couldn't grasp what it meant. He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of love without ownership.

He felt sleepy. In his heart, he wanted to remain awake, but he also wanted to sleep. "I am learning the Language of the World, and everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me… even the flight of the hawks," he said to himself. And, in that mood, he was grateful to be in love. When you are in love, things make even more sense, he thought.

Suddenly, one of the hawks made a flashing dive through the sky, attacking the other. As it did so, a sudden, fleeting⁶ image came to the boy: an army, with its swords at the ready, riding into the oasis. The vision vanished immediately, but it had shaken him. He had heard people speak of mirages⁷, and had already seen some himself: they were desires that, because of their intensity⁸, materialized over the sands of the desert. But he certainly didn't desire that an army invade the oasis.

He wanted to forget about the vision, and return to his meditation⁹. He tried again to concentrate on the pink shades of the desert, and its stones. But there was something there in his heart that wouldn't allow him to do so.

"Always heed¹⁰ the omens¹¹," the old king had said. The boy recalled what he had seen in the vision, and sensed that it was actually going to occur.

 

 

He rose, and made his way back toward the palm trees. Once again, he perceived the many languages in the things about him: this time, the desert was safe, and it was the oasis that had become dangerous.

The camel driver was seated at the base of a palm tree, observing the sunset. He saw the boy appear from the other side of the dunes¹².

"An army is coming," the boy said. "I had a vision."

"The desert fills men's hearts with visions," the camel driver answered.

But the boy told him about the hawks: that he had been watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself to have plunged¹³ to the Soul of the World.

The camel driver understood what the boy was saying. He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things. One could open a book to any page, or look at a person's hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of the birds… whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn't that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration¹⁴ to the Soul of the World.

The desert was full of men who earned their living based on the ease with which they could penetrate¹⁵ to the Soul of the World. They were known as seers, and they were held in fear by women and the elderly. Tribesmen were also wary¹⁶ of consulting them, because it would be impossible to be effective in battle if one knew that he was fated to die. The tribesmen preferred the taste of battle, and the thrill of not knowing what the outcome would be; the future was already written by Allah, and what he had written was always for the good of man. So the tribesmen lived only for the present, because the present was full of surprises, and they had to be aware of many things: Where was the enemy's sword? Where was his horse? What kind of blow should one deliver next in order to remain alive? The camel driver was not a fighter, and he had consulted with seers. Many of them had been right about what they said, while some had been wrong. Then, one day, the oldest seer he had ever sought out (and the one most to be feared) had asked why the camel driver was so interested in the future.

"Well… so I can do things," he had responded. "And so I can change those things that I don't want to happen."

"But then they wouldn't be a part of your future," the seer had said.

"Well, maybe I just want to know the future so I can prepare myself for what's coming."

"If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur."

"I want to know about the future because I'm a man," the camel driver had said to the seer. "And men always live their lives based on the future."

The seer was a specialist in the casting of twigs¹⁷; he threw them on the ground, and made interpretations¹⁸ based on how they fell. That day, he didn't make a cast. He wrapped the twigs in a piece of cloth and put them back in his bag.

"I make my living forecasting the future for people," he said. "I know the science of the twigs, and I know how to use them to penetrate to the place where all is written. There, I can read the past, discover what has already been forgotten, and understand the omens that are here in the present.

"When people consult me, it's not that I'm reading the future; I am guessing at the future. The future belongs to God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity¹⁹."

The camel driver had asked what the circumstances were under which God would allow him to see the future.

"Only when he, himself, reveals it. And God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for only one reason: it's a future that was written so as to be altered."

God had shown the boy a part of the future, the camel driver thought. Why was it that he wanted the boy to serve as his instrument?

"Go and speak to the tribal²⁰ chieftains," said the camel driver. "Tell them about the armies that are approaching."

"They'll laugh at me."

"They are men of the desert, and the men of the desert are used to dealing²¹ with omens."

"Well, then, they probably already know."

"They're not concerned with that right now. They believe that if they have to know about something Allah wants them to know, someone will tell them about it. It has happened many times before. But, this time, the person is you."

The boy thought of Fatima. And he decided²² he would go to see the chiefs of the tribes.

1 transparent   

adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的

参考例句：

• The water is so transparent that we can see the fishes swimming.水清澈透明，可以看到鱼儿游来游去。
• The window glass is transparent.窗玻璃是透明的。

2 flask   

n.瓶，火药筒，砂箱

参考例句：

• There is some deposit in the bottom of the flask.这只烧杯的底部有些沉淀物。
• He took out a metal flask from a canvas bag.他从帆布包里拿出一个金属瓶子。

3 sulfur   

n.硫，硫磺（=sulphur）

参考例句：

• Sulfur emissions from steel mills become acid rain.炼钢厂排放出的硫形成了酸雨。
• Burning may produce sulfur oxides.燃烧可能会产生硫氧化物。

4 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

5 hawks   

鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物

参考例句：

• Two hawks were hover ing overhead. 两只鹰在头顶盘旋。
• Both hawks and doves have expanded their conditions for ending the war. 鹰派和鸽派都充分阐明了各自的停战条件。

6 fleeting   

adj.短暂的，飞逝的

参考例句：

• The girls caught only a fleeting glimpse of the driver.女孩们只匆匆瞥了一眼司机。
• Knowing the life fleeting,she set herself to enjoy if as best as she could.她知道这种日子转瞬即逝，于是让自已尽情地享受。

7 mirages   

n.海市蜃楼，幻景( mirage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Through my half-closed eyelids I began to see mirages. 透过我半睁半闭的双眼，我看到了海市蜃楼。 来自辞典例句
• There was for him only one trustworthy road through deceptions and mirages. 对他来说只有一条可靠的路能避开幻想和错觉。 来自辞典例句

8 intensity   

n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度

参考例句：

• I didn't realize the intensity of people's feelings on this issue.我没有意识到这一问题能引起群情激奋。
• The strike is growing in intensity.罢工日益加剧。

9 meditation   

n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录

参考例句：

• This peaceful garden lends itself to meditation.这个恬静的花园适于冥想。
• I'm sorry to interrupt your meditation.很抱歉，我打断了你的沉思。

10 heed   

v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心

参考例句：

• You must take heed of what he has told.你要注意他所告诉的事。
• For the first time he had to pay heed to his appearance.这是他第一次非得注意自己的外表不可了。

11 omens   

n.前兆，预兆( omen的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The omens for the game are still not propitious. 这场比赛仍不被看好。 来自辞典例句
• Such omens betide no good. 这种征兆预示情况不妙。 来自辞典例句

12 dunes   

沙丘( dune的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The boy galloped over the dunes barefoot. 那男孩光着脚在沙丘间飞跑。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat. 将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

13 plunged   

v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降

参考例句：

• The train derailed and plunged into the river. 火车脱轨栽进了河里。
• She lost her balance and plunged 100 feet to her death. 她没有站稳，从100英尺的高处跌下摔死了。

14 penetration   

n.穿透，穿人，渗透

参考例句：

• He is a man of penetration.他是一个富有洞察力的人。
• Our aim is to achieve greater market penetration.我们的目标是进一步打入市场。

15 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

16 wary   

adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的

参考例句：

• He is wary of telling secrets to others.他谨防向他人泄露秘密。
• Paula frowned,suddenly wary.宝拉皱了皱眉头，突然警惕起来。

17 twigs   

细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Some birds build nests of twigs. 一些鸟用树枝筑巢。
• Willow twigs are pliable. 柳条很软。

18 interpretations   

n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解

参考例句：

• This passage is open to a variety of interpretations. 这篇文章可以有各种不同的解释。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The involved and abstruse passage makes several interpretations possible. 这段艰涩的文字可以作出好几种解释。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

19 eternity   

n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷

参考例句：

• The dull play seemed to last an eternity.这场乏味的剧似乎演个没完没了。
• Finally,Ying Tai and Shan Bo could be together for all of eternity.英台和山伯终能双宿双飞，永世相随。

20 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

21 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

22 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。