The Dream Maker by Jean-Christophe Rufin, Alison Anderson Page B

caution reserved for the money in his coffers. He was pleasant and well disposed toward me. He informed me that the ship was already fitted out. A group of Montpellier merchants had bought shares in her; the cargo was full. I insisted on buying a share. When I had made my introduction, I emphasized the office of minter I had occupied in Bourges, and we had spoken the names of several prominent merchants of the Languedoc with whom I had been in business. Vidal showed great respect for our city and viewed it, quite justifiably, as the new capital of the realm. These connections left him favorably inclined, and he sought to please me. We agreed to that I would board the vessel with my valet, but that my share in the cargo would be purely symbolic. I accepted his terms, all the more gladly because I had brought only money with me, and very little in the way of goods (in all, a bale of precious fur which I intended to use along the way to acquire what we might need).
    Thus, less than a week later, I climbed the wooden gangplank and boarded the galley. I met a dozen other passengers. They had said their farewells to their families and were now in that exalted, worried state of mind which always precedes departures. They spoke loudly, laughed, called out to people on the wharf to hand them one last letter, or convey a last recommendation. I understood that most of them had never been to sea. The ship’s captain, Augustin Sicard, walked among the voyagers, trying to calm them with reassuring words. With his healthy complexion and round belly he looked like a laborer. No doubt I had been mistaken about sailors. I had pictured them as visionary dreamers. Sicard made me think that they came, rather, from an ancient race of peasants. Frustrated by the limits of their fields, they had decided to expand the furrows ordinarily traced in the soil to the surface of the water.
    The oarsmen at their benches were not that different. They had the resigned air of men who work in nature. Their calloused hands curled round the wood of the long oars in the same way they had once held the polished handles of their hoes. We sailed at dawn. Most of the passengers stood by the stern, waving and gazing at the city fading into the distance. As I had no one to wave to on the wharf, I stood by the prow, breathing in the sea air. Everything was new, terrifying, and full of promise: the creaking of the wood, the motion of the deck as it went up and down according to the surface of the sea, the sun appearing in a gap between clouds and water. The wind brought the smell of the sea and droplets of salt water, whereas below deck the ship smelled of sap and sweat, victuals and pitch.
    Nothing could bring me greater happiness than this birth into an unknown life, promising both beauty and death, hardship today and wealth, no doubt, tomorrow. The life of adventure that lay ahead, unlike the burgher’s life and its security, might augur the worst but also the best—that is, the inconceivable, the unexpected, the fabulous. I felt alive at last.

II.
THE CARAVAN TO DAMASCUS
    The day before yesterday I went with Elvira to the town and was almost found out. The man who is looking for me was in the midst of a heated discussion with two other men who seemed to be strangers as well. I observed them from a distance as I leaned against the wall of the harbormaster’s office. Suddenly, I saw them start in my direction. I had been distracted by the maneuvers of a ship in the harbor and by the time I realized they were headed my way they were already quite near. I had not noticed that at this midday hour there were fewer people about. The strangers no doubt needed some information. They wanted to come up to me because I was the closest person, and one of the only ones not hurrying off to his lunch. Fortunately, my hat hid me well and I was still in the shade of the wall, whereas they were hampered by the dazzling sunlight as they walked toward me. I do not think