Free Silk by Alessandro Baricco

7.
    B ALDABIOU was also the man who, eight years earlier, had changed Hervé Joncour’s life. It was when the epidemics had first begun to hurt the European production of silkworm eggs. Without getting upset, Baldabiou had studied the situation and had reached the conclusion that the problem would not be solved; it would be evaded. He had an idea; he lacked the right man. He realised he had found him when he saw Hervé Joncour passing by the café Verdun, elegant in the uniform of a second lieutenant of the infantry and with the proud bearing of a soldier on leave. He was twenty-four, at the time. Baldabiou invited him to his house, spread open before him an atlas full of exotic names, and said to him
    ‘Congratulations. You’ve finally found a serious job, boy.’
    Hervé Joncour listened to a long story about silkworms, eggs, pyramids and travel by ship. Then he said
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘In two days my leave is over – I have to return to Paris.’
    ‘Military career?’
    ‘Yes. It’s what my father wanted.’
    ‘No problem.’
    He seized Hervé Joncour and led him to his father.
    ‘You know who this is?’ he asked, after entering the office unannounced.
    ‘My son.’
    ‘Look harder.’
    The mayor sank back in his leather chair, beginning to sweat.
    ‘My son Hervé, who in two days will return to Paris, where a brilliant career awaits him in our army, God and St Agnes willing.’
    ‘Exactly. Only, God is busy elsewhere and St Agnes detests soldiers.’
    A month later Hervé Joncour left for Egypt. He travelled on a ship called the Adel . In the cabins you could smell the odour of cooking, there was an Englishman who said he had fought at Waterloo, on the evening of the third day they saw dolphins sparkling on the horizon like drunken waves, at roulette it was always the sixteen.
    He returned six months later – the first Sunday in April, in time for High Mass – with thousands of eggs packed in cotton wool in two big wooden boxes. He had a lot of things to tell. But what Baldabiou said to him when they were alone was
    ‘Tell me about the dolphins.’
    ‘The dolphins?’
    ‘About when you saw them.’
    That was Baldabiou.
    No one knew how old he was.

8.
    ‘ A LMOST the entire world,’ said Baldabiou softly. ‘Almost’, pouring a little water into his Pernod.
    An August night, past twelve. Normally at that hour, Verdun had already been closed for a while. The chairs were turned upside down, neatly, on the tables. He had cleaned the bar, and all the rest. He had only to turn off the lights and lock up. But Verdun was waiting: Baldabiou was talking.
    Sitting across from him, Hervé Joncour, with a spent cigarette between his lips, listened, unmoving. As he had eight years before, he was letting this man methodically rewrite his destiny. His voice came out thin and clear, punctuated by swallows of Pernod. He didn’t stop for many minutes. The last thing he said was
    ‘There is no choice. If we want to survive, we have to get there.’
    Silence.
    Verdun, leaning on the bar, looked over at the two of them.
    Baldabiou was busy trying to find another drop of Pernod in the bottom of the glass.
    Hervé Joncour placed the cigarette on the edge of the table before saying
    ‘And where, exactly, might it be, this Japan?’
    Baldabiou raised his walking stick and pointed it beyond the roofs of Saint-August.
    ‘Straight that way.’
    He said.
    ‘At the end of the world.’

9.
    I N those days Japan was, in effect, on the other side of the world. It was an island made up of islands, and for two hundred years had existed in complete isolation from the rest of humanity, rejecting any contact with the continent and prohibiting any foreigner from entering. The Chinese coast was almost two hundred miles distant, but an imperial decree had taken care to make it even farther, by forbidding throughout the island the construction of boats with more than one mast. Following a logic in its way enlightened,