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

white foam-hair dispersed over the surface of the sea. These were dark waves, chasing each other in furious rage, and over their tops the bitter froth of the sea was whipped into mist.

The wind was now so strong that the seagulls could no longer continue their quiet flight, but, shrieking, were thrust from their course. Cecco soon saw them with much trouble making their way towards the sea, so as not to be caught by the storm and flung against the walls. Hundreds of pigeons on San Marco’s square flew up, beating their wings, so that it sounded like a new storm, and hid themselves away in all the nooks and corners of the church roof.

But it was not the birds alone that were frightened by the storm. A couple of gondolas had already got loose, and were thrown against the shore, and were nearly shattered. And now all the gondoliers came rushing to pull their boats into the boathouses, or place them in shelter in the small canals.

The sailors on the ships lying in the harbour worked with the anchor-chains to make the vessels fast, in order to prevent them drifting on to the shore. They took down the clothes hanging up to dry, pulled their long caps well over their foreheads, and began to collect all the loose articles lying about in order to bring them below deck. Outside Canale Grande a whole fishing-fleet came hurrying home. All the people from Lido and Malamocco who had sold their goods at the Rialto were rushing homewards, before the storm grew too violent.

Cecco laughed when he saw the fishermen bending over their oars and straining themselves as if they were fleeing from death itself. Could they not see that it was only a gust of wind? They could very well have remained and given the Venetian women time to buy all their cattle, fish, and crabs.

He was certainly not going to pull his boat into shelter, although the storm was now violent enough for any ordinary man to have taken notice of it. The floating bridges were lifted up high and cast on to the shore, whilst the washerwomen hurried home shrieking. The broad-brimmed hats of the signors were blown off into the canals, from whence the street-boys fished them out with great glee. Sails were torn from the masts, and fluttered in the air with a cracking sound; children were knocked down by the strong wind; and the clothes hanging on the lines in the narrow streets were torn to rags and carried far away.

Cecco laughed at the storm⁠—a storm which drove the birds away, and played all sorts of pranks in the street, like a boy. But, all the same, he pulled his boat under one of the arches of the bridge. One could really not allow what that wind might take it into its head to do.

In the evening Cecco thought that it would have been fun to have been out at sea. It would have been splendid sailing with such a fresh wind. But on shore it was unpleasant. Chimneys were blown down; the roofs of the boathouses were lifted right off; it rained tiles from the houses into the canals; the wind shook the doors and the window-shutters, rushed in under the open loggias of the palaces and tore off the decorations.

Cecco held out bravely, but he did not go home to bed. He could not take the boat home with him, so it was better to remain and look after it. But when anyone went by and said that it was terrible weather he would not admit it. He had experienced very different weather in his young days.

“Storm!” he said to himself⁠—“call this a storm? And they think, perhaps, that it began the same moment I threw the zecchine to San Marco. As if he can command a real storm!”

When night came the wind and the sea grew still more violent, so that Venice trembled in her foundations. Doge Gradenigo and the Gentlemen of the High Council went in the darkness of the night to San Marco to pray for the city. Torchbearers went before them, and the flames were spread out by the wind, so that they lay flat, like pennants. The wind tore the Doge’s heavy brocade gown, so that two men were obliged to hold it.

Cecco thought this was the most remarkable thing he had ever seen⁠—Doge Gradenigo going himself to the cathedral on account of this bit of a wind! What would those people have done if there had been a real storm?

The waves beat incessantly against the bulwarks. In the darkness of the night it was as if white-headed wresters sprang up from the deep, and with teeth and claws clung fast to the piles to tear them loose from the shore. Cecco fancied he could hear their angry snorts when they were hurled back again. But he shuddered when he heard them come again and again, and tear in the bulwarks.

It seemed to him that the storm was far more terrible in the night. He heard shouts in the air, and that was not the wind. Sometimes black clouds came drifting like a whole row of heavy galleys, and it seemed as if they advanced to make an assault on the city. Then he heard distinctly someone speaking in one of the riven clouds over his head.

“Things look bad for Venice now,” it said from the one cloud. “Soon our brothers the evil spirits will come and overthrow the city.”

“I am afraid San Marco will not allow it to happen,” came as a response from the other cloud.

“San Marco has been knocked down by a Venetian, so he lies powerless, and cannot help anyone,” said the first.

The storm carried the words down to old Cecco, and from that moment he was on his knees, praying San Marco for grace and forgiveness. For the evil spirits had spoken the truth. It did indeed look bad for Venice.