St. Peter's Umbrella

St. Peter's Umbrella is an 1895 novel by the Hungarian writer Kálmán Mikszáth. The story is set in the rural region to the north of Hungary, now Slovakia, where Mikszáth was born. This is the territory of the Palóc people, celebrated by Mikszáth in his writings, especially the short stories A Jó Palócok (translated as The Good People of Palocz). The characters in the story are small town middle class and the local peasantry. The novel is in five sections, the first establishing the legend of 'St Peter's umbrella'. The key character is the young priest, János Bélyi, who has just arrived in his first parish, Glogova, so poor that the living barely supports a priest. Within a couple of weeks, a neighbor from his home village appears. He brings news of the priest's widowed mother's death, and deposits on him his two-year-old sister. How, János wonders, can he care for his sister when the parish hardly provides enough for him? He goes to the church to seek guidance, leaving little Veronica asleep in her basket on the verandah. A sudden storm with torrential rain interrupts his prayers and he hurries back to the sleeping child, only to find her perfectly dry, her basket covered by a ragged red umbrella. The villagers, having seen an old Jew in the neighborhood, with the umbrella, decide that he closely resembles the picture of Saint Peter in their church: they are convinced that the saint has visited their village. The red umbrella becomes a miraculous object of veneration, its widespread fame bringing visitors and prosperity to the village, and to its priest.