The Miracles of Antichrist: A NovelLagerlöf, Selma
General
The Miracles of Antichrist: A Novel
Lagerlöf, Selma
Sicily (Italy) -- Fiction; Socialism -- Fiction
She came to the great marble staircase that leads up to the basilica of
Aracoeli. And her heart beat wildly with joy, for on the lowest step lay
he whom she sought. She seized the image, threw her cloak about him, and
hurried home. And she put him back on his place of honor.
But as she now sank into contemplation of his beauty, she found that the
crown had been dented. She lifted it off the image to see how great the
damage was, and at the same moment her eyes fell on the inscription that
she herself had scratched: “My kingdom is only of this world.”
Then she knew that this was the false Christ image, and that the right
one had returned to Aracoeli.
She despaired of ever again getting it into her possession, and she
decided to leave Rome the next day, for she would not remain there when
she no longer had the image.
But when she left she took the forged image with her, because he reminded
her of the one she loved, and he followed her afterwards on all her
journeys.
She was never at rest and travelled continually, and in that way the
image was carried about over the whole world.
And wherever the image came, the power of Christ seemed to be diminished
without any one rightly understanding why. For nothing could look more
impotent than that poor image of elm wood, dressed out in brass rings and
glass beads.
When the rich Englishwoman who had first owned the image was dead, he
came as an inheritance to another rich Englishwoman, who also travelled
continually, and from her to a third.
Once, and it was still in the time of the first Englishwoman, the image
came to Paris.
As he passed through the great city there was an insurrection. Crowds
rushed wildly screaming through the streets and cried for bread. They
plundered the shops and threw stones at the houses of the rich. Troops
were called out against them, and then they tore up the stones of the
street, dragged together carriages and furniture, and built barricades.
As the rich Englishwoman came driving in her great travelling-carriage,
the mass of people rushed towards it, forced her to leave it, and dragged
the carriage up to one of the barricades.
When they tried to roll the carriage up among all the thousand things of
which the barricade consisted, one of the big trunks fell to the ground.
The cover sprang open, and among other things out rolled the rejected
Christ image.
The people threw themselves upon him to plunder, but they soon saw that
all his grandeur was imitation and quite worthless, and they began to
laugh at him and mock him.
He went from hand to hand among the agitators, until one of them bent
forward to look at his crown. His eyes were attracted by the words which
stood scratched there: “My kingdom is only of this world.”
The man called this out quite loudly, and they all screamed that the
little image should be their badge. They carried him up to the summit of
the barricade and placed him there like a banner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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