Михаэль Энде - The Neverending Story

While Bastian looked at the picture that lay before him in the snow, a longing grew in him for this man whom he did not know, a surge of feeling that seemed to come from far away. Like a tidal wave, almost imperceptible at first, it gradually built up strength till it submerged everything in its path. Bastian struggled for air. His heart pounded, it was not big enough for so great a longing. That surge of feeling submerged everything that he still remembered of himself. And he forgot the last thing he still possessed: his own name.

Later on, when he joined Yor in the hut, he was silent. The miner was silent too, but for a long while he faced Bastian, his eyes once again seeming to look through him and far into the distance. And for the first time since Bastian had come, a smile passed briefly over the miner’s stone-gray features.

That night, tired as he was, the boy who no longer had a name could not sleep. He kept seeing the picture before his eyes. It was as though this man wanted to say something to him but could not, because of the block of ice he was imprisoned in. The boy without a name wanted to help him, wanted to make the ice melt. As in a waking dream he saw himself hugging the block of ice, trying in vain to melt it with the heat of his body.

But then all at once he heard what the man was trying to say to him; he heard it not with his ears but deep in his heart.

“Please help me! Don’t leave me! I can’t get out of this ice alone. Help me! Only you can help me!”

When they awoke next morning at daybreak, the boy without a name said to Yor: “I won’t be going down into the mine with you anymore.”

“Are you going to leave me?”

The boy nodded. “I’m going to look for the Water of Life.”

“Have you found the picture that will guide you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you show it to me?”

Again the boy nodded. They went out into the snow where the picture lay. The boy looked at it, but Yor directed his blind eyes at the boy’s face, as though looking through it into the distance. For a long while he seemed to be listening for some sound. At length he nodded.

“Take it with you,” he whispered, “and don’t lose it. If you lose it, or if it is destroyed, you will have nothing left in Fantastica. You know what that means.”

The boy who no longer had a name stood with bowed head and was silent for a while. Then he said just as softly: “Thank you, Yor, for what you have taught me.”

They pressed each other’s hands.

“You’ve been a good miner,” Yor whispered. “You’ve worked well.”

Then he turned away and went to the mine shaft. Without turning around he got into the pit cage and descended into the depths.

The boy without a name picked the picture out of the snow and plodded out into the snow-covered plain.

He had been walking for many hours. Yor’s hut had long since disappeared below the horizon. On all sides there was nothing to be seen but the endless snow-covered plain. But he felt that the picture, which he was holding carefully in both hands, was pulling him in a certain direction.

Regardless of how far it might be, he was determined to follow this pull, for he was convinced that it would take him to the right place. Nothing must hold him back. He felt sure of finding the Water of Life.

Suddenly he heard a clamor in the air, as though innumerable creatures were screaming and twittering. Looking up into the sky, he saw a dark cloud like a great flock of birds. But when the flock came closer, he saw what it really was and terror stopped him in his tracks.

It was the butterfly-clowns, the Shlamoofs.

Merciful heavens! thought the boy without a name. If only they haven’t seen me! They’ll shatter the picture with their screams!

But they had seen him.

Laughing and rollicking, they shot down and landed all around him in the snow.

“Hurrah!” they croaked, opening wide their motley-colored mouths. “At last we’ve found him! Our great benefactor!”

They tumbled in the snow, threw snowballs at one another, turned somersaults, and stood on their heads.

“Be still! Please be still!” the boy without a name whispered in desperation.

The whole chorus screamed with enthusiasm: “What did he say?” — “He said we were too still!” — “Nobody ever told us that before!”

“What do you want of me?” asked the boy. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

All whirled around him, cackling: “Great benefactor! Great benefactor! Do you remember how you saved us, when we were the Acharis? Then we were the unhappiest creatures in all Fantastica, but now we’re fed up with ourselves. At first what you did to us was a lot of fun, but now we’re bored to death. We flit and we flutter and we don’t know where we’re at. We can’t even plan any decent games, because we haven’t any rules. You’ve turned us into preposterous clowns, that’s what you’ve done. You’ve cheated us!”

“I meant well,” said the horrified boy.

“Sure, you meant well by yourself,” the Shlamoofs shouted in chorus. “Your kindness made you feel great, didn’t it? But we paid the bill for your kindness, you great benefactor!”

“What should I do?” the boy asked. “What do you want of me?”

“We’ve been looking for you,” screamed the Shlamoofs with grimacing clown faces. “We wanted to catch you before you could make yourself scarce. Now we’ve caught you, and we won’t leave you in peace until you become our chief. We want you to be our Head Shlamoof, our Master Shlamoof, our General Shlamoof! You name it.”

“But why?” the boy asked imploringly.

The chorus of clowns screamed back: “We want you to give us orders. We want you to order us around, to make us do something, to forbid us to do something. We want you to give us an aim in life!”

“I can’t do that. Why don’t you elect one of your number?”

“No, we want you. You made us what we are.”

“No,” the boy panted. “I have to go! I have to go back!”

“Not so fast, great benefactor!” cried the butterfly-clowns. “You can’t get away from us. You think you can sneak away from Fantastica, don’t you? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“But I’m at the end of my rope,” the boy protested.

“What about us?” the chorus replied.

“Go away!” cried the boy. “I can’t bother with you anymore.”

“Then you must turn us back!” cried the shrill voices. “Then we’d rather be Acharis. The Lake of Tears has dried up, Amarganth is on dry land now. And no one spins fine silver filigree anymore. We want to be Acharis again.”

“I can’t!” the boy replied. “I no longer have any power in Fantastica.”

“In that case,” the whole swarm bellowed, whirling and swirling about, “we’ll kidnap you!”

Hundreds of little hands seized him and tried to lift him off the ground. The boy struggled with might and main and the butterflies were tossed in all directions. But like angry wasps they kept coming back.

Suddenly in the midst of this hubbub a low yet powerful sound was heard—something like the booming of a bronze bell.

In a twinkling the Shlamoofs took flight and their cloud soon vanished in the sky.

The boy who had no name knelt in the snow. Before him, crumbled into dust, lay the picture. Now all was lost. Now nothing could lead him to the Water of Life.

When he looked up, he saw, blurred by his tears, two forms in the snow. One was large, the other small. He wiped his eyes and took another look.

The two forms were Falkor, the white luckdragon, and Atreyu.