The Dream Maker by Jean-Christophe Rufin, Alison Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

shiny little coins, worn smooth by the rubbing of eager fingers, contain an infinity of possible worlds. One ducat, if the person holding it so desires, can turn into a feast, a jewel, an ox, a carriage, happiness, revenge . . .
    Money is pure dreams. To contemplate it is to cause the endless procession of the things of this world to parade before one’s eyes.
    My father-in-law tried very patiently to teach me the art of exchange. Very quickly he reproached me for not being sufficiently attentive to what I was doing. With money, as if I were staring into the fireplace, I tended to let my mind wander. For such a precise, meticulous activity as an exchange transaction, a disposition to daydreaming is not an asset: I made mistakes that could cost dearly. Even though my father-in-law handled important business, his margins were slim. The slightest negligence when weighing the metal or calculating proportions could severely affect his profit.
    But he was a good man, and indulgent. I was his son-in-law. He saw my faults but did not withhold his trust. It was his conviction that each of us is capable of discovering the employment that suits him, provided he knows exactly what his aptitudes are. Mine would certainly not make me a moneychanger. It remained to be seen whether I would be good at anything else.
    On thinking back on this era, I tell myself that it was dark and painful, yet fruitful. I was not getting on in life. In the opinion of my fellow citizens, I owed my position to my in-laws and not at all to my own merit. My father-in-law had settled us in a house he had expressly built for his daughter. Our first child was born the year after our wedding. He was a fine boy whom we called Jean. Three more were born in turn. Macé was happy. In our house, which still smelled of cement and fresh wood, the children’s cries and the servants’ chatter drowned the silence between Macé and myself. We loved each other sincerely, with that rather sad distance that both unites and separates people who lead lives of the mind.
    I was full of doubts, plans, and hope. Many of my ideas were mere daydreams, but some of them would determine my life later on. Those years between the ages of twenty and thirty were a time when my idea of the world and the place I hoped to have in it would be decided, laboriously but forcefully.
    As I made my way in my father-in-law’s milieu, I began to have a broader and clearer view of the state of the country and those who exerted power. Prior to this, given my father’s humble position, I had known only people whose lot it was to be submissive. The vagaries of war, the conflicts among noblemen, the uprisings among the people, were events we never perceived as anything other than the result of a destiny to which we had no choice but to submit. The Lords asserted that their power was God-given, as it had been with their ancestors in the days when a laborer entrusted himself to a knight for his defense. They were still arrayed in the immense prestige of the crusades, which had returned the true Cross to the heart of Christianity. My rebelliousness in the face of the humiliation my father was forced to undergo was mere schoolboy childishness: I knew, even though I did not accept it, that in becoming an adult I would also have to bow my head. The order of things seemed immutable to us. But as soon as I was at my father-in-law’s, I understood that fear and subservience need not be inevitable.
    When I went with Léodepart to visit nobility, I was able to see the difference between the treatment they reserved for him and that which was given to a simple furrier. My father-in-law was a link in the solid chain of money, however invisible. The noblemen feared him and were careful not to humiliate him.
    I had been married for two years when at last the mad king died. His passing did not bring peace; on the contrary, it seemed as if his madness, which he had held captive in his person, was now