He looked her in the eyes. But the way a child would have.
‘You wrote that letter, right?’
He said.
‘Hélène asked you to write it and you did.’
Madame Blanche didn’t move; she didn’t lower her gaze or betray the least astonishment.
Then what she said was
‘It wasn’t I who wrote it.’
Silence.
‘Hélène wrote that letter.’
Silence.
‘She had already written it when she came to me. She asked me to copy it, in Japanese. And I did. That is the truth.’
Hervé Joncour realised at that moment that he would continue to hear those words all his life. He rose, but stood still, as if he had suddenly forgotten where he was going. The voice of Madame Blanche reached him as if from far away.
‘She also wanted to read me that letter. She had a beautiful voice. And she read the words with an emotion that I have never been able to forget. It was as if they were, truly, hers.’
Hervé Joncour was crossing the room, with very slow steps.
‘You know, monsieur, I think that she wished, more than any other thing, to be that woman. You can’t understand it. But I heard her read that letter. I know that it is so.’
Hervé Joncour had reached the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob. Without turning, he said softly
‘Farewell, madame.’
They never saw each other again.
65.
HERVÉ Joncour lived for twenty-three more years, most of them in serenity and good health. He never went away from Lavilledieu again, nor did he ever abandon his house. He managed his goods wisely, and that protected him forever from any work that was not the care of his own park. In time he began to yield to a pleasure that in the past he had always denied himself: to those who came to see him, he recounted his travels. Listening to him, the people of Lavilledieu learned about the world, and the children discovered what marvel was. He spoke softly, staring into the air, at things the others couldn’t see.
On Sundays he went to town, for High Mass. Once a year he made a tour of the silk mills, to touch the newborn silk. When the solitude wrung his heart, he went to the cemetery, to talk to Hélène. The rest of his time he spent in a liturgy of habits that protected him from unhappiness. Every so often, on a windy day, he went to the lake and spent hours looking at it, because, drawn on the water, he seemed to see the inexplicable spectacle, light, that had been his life.
Also by Alessandro Baricco
An Iliad
Without Blood
Lands of Glass
City
Ocean Sea
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2006 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2009
by Canongate Books
Copyright © Alessandro Baricco, 1997
English translation copyright © Alessandro Baricco, 2006
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
The publisher gratefully acknowledges subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council towards the publication of this volume
This English translation was supported by
the Italian Cultural Institute, Edinburgh
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 849 2
www.meetatthegate.com
Silk Page 6