第十一回 老人自稱“撒冷之王”

Paulo Coelho

老人拿到書后，發現書的主題是什么？ 在與搭訕老者的對話中，牧羊少年得到了自己想要的信息嗎？

題材冒險體裁小說文章詞數 難度 建議用時372 ★★★ 6 分鐘

“It's a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say,” continued the old man. “It describes people's inability to choose their own destinies （命運）. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world's greatest lie.”

“What's the world's greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised.

“It's that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.”

“That's never happened to me,” the boy said. “They wanted me to be a priest, but I decided to become a shepherd.”

“Much better,” said the old man. “Because you really like to travel.”

“He knew what I was thinking,” the boy said to himself.

The old man, meanwhile, was leafing through the book, without seeming to want to return it at all. The boy noticed that the man's clothing was strange. He looked like an Arab,which was not unusual in those parts. Africa was only a few hours from Tarifa （塔里法，西班牙地名）; one had only to cross the narrow straits by boat. Arabs often appeared in the city, shopping and chanting their strange prayers several times a day.

“Where are you from?” the boy asked.

“From many places.”

“No one can be from many places,” the boy said. “I'm a shepherd, and I have been to many places, but I come from only one place—from a city near an ancient castle. That's where I was born.”

“Well then, we could say that I was born in Salem.”

The boy didn't know where Salem was, but he didn't want to ask, fearing that he would appear ignorant （無知的）. He looked at the people in the plaza for a while; they were coming and going, and all of them seemed to be very busy.

“So, what is Salem like?” he asked, trying to get some sort of clue.

“It's like it always has been.”

No clue yet. But he knew that Salem wasn't in Andalusia （安達盧西亞，西班牙的一個自治區）. If it had been, he would already have heard of it.

“And what do you do in Salem?”he insisted.

“What do I do in Salem?” the old man laughed. “Well, I'm the king of Salem! ”

Reading Check

What was the theme of the book about?

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