Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 49

the evening of the third day that he gradually slipped away from us and by midnight gave up the ghost and died. He had looked so ill just before the final crisis, but after he had passed away he appeared strangely peaceful. The pained expressions on his face and his deeply furrowed forehead gave way to a serene quietness. We had few relatives to inform, just a couple of cousins in one of the outlying villages, so over the next twenty-four hours we made plans to bury him.

Irene was a tower of strength to me at this time and although she must have been equally upset that her master had left us, she kept her composure and arranged all the funerary rituals as well as the actual interment. It was late one afternoon the following week that she suggested she would like to take me to meet a friend of hers. Wrapping up against the biting wind, we walked down to the market place and up into the part of the city which overlooks the sea, the quarter which I didn’t know very well where the better-off citizens had their villas. Walking along one of the uppermost streets we came to the gate of what looked to be the residence of a wealthy family. Irene tugged the bell pull and after a minute or two a powerfully built young man came down to see who was there. He peered through the metal railings before smiling and unlocking the gate to let us in.

He led us through the front door of the villa and ushered us into the vestibule. Beyond this was a large internal pillared atrium, made up of a four-sided veranda surrounding a garden

DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS