‘It’s my first attempt at writing,’ Baudolino answered, ‘and ever since I wrote it – I was fourteen, I think, and was still a boy of the woods – I’ve carried it with me like an amulet. After I had filled many other parchments, sometimes day by day, I felt I was alive only because in the evening I could tell what had happened to me in the morning.
Then I was content with those monthly ledgers, a few lines, to remind me of the main events. And I said to myself, when I was further on in years – now, for example – on the basis of these notes I would compose the Gesta Baudolini. So in the course of my journeys I carried with me the story of my life. But in the escape from the kingdom of Prester John…’
‘Prester John? Never heard of him.’
‘I’ll tell you more about him – maybe even too much. But as I was saying: During the escape I lose those pages. It was like losing life itself.’
Translated from Italian by William Weaver
