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

his face. Could what he had done for her sake make him worthy of heaven? He lifted his eyes to see what she saw; the same moment the sword fell.

But Caterina saw the angels descend lower and lower, saw them lift his soul, saw them carry it to heaven.

All at once it seemed so natural that Caterina Benincasa has lived all these five hundred years. How could one forget that gentle little maiden, that great loving heart? Again and again they must sing in her praise, as they are now singing in the small chapels:

“Pia Mater et humilis,
Naturæ memor fragilis,
In hujus vitæ fluctibus
Nos rege tuis precibus.
Quem vidi, quem amavi,
In quem credidi, quem dilexi,
Ora pro nobis.
Ut digni efficiamur promessionibus Christi!
Santa Caterina, ora pro nobis!”5

The Empress’s Money-Chest

The Bishop had summoned Father Verneau to appear before him. It was on account of a somewhat unpleasant matter. Father Verneau had been sent to preach in the manufacturing districts around Charleroi, but he had arrived there in the midst of a strike, when the workmen were rather excited and unmanageable. He informed the Bishop that he had immediately on his arrival in the Black Country received a letter from one of the leaders of the men to the effect that they were quite willing to hear him preach, but if he ventured to mention the name of God either directly or indirectly, there would be a disturbance in the church.

“And when I went up into the pulpit and saw the congregation to whom I should preach,” said the Father, “I felt no doubt but that the threat would be carried out.”

Father Verneau was a little dried-up monk. The Bishop looked down upon him as being of a lower order. Such an unshaven, not too clean monk, with the most insignificant face, was, of course, a coward. He was, probably, also afraid of the Bishop.

“I have been informed,” said the Bishop, “that you carried out the workmen’s wishes. But I need not point out⁠—”

“Monseigneur,” interrupted Father Verneau in all humility, “I thought the Church, if possible, would avoid everything that might lead to a disturbance.”

“But a Church that dare not mention the name of God⁠—”

“Has Monseigneur heard my sermon?”

The Bishop walked up and down the floor to calm himself.

“You know it by heart, of course?” he said.

“Of course, Monseigneur.”

“Let me hear it, then, as it was delivered, Father Verneau, word for word, exactly as you preached it.”

The Bishop sat down in his armchair. Father Verneau remained standing.

“ ‘Citizens and citizenesses,’ ” he began in the tone of a lecturer.

The Bishop started.

“Yes, that is how they will be addressed, Monseigneur.”

“Never mind, Father Verneau, only proceed.”

The Bishop shuddered slightly; these two words had suddenly shown him the whole situation. He saw before him this gathering of the children of the Black Country, to whom Father Verneau had preached. He saw many wild faces, many rags, much coarse merriment. He saw these people for whom nothing had been done.

“ ‘Citizens and citizenesses,’ ” began Father Verneau afresh, “ ‘there is in this country an Empress called Maria Theresa. She is an excellent ruler, the best and wisest Belgium has ever had. Other rulers, my fellow-citizens, other rulers have successors when they die, and lose all power over their people. Not so the great Empress Maria Theresa. She may have lost the throne of Austria and Hungary; Brabant and Limburg may now be under other rulers, but not her good province of West Flanders. In West Flanders, where I have lived the last few years, no other ruler is known to this very day than Maria Theresa. We know King Leopold lives in Brussels, but that has nothing to do with us. It is Maria Theresa who still reigns here by the sea, more especially in the fishing villages. The nearer one gets to the sea, the mightier becomes her power. Neither the great Revolution, nor the Empire, nor the Dutch have had the power to overthrow her. How could they? They have done nothing for the children of the sea that can compare with what she has done. But what has she not done for the people on the dunes! What an invaluable treasure, my fellow-citizens, has she not bestowed upon them!

“ ‘About one hundred and fifty years ago, in the early part of her reign, she made a journey through Belgium. She visited Brussels and Bruges, she went to Liege and Louvain, and when she had at last seen enough of large cities and profusely ornamented town-halls, she went to the coast to see the sea and the dunes.

“ ‘It was not a very cheering sight for her. She saw the ocean, so vast and mighty that no man can fight against it. She saw the coast, helpless and unprotected. There lay the dunes, but the sea had washed over them before, and might do so again. There were also dams, but they had fallen down and were neglected.

“ ‘She saw harbours filled with sand; she saw marshes overgrown with rushes and weeds; she saw, below the dunes, fishing-huts ravaged by the wind⁠—huts looking as if they had been thrown there, a prey for the sea; she saw poor old churches that had been moved away from the sea, lying between quicksands and lyme-grass, in desolate wastes.

“ ‘The great Empress sat a whole day by the sea. She was told all about the floods and the towns that had been washed away; she was shown the spot where a whole district had sunk under the sea; she was rowed out to the place where an old church stood at the bottom of the sea; and she was told about all the people who had been drowned, and of all the cattle that had been lost, the last time the sea had overflowed the dunes.

“ ‘The whole day through the Empress sat thinking: “How shall I help these poor people on the dunes? I cannot forbid the sea to rise and fall; I cannot forbid it to