Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 9

EPITAPH

AN INCIDENT ON PARTRIDGE ISLAND

The old man had been feverish for days now, his pale skin stretched like ancient parchment stitched with straggling tufts of white beard, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets. Andreas and his wife began to fear for his life. But each day, even as he seemed to grow frailer before them, he would insist on climbing to the summit of the island behind which they were sheltering from the winter storm. From here he would stand and gaze for hours far across the sea, south along the mountainous coast towards the place of his birth. Maybe he could sail there soon, he must have thought, back to his city, back to his old life. But the gales continued unabated, lashing the rocks below where he stood and howling among the high peaks of the nearby mainland. The flying spume of the surf thundered at the base of the cliffs, giving no indication of when they would ever be able to set sail from their refuge in the narrow sound where they were moored.

This day had begun like all the rest. The old man stood wistfully looking into the teeth of the wind, his eyes filling with tears. He remembered all his years since his childhood long ago. He had lived an eventful life, a life full of change and drama, a life for which he was deeply thankful and now, as the blustering

DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS