"Hatzinikolaou, Leonidas - The Holy Pledge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hatzinikolaou Leonidas)

of the valuable photocopies to Prof. Schulman. Obviously, this
wasn't a package to be dispatched by mail, and private courier
services had not yet reached the Sinai desert. His dilemma, therefore,
was clear-cut: either the copies would be ready by dawn, or his
American friend wouldn't be receiving them until next month.
The monk smiled inwardly at the relativity of the concept of
time. A month is nothing but a grain of sand to a veteran anchorite
of St. Catherine's, but those thirty days could subjectively stretch to
a year for an impatient American living in the city, even if that man
was a scholar intimately acquainted with the vastness of historical
time.
For a while Father Gregorios worked completely absorbed by his
exacting task of photocopying the sensitive parchments. The process
was demanding because the exquisitely illuminated manuscripts,
dating from 382 AD, were one of a kind. And his task was further
complicated by the fact that the parchment sheets were longer than
the maximum size accepted by the machine, so he had to copy them
in halves.
As a rule, rare manuscripts are photographed and not photo-
copied to avoid damage, but his lack of time and the fact that the
new copier was in excellent condition persuaded Father Gregorios
to resort to this alternative. Besides, he rationalized, by making two
copies of the lot he could keep the extra set for his library, thus
saving the originals for special research needs.
He was only four sheets short of completing his task when the
color of the Copy button changed to orange and the machine
stopped. Fearing the worst, Father Gregorios put down the
remaining parchments on his desk and opened the manual. He
flipped the pages nervously, checking out the list of troubleshooting
tips.
No luck. The trays were okay, the ink cartridges were full, the
paperway jam-free. The machine should have been working.
Getting increasingly upset, he sat down to think. Only four more
parchments to be copied, which-thank God-were not illumi-
nated. Therefore, since they contained no color illustrations, he
could copy them with the older B/W machine without significant
loss of information. Father Gregorios sighed in relief.
He still might make it!
The only problem was that when the new copying machine had
arrived he had retired the old one, and taken it down to the
basement, to a small storage room opposite the cellar that housed
the monastery's big refrigerator.
He glanced at the clock on the wall; too late now to get some
sleep before dawn. Business came first. He'd never fallen short on his
word and had no intention of starting now.
He collected the four parchments and headed for the basement.
He'd move the old copier to the corridor and hook it to the
electricity outlet used by the refrigerator. Ten more minutes, and this
whole mess would be over.