Silk

Silk (1996) is a novella by Italian author Alessandro Baricco, translated into English by Guido Waldman in 1997, and by Ann Goldstein in 2006. Set in the 19th century, the novella follows French merchant Hervé Joncour as he falls in love with the wife or concubine of a Japanese nobleman. The novella was adapted as a 2007 film of the same title starring Keira Knightley.

The novel opens as a silkworm disease eradicates the species all over Europe and North Africa. Hervé’s town depends on the silk trade, and local magnate Balbadiou, who owns the town’s silk mills, dispatches Hervé to Japan to buy silkworm eggs there. The task is dangerous. Japan is still all but closed to foreigners, and Japanese law forbids the export of silkworms. Furthermore, the journey to Japan takes months. Hervé must cross the entire latitude of Europe and Asia to get there.

Hervé’s beloved wife, Hélène, is reluctant to see him go for so long, but husband and wife both know that without the silkworm eggs, their community will perish. Bringing some eggs back, however, will make Hervé rich.



Hervé finally reaches Japan by sailing from the coast of Siberia on a smugglers’ ship. He travels on foot, avoiding major roads, until he reaches a rendezvous point where he is blindfolded and taken to a small village.

There Hervé is granted an audience with a local aristocrat, Hara Kei, who agrees to sell him some silkworm eggs. During the audience, however, Hervé is distracted by a woman in Hara Kei’s retinue—a wife or a mistress—who does not have oriental eyes. The woman notices Hervé’s attention, and the two exchange wordless glances and gestures that ignite a fierce passion in the French merchant. However, Hervé has no way to see her and to be caught trying would entail a death sentence.

Hervé returns to France, lovelorn for the mysterious woman. Balbadiou pays him handsomely for the silkworm eggs, and he purchases the house of his and Hélène’s dreams. He still loves Hélène, but theirs feels increasingly like a domestic affection, with none of the exotic and forbidden romance of his Japanese affair.



When Balbadiou needs more eggs the following year, Hervé is only too glad to return to Japan. Hara Kei befriends him and shows him his aviary of exotic birds. Meanwhile, Hervé seizes an opportunity to conceal one of his gloves in a pile of clothes, for his beloved to find. She responds with a note, handwritten in Japanese.

Hervé returns home, desperate to find out what the note says. He locates a brothel in Lyon whose owner is a Japanese woman, known as Madame Blanche. She tells him that the note reads: “Come back or I shall die.” She warns Hervé against pursuing the author of the note.

Hervé and Hélène want to have a child, and they take a holiday in the Riviera, hoping to ignite passion in their relationship. However, they do not conceive. When the time comes for Hervé to return once more to Japan, Hélène is heartbroken. She knows that each time Hervé travels, he comes back more distant from her than before.



While Hervé is staying with Hara Kei, his beloved releases the birds in the aviary, making Hara Kei angry. She sends a servant girl to Hervé, whom Hervé sleeps with in her place. When it is time for the silkworm transaction, Hara Kei does not appear in person, instead, sending an intermediary. When Hervé leaves, Hara Kei does not appear to wish him goodbye.

This time, upon his return to France, Hervé is utterly forlorn, longing to return to his beloved in Japan. However, civil war has broken out there, and when it is time to collect more silkworm eggs, Balbadiou wants Hervé to go to China instead. Hervé refuses and insists on going to Japan.

When he arrives, he finds Hara Kei’s house and village abandoned. As he wanders around, a young boy approaches him and gives him the glove he left for his beloved. The boy leads him to a campsite, inhabited by Hara Kei and the people of his village.



Hara Kei denies Hervé entry to the camp. Hervé refuses to leave. The next morning Hara Kei has the boy executed for bringing Hervé to the camp.

Hervé manages to procure silkworm eggs in another Japanese town, but he has taken too long. The eggs hatch on the way to France, and all the worms die. The mills of his town have nothing to mill. The people endure great hardship, but Hervé hardly notices. All he can think of is his beloved in Japan.

One day, he receives a letter written in Japanese. He hurries to Madame Blanche. The letter is a powerfully erotic confession of love, which concludes by saying goodbye and wishing Hervé a happy life. Madame Blanche gives Hervé some of the blue flowers which she wears in her clothes.



Hervé continues to pine. He retires from trade and spends all his time constructing a park with an aviary modeled on Hara Kei’s. He thinks of it as a monument to his lost love, to the "yearning for something you'll never experience."

Hélène, still only in her 30s, contracts a fever and dies. Despite his continuing obsession with his Japanese beloved, Hervé mourns his wife deeply. One day, Hervé notes that someone has left blue flowers on her grave. He goes to Madame Blanche to ask what connection she had to his wife.

Madame Blanche reveals that Hélène was the author of the erotic love-letter. She asked Madame Blanche to translate it and send it to Hervé. She had known Hervé was in love with a Japanese woman and wanted to ease his pain. Madame Blanche tells him that Hélène had wanted to be the woman he loved.



Hervé realizes that Hélène was his true love. He has the word “hélas” (“Alas”) carved on her gravestone.