Short Fiction Selma Lagerlöf (best book club books of all time .txt) 📖

there. But he had not been speaking long before Cecco threw himself over him and seized him by the throat.

“You do not dare to tell me that they are dead!” he shrieked⁠—“not my sons!”

The man succeeded in getting away from him, but Cecco for a long time went on as if he were out of his mind. People heard him shout and groan; they crowded into the asteri⁠—as many as it could hold⁠—and stood round him in a circle as if he were a juggler.

Cecco sat on the floor and moaned. He hit the hard stone floor with his fist, and said over and over again:

“It is San Marco, San Marco, San Marco!”

“Cecco, you have taken leave of your senses from grief,” they said to him.

“I knew it would happen on the open sea,” Cecco said; “outside Lido and Malamocco, there, I knew it would happen. There San Marco would take them. He bore them a grudge. I have feared it, boy. Yes,” he said, without hearing what they said to quiet him, “they once laughed at him, once when we were lying outside Lido. He has not forgotten it; he will not stand being laughed at.”

He looked with confused glances at the bystanders, as if to seek help.

“Look here, Beppo from Malamocca,” he said, stretching out his hand towards a big fisherman, “don’t you believe it was San Marco?”

“Don’t imagine any such thing, Cecco.”

“Now you shall hear, Beppo, how it happened. You see, we were lying out at sea, and to while away the time I told them how San Marco had come to Venice. The evangelist San Marco was first buried in a beautiful cathedral at Alexandria in Egypt. But the town got into the possession of unbelievers, and one day the Khalifa ordered that they should build him a magnificent palace at Alexandria, and take some columns from the Christian churches for its decoration. But just at that time there were two Venetian merchants at Alexandria who had ten heavily-laden vessels lying in the harbour. When these men entered the church where San Marco was buried and heard the command of the Khalifa, they said to the sorrowful priests: ‘The precious body which you have in your church may be desecrated by the Saracens. Give it to us; we will honour it, for San Marco was the first to preach on the Lagoon, and the Doge will reward you.’ And the priests gave their consent, and in order that the Christians of Alexandria should not object, the body of another holy man was placed in the Evangelist’s coffin. But to prevent the Saracens from getting any news of the removal of the body, it was placed at the bottom of a large chest, and above it were packed hams and smoked bacon, which the Saracens could not endure. So when the Customhouse officers opened the lid of the chest, they at once hurried away. The two merchants, however, brought San Marco safely to Venice; you know, Beppo, that this is what they say.”

“I do, Cecco.”

“Yes; but just listen now,” and Cecco half arose, and in his fear spoke in a low voice. “Something terrible now happened. When I told the boys that the holy man had been hidden underneath the bacon, they burst out laughing. I tried to hush them, but they only laughed the louder. Giacomo was lying on his stomach in the bows, and Pietro sat with his legs dangling outside the boat, and they both laughed so that it could be heard far out over the sea.”

“But, Cecco, surely two children may be allowed to laugh.”

“But don’t you understand that is where they have perished today⁠—on the very spot? Or can you understand why they should have lost their lives on that spot?”

Now they all began to talk to him and comfort him. It was his grief which made him lose his senses. This was not like San Marco. He would not revenge himself upon two children. Was it not natural that when a boat was caught in a storm this would happen on the open sea and not in the harbour?

Surely his sons had not lived in enmity with San Marco. They had heard them shout, “Eviva San Marco!” as eagerly as all the others, and had he not protected them to this very day. He had never, during the years that had passed, shown any sign of being angry with them.

“But, Cecco,” they said, “you will bring misfortune upon us with your talk about San Marco. You, who are an old man and a wise man, should know better than to raise his anger against the Venetians. What are we without him?”

Cecco sat and looked at them bewildered.

“Then you don’t believe it?”

“No one in his senses would believe such a thing.”

It looked as if they had succeeded in quieting him.

“I will also try not to believe it,” he said. He rose and walked towards the door. “It would be too cruel, would it not?” he said. “They were too handsome and too brave for anyone to hate them; I will not believe it.”

He went home, and in the narrow street outside his door he met an old woman, one of his neighbours.

“They are reading a Mass in the cathedral for the souls of the dead,” she said to Cecco, and hurried away. She was afraid of him; he looked so strange.

Cecco took his boat and made his way through the small canals down to Riva degli Schiavoni. There was a wide view from there; he looked towards Lido and the sea. Yes, it was a hard wind, but not a storm by any means; there were hardly any waves. And his sons had perished in weather like this! It was inconceivable.

He fastened his boat, and went across the Piazetta and the Market Place into San Marco. There were many people in the church, and they were all kneeling and praying in great fear; for it is