[ot] [!nt] \n2+0\

[Mark Eaton]

On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Claudia Westermann wrote:

> - Padre ! This is an emergency !
>
> - [..]

Here in the Rilski Monastery there is a somewhat pretty courtyard.
Tourists stroll in and take pictures.  The restaurants outside the gate
are particularly expensive (for one must be well heeled to flit about the
monastery circuit).

A flustered Dane tells me how he fled his wife to come here. He is only
spending the day, then back to Sofia tonight. It seems frantic necessity
drives tourists out as quickly as it drives them in.

There is the chapel, where devotions are being held; there is the tower --
the only remaining part of the original monastery -- which is closed to
the public of course; there are the monk's cells, where the doors are
always closed.

I have been staying the past few weeks in a rented room. The bottle
of vodka I brought is empty. The only thing on the walls are the
fire-evacuation procedures.

The inaccessibility of the tower interests me less and less. But the monks
themselves are intruiging: I imagine them in their cells praying... I
wonder if they worry occasionally about fire-evacuation too.

> - Padre ! It seems to me you are a little bit slow with your explanations.
>
> >nn - ! lv danger. ! lv uar 2. tzo long az u u!n.

dip our devotional knick-knacks in holy water, and toss them into the
flames. would this be sacrifice, padre?