In the meantime the glowing underbrush around him had become so dense that it cut off his view on all sides. To make matters worse, lianas and aerial roots were becoming inextricably tangled with the thicket below. Slashing with the side of his hand as if it had been a machete, Bastian opened up a passage. And the breach closed directly behind him as if it had never been.

On he went, but the wall of giant tree trunks blocked his path. Bastian grabbed hold of two great tree trunks and bent them apart. When he had passed through, the wall closed soundlessly behind him.

On he went, but the wall of giant tree trunks blocked his path. Bastian grabbed hold of two great tree trunks and bent them apart. When he had passed through, the wall closed soundlessly behind him.

Bastian shouted for joy.

He was the Lord of the Jungle!

For a while he amused himself opening paths for himself, like an elephant that has heard the Great Call. His strength did not abate, he had no need to stop for breath. He felt no stitch in his side, and his heart didn’t thump or race.

For this there was a reason which Bastian was not to discover until much later. The beauty that had been bestowed on him made him forget, little by little, that he had ever been fat and bowlegged.

Even if he had known what was happening, he would hardly have regretted the loss of this particular memory. As it happened, he didn’t even realize that he had forgotten anything. And when the memory had vanished completely, it seemed to him that he had always been as handsome as he was now.

Without stopping once he finally reached the branch from which the liana was hanging, climbed up and straddled it. The branch gave off a red glow. He stood up and, balancing himself like a tightrope walker, made his way to the trunk. Here again a dense tangle of creepers barred his way, but he had no difficulty in opening up a passage through it.

And so, before he knew it, a new wish arose within him and little by little took form.

For days and nights he had been wandering all alone. And because of being alone, he yearned to belong to some sort of community, to be taken into a group, not as a master or victor or as any special sort of person, but merely as one among many, perhaps as the smallest or least important, provided his membership in the community was unquestioned.

And then one day he came to a seacoast. Or so he thought at first. He was standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, and before him lay a sea of congealed white waves. It was some time before he realized that these waves were not really motionless, but were moving very slowly, that there were currents and eddies that moved as imperceptibly as the hands of a clock.

On this first day and for several that followed, the miner, by wordlessly guiding Bastian’s hand, instructed him in the art of separating the paper-thin leaves of isinglass from one another and picking them up. There were tools for the purpose, they felt like wooden or horn spatulas, but Bastian never saw them, for when the day’s work was done they stayed down in the mine.

Without stopping once he finally reached the branch from which the liana was hanging, climbed up and straddled it. The branch gave off a red glow. He stood up and, balancing himself like a tightrope walker, made his way to the trunk. Here again a dense tangle of creepers barred his way, but he had no difficulty in opening up a passage through it.

At that height the trunk was still so thick that five men clasping hands could not have encircled it. Another, somewhat higher branch, jutting from the trunk in a different direction, was beyond his reach. So he leapt through the air, caught hold of an aerial root, swung himself into place, made another perilous leap, and grabbed the higher branch. From there he was able to pull himself up to a still higher one. By then he was high above the ground, at least three hundred feet, but the glowing branches and foliage still obstructed his view.

On his way through the luminous forest, Bastian tried hard not to step on the glittering seeds that lay on the ground, but this soon proved impossible. There simply wasn’t a foot’s breadth of ground from which nothing was sprouting. So he stopped worrying and went wherever the giant trees left a path open for him.

Bastian was delighted at being handsome. It didn’t bother him that there was no one to admire him. On the contrary, he was glad to have the pleasure all to himself. He didn’t care a fig for being admired by the lugs who had always made fun of him. If he thought of them at all, it was almost with pity.

But when he opened the attic door and went down the stairs, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. The building seemed deserted. And then the school clock struck nine. That meant it was morning, so classes must have begun.

Bastian looked into several classrooms. All were empty. When he went to a window and looked down into the street, he saw a few pedestrians and cars.

But after a while he wearied of his new sport. The next thing he wanted was to look down on his domain from above, to see how big it was.

He spat on his hands, took hold of a liana, and pulled himself up hand over hand, without using his legs, as he had seen acrobats do in the circus. For a moment a vision — a pale memory of the past — came to him of himself in gym class, dangling like a sack of flour from the bottommost end of the rope, while the rest of the class cackled with glee. He couldn’t help smiling. How they would gape if they saw him now! They’d be proud to know him. But he wouldn’t even look at them.