I make no merit of natural feeling, which is a
gift from Heaven, and the greater is the reason that the state should
not deal lightly with such affections."
"Once more the state! Name thy errand."
"Your eccellenza knows the history of my humble life. I need not tell
you, Signore, of the sons which God, by the intercession of the Virgin
and blessed St. Anthony, was pleased to bestow on me, or of the manner
in which he hath seen proper to take them one by one away."
"Thou hast known sorrow, poor Antonio; I well remember thou hast
suffered, too."
"Signore, I have. The deaths of five manly and honest sons is a blow to
bring a groan from a rock. But I have known how to bless God, and be
thankful!"
"Worthy fisherman, the Doge himself might envy this resignation. It is
often easier to endure the loss than the life of a child, Antonio!"
"Signore, no boy of mine ever caused me grief, but the hour in which he
died. And even then"--the old man turned aside to conceal the working of
his features--"I struggled to remember from how much pain, and toil, and
suffering they were removed to enjoy a more blessed state."
The lip of the Signer Gradenigo quivered, and he moved to and fro with a
quicker step.
"I think, Antonio," he said, "I think, honest Antonio, I had masses said
for the souls of them all?"
"Signore, you had; St. Anthony remember the kindness in your own
extremity! I was wrong in saying that the youths never gave me sorrow
but in dying, for there is a pain the rich cannot know, in being too
poor to buy a prayer for a dead child!"
"Wilt thou have more masses? Son of thine shall never want a voice with
the saints, for the ease of his soul!"
"I thank you, eccellenza, but I have faith in what has been done, and,
more than all, in the mercy of God.
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