Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 34

My father seemed particularly satisfied by this account and retold it more than once to anyone who would listen as a cautionary tale of betrayal and retribution, his faithless wife receiving her just desserts. He was rather old fashioned that way, believing in a sort of primitive divine justice, and who was I to contradict him? But he changed for the better in some ways after that. Perhaps it was his release from such a fickle and feckless young wife that did it. Or maybe it was the fact that he had narrowly saved his fortune from the clutches of his deceitful and grasping apprentice, but whatever the reason, he became more circumspect, much more careful in some ways but more adventurous in others.

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He’d been toying for some time with the idea of expanding his incense business into a more expensive product – maybe another aromatic, perhaps myrrh bark or even frankincense. In our city there wasn’t too much call for frankincense; it was too expensive for most of the establishments that made used of aromatics. But elsewhere he knew it was used in substantial quantities, especially in Rome, where all the major temples burned frankincense as often as they could afford to. It was his old friend and drinking partner Eugenios who tried to swing the balance in favour of branching out into a new line. He’d been in Rome once some years ago and had witnessed first-hand the vast amounts that were used there.

THE JOURNEY