The Witch of Portobello

by Paulo Coelho

No one lights a lamp in order to hide it behind the door: the

They want to feel powerful and superior to the anonymous masses.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux. I have no interest in the Catholic faith, but from what I’ve

she should have joined a convent and devoted her life to prayer or to the service of the poor.

to gather people around her in order to demonstrate how wise she was, to show off her gifts, to provoke the neighbors,

Everyone’s looking for the perfect teacher, but although their teachings might be divine, teachers are all too human, and that’s something people find hard to accept. Don’t confuse the teacher with the lesson, the ritual with the ecstasy, the transmitter of the symbol with the symbol itself.

let herself be affected by negative vibrations: excessive ambition, intolerance, abuse of power, extravagance.

that doesn’t involve emotional contact with people, like computing or engineering.

but that it is also the name of the Greek goddess of wisdom, intelligence, and war. Perhaps

friends—angels and saints whose images she was accustomed to seeing in the

church we attended.

the poor children ended their lives in a convent or a monastery.

don’t know how much children remember of what happens to them, but we started trying to show her just how much we loved her and that there was no need for her to take refuge in an imaginary world.

I told her there were no devils, only stars in the sky and people strolling up and down the boulevard outside our apartment.

eyes that were sometimes green, sometimes gray),

our limited budgets

but that day I felt like the most important man on the face of the earth.

Maronite Christian [Editor’s note: a branch of the Catholic

She told me that she was a virgin, went to church on Sundays, and had no interest in romantic novels—she

She said they were things of the Devil, and that salvation was only possible through Jesus—end

seem entirely in keeping with the teachings of the Church.

that the divine spark is in every soul and is never extinguished. When I sit still, or when I’m feeling very agitated, I feel as if I’m vibrating along with the whole Universe. And I know things then that I don’t know, as if God is guiding my steps.

Athena always lived between two worlds: what she felt was true and what she had been taught by her faith. One

someone, at a time when universities seemed important, said that in order to rise in the world, you had to have a degree. And thus the world was deprived of some excellent gardeners, bakers,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Everything

anymore. From now on, I’m independent; I see life through my eyes and not through other people’s. I’m going in search of the adventure of being alive. And it’s complicated: Why am I not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing? Why am I going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking? After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it’s a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it’s sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony. All right then, peace. Peace? If we look at the Mother, she’s never at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who’s afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man. Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop working. But then they’re more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that’s true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money won’t necessarily bring happiness. I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness; now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex—it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contented, but happiness? I no longer fall into that trap. When I’m with a group of people and I want to pr...