UNLOCKING VERBAL DIFFICULTIES:
- Imperceptibly – unnoticeably
- Hoarse - deep and harsh sounding as if from shouting, illness or emotion
- Melancholy – a feeling of thoughtful sadness
- Gaze – to stare/ look at something/someone with fixed eyes
- Voyage – an act of traveling by water/sail
- Wrenched – made a sudden twist/change
- Inexorably – never ceasing, relentless, persistent, unforgiving
- Mute – wordless, unspoken, speechless
GUIDE QUESTIONS:
- What does the protagonist feel? Why does he feel this way?
- What does the girl feel? Why do you think so?
- How did you feel when you were reading the text? Do you think what they were experiencing was love or lust?
- How the girl and Herve communicate with each other?
- Why doesn’t Hara Kei know what is going on?
- What does the cup symbolize?
- What is the significance of the glances between Herve and the girl?
- Do you find the text romantic? Why or why not?
- What is the lesson/moral of the text?
************************************************
Silk [Excerpt]
by Alessandro Baricco
(Italy)
A rice-paper panel slid open, and Herve Joncour entered. Hara Kei was sitting cross-legged, on the floor, in the farthest corner of the room. He had on a dark tunic and wore no jewels. The only visible sign of his power was a woman lying beside him, unmoving, her head resting on his lap, eyes closed, arms hidden under a loose red robe that spread around her, like a flame, on the ash-colored mat. Slowly he ran one hand through her hair: He seemed to be caressing the coat of a precious, sleeping animal.
Herve Joncour crossed the room, waited for a sign from his host, and sat down opposite him. A servant arrived, imperceptibly, and placed before them two cups of tea. Then he vanished. Hara Kei began to speak, in his own language, in a singsong voice that melted into a sort of irritating artificial falsetto. Herve Joncour listened. He kept his eyes fixed on those of Hara Kei and only for an instant, almost without realizing it, lowered them to the face of the woman.
It was the face of a girl. He raised them again. Hara Kei paused, picked up one of the cups of tea, brought it to his lips, let some moments pass and said,
“Try to tell me who you are.” He said it in French, drawing out the vowels, in a hoarse voice but true.
__________
To the most invincible man in Japan, the master of all the world might take away from that island, Herve Joncour tried to explain who he was. He did it in his own language, speaking slowly, without knowing precisely if Hara Kei was able to understand. Instinctively, he rejected prudence, reporting simply, without inventions and without omissions, everything that was true. He set forth small details and crucial events in the same tone, and with barely visible gestures, imitating the hypnotic pace, melancholy and neutral, of a catalog of objects rescued from a fire. Hara Kei listened, and not a shadow of an expression discomposed the features of his face. He kept his eyes fixed on Herve Joncour’s lips as if they were the last lines of a farewell letter. The room was so silent and still that what happened unexpectedly seemed a huge event and yet was nothing.
Suddenly, without moving at all, that girl opened her eyes.
Herve Joncour did not pause but instinctively lowered his gaze to her, and what he saw, without pausing, was that those eyes did not have an Oriental shape, and that they were fixed, with a disconcerting intensity, on him: as if from the start, from under the eyelids, they had done nothing else. Herve Joncour turned his gaze elsewhere, as naturally as he could, trying to continue his story with no perceptible difference in his voice. He stopped only when his eyes fell on the cup of tea, placed on the floor, in front of him. He took it in one hand, brought it to his lips, and drank slowly. He began to speak again as he set it down in front of him.
__________
France, the ocean voyages, the scent of the mulberry trees in Lavilledieu, the steam trains, Helene’s voice. Herve Joncour continued to tell the story, as he had never in his life done. The girl continued to stare at him, with violence that wrenched from every word the obligation to be memorable. The room seemed to have slipped into an irreversible stillness when suddenly, and in utter silence, she stuck one hand outside her robe and slid it along the mat in front of her. Herve Joncour saw that pale spot reach the end of his field of vision, saw it touch Hara Kei’s cup of tea and then, absurdly, continue to slide until, without hesitation, it grasped the other cup, which was inexorably the cup he had drunk from, raised it lightly, and carried it away. Not for an instant had Hara Kei stopped staring expressionlessly at Herve Joncour’s lips.
The girl lifted her head slightly. For the first time, she took her eyes off Herve Joncour and rested them on the cup.
Slowly, she rotated it until she had her lips at the exact point where he had drunk.
Half-closing her eyes, she took a sip of tea. She removed the cup from her lips.
She slid it back to where she had picked it up. Her hand vanished under her robe. She rested her head again on Hara Kei’s lap. Eyes open, fixed on those of Herve Joncour.
__________
Herve Joncour spoke again at length. He stopped only when Hara Kei took his eyes off him and nodded his head slightly.
Silence.
In French, drawing out the vowels, in a hoarse voice but true, Hara Kei said, “If you are willing, I would like to see you return.”
For the first time, he smiled.
“The eggs you have with you are fish eggs. Worth little more than nothing.”
Herve Joncour lowered his gaze. There was his cup of tea, in front of him. He picked it up and began to revolve it and to observe it as if he were searching for something on the painted line of the rim. When he found what he was looking for, he placed his lips there and drank. Then he put the cup down in front of him and said, “I know.”
Hara Kei laughed in amusement. “Is that why you paid in false gold? ”
“I paid for what I bought.” Hara Kei became serious again.
“When you leave here, you will have what you want.”
“When I leave this island, alive, you will receive the gold that is due you. You have my word.”
Herve Joncour did not expect an answer. He rose, took a few steps backward, and bowed.
The last thing he saw, before he left, was her eyes, staring into his, perfectly mute.
GUIDE QUESTIONS:
- What does the protagonist feel? Why does he feel this way?
- What does the girl feel? Why do you think so?
- How did you feel when you were reading the text? Do you think what they were experiencing was love or lust?
- How the girl and Herve communicate with each other?
- Why doesn’t Hara Kei know what is going on?
- What does the cup symbolize?
- What is the significance of the glances between Herve and the girl?
- Do you find the text romantic? Why or why not?
- What is the lesson/moral of the text?
Ref: https://memoirsabsolute29.blogspot.com/2016/10/world-lit-excerpt-silk-by-alessandro.html
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