She parked the car and we started ascending to the abbey. In a strange
manner, I felt happy but melancholic. We had reached already the Hall of
Pilgrims when I asked her:
- "How can I love?"
She looked at me smiling tenderly:
- "You can not. Without knowing it you will approach - if
you have the blessing - Colchis, where you will sacrifice your self in order
for the ships to sail and your beloved Achilles to go ahead to the fate that
he chose. Then, he will come alone, the White Angel, to show you that
country's secret, to teach you its mystic language, to dress you in your
White Uniform and to prepare you for the White Light of the God of
Love".
We went upstairs silent. We reached the temple. She took hold of me in
my arm and stopped me:
-"What do you have in the package?"
I didn't answer. She was looking at me.
I entered the temple. It was totally empty. Only some scaffolding at the
side showed, maybe, that there were restorations happening. I was able to
see only walls, arches, pillars, windows. On beyond there was something like
a prayer-book. I approached. It was a prayer-book, with a Byzantine image of
Archangel Michael. In front of it a candle. The little spark seemed to bow
in her light before the icon. The angel, looked like looking at me
intimately, in a gaze full of tenderness. I saw his full body, with his
great sword in his hand. I kissed him and I couldn't hold a sob. I opened
the box, I took off carefully the sheath and placed it on the icon. Its
gemstones played iridescences in the light of the candle. I kneeled. I
promised him that when I die I will get him a big box of slides of a time of
mine, which I won't have let pass.
I got up and looked at the holy place. There wasn't there anybody else.
I turned back, to the entrance of the Church. While I was in, and at the
outside the afternoon sun, her form was not outlined well. She was wrapped
in the light of the sun. I thought I saw also some other outlines of people
near her. I heard them say to me:
