Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 53

house. I was most grateful to her, being otherwise now all alone in the world.

Sometime later my father’s old friend Eugenios came to call, to offer his condolences and to ask me what I intended to do now.

“So, will you continue to run the business down at the harbour? You know that Eurymachus can manage the whole thing on his own, don’t you? He doesn’t really need you there. I don’t know why you don’t go travelling, get some experience of the world, try new places and meet new people? You need to broaden your horizons a bit, not stay here bogged down in Patara. Whenever I spoke to your father I told him he should diversify into other trading commodities, get into some other aromatics like frankincense. I know Aquila wasn’t too keen on the idea. He could see all the obstacles, trade tariffs and monopolies. Maybe he was too old, too set in his ways. But you’re still young. Anyway, why don’t you travel a bit and see if you can get any new ideas, maybe from Europe, or even from Africa.”

With that, rather conspiratorially he showed me where my father had kept his hoard of gold pieces.

“See Nicholas, you’re a wealthy man now, but there is so much you haven’t seen yet. It would be a great experience for you. Just take off and get some notion of what the rest of the world is about.”

DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS