"What!" Brother Gregory exclaimed with more shock on his face than a normal human visage is expected to hold. "Me, become Abbot, no, never, why?"

Brother Matthew allowed his companion to calm down slightly, put him in a seat and began to explain. "In order to leave this country legally, and not as a wanted fugitive, I will need a Reise-Pass signed by an appropriate official. This passport will allow me to cross the borders of our country and also enter countries like America. It is a very valuable document when you intend to travel as far and as fast as I will have to do. But only a few people are allowed to issue them.

"I am certain that if I applied at the City Hall, they would consult the Statt Polizei and I would be refused, or if I asked the Bishop, they would turn me down as well. But the Abbot of St. Thomas' also has the authority to issue a Reise-Pass. By a charter going back to Pope Benedict XIV the Abbot was given the right to wear pontifical regalia and represent the church in the whole of Moravia. We were made an Abbey in 1752, and you, as an Abbot have a lot of rights, including giving me a passport to leave the country".

Even with this very clear explanation, it took Klacel several more minutes to impress upon Brother Gregory the need for a Reis-Pass, and the need for a sympathetic Abbot to issue one. "Had Abbot Napp been alive, I am sure he would have issued one for me, but if Brother Timothy becomes our next fearless leader I will be doomed to a life in jail, or on the run. I am begging you, you must help me".

"Brother Matthew you ask too much," Mendel said at last. "Becoming Abbot is not as easy as you seem to think. There is the matter of an election to consider. Then, if by some miracle I was elected, I would have to give up my teaching and all of my research. You saw how busy Abbot Napp was every day. He never had time for anything but his monastery duties. It would be the end of me as a scientist".

"Johann, I know it is a lot to ask, but, before you say no, listen to what I have to say," Klacel became his most persuasive. "As Abbot of this monastery you would receive a considerably salary and remuneration. You would be able to help your family and I have often heard you say how much you would like to help your nephews in return for all the help your sister gave you when you were penniless and in need of an education. Think of what you could do for them.

"Becoming Abbot would not necessarily be the end of your research career. You could become a 'Direktor', and pay Brother Joseph to help you in the garden, with the bees, or what ever else you wish to study. He would do the digging and you would do the thinking and the writing. In many ways you could become a more productive scientist, less trapped by teaching duties and by other daily tasks. You could delegate most of the paperwork, Sembera would continue to carry out all the pastoral duties and I'm sure Brother Timothy would be willing to help in any way he could. You'd have more time for research, not less".

Convincing as all this sounded, Mendel was well aware of the problems of running a teaching monastery and trying to do serious investigative science. It was not as easy as Klacel was making it sound. But the argument about the money and what he would be paid as Abbot was much more persuasive. Mendel had been poor all his life. In fact he had only entered the monastery in the first place to escape the crushing lack of money that prevented him from entering almost any other profession.

"Also," Brother Matthew continued, "this monastery needs a young man like you to run it. Don't forget all the tax we will have to pay soon for the 'right' to change our Abbot. We pay this tax every time a new Abbot is elected. I'm sure our colleagues would welcome a young person taking over who will not drop dead in a few years and thus bring even more taxes upon us".

"Us?" Mendel said bitterly, "won't you be long gone by then?"

"Sadly, yes, but I will always be with you in spirit".

"And you are forgetting about the election. Who would vote for me?"

Brother Matthew could not help noticing that Mendel's arguments had now turned away from the act of becoming Abbot and onto the means whereby that outcome could be accomplished. "I suspect you are more popular than you realize," he said. "If a vote were held today I think you would receive more than half the votes".

Further discussion, however, was interrupted by the sound of the monks being called to their evening meal. Having heard of Brother Victor's illness, none of the slippered monks heading to the refectory were expecting anything more nourishing or palatable than a slice of cold meat pie and some hard bread. But they were in for a big surprise.

Each place at the table was already set with a huge bowl of polevky, a regional soup that was very popular but rarely served by Brother Victor. Lined up down the center of the table were steaming dishes of uzeny jazyk, a kind of smoked tongue, and Mendel could swear he smelt tresci jatra, a cod's liver dish he had not tasted in years.

With gasps of delight and exclamations of amazement, the monks abandoned all pretense of outrage that a woman had prepared this meal, and could hardly be restrained though the opening prayers. It was with unseemly haste that Brother Antonin garbled the benediction and the sound of chairs scraping hurriedly across the floor drowned out the final 'Amen'.

When the soup was finished, a grinning Brother Joseph, accompanied by a now much more welcome Grete Dabrowska, carried in a vast dish of klasterny tajemstvi which Brother Gregory could not help translating into the German 'mystery of the monastery'. It appeared that Frau Dabrowska had a sense of humor after all. Naturally there were heaps and heaps of knedliky, dumplings, and a long hidden jar of pickled cabbage for the German gastronomes present.

Silence, the greatest tribute to a chef, accompanied most of the meal and several of the monks behaved as if they had not been fed like this before, belching out loud before remembering who was present. "Outstanding," was the agreed term for the meal when the last dumpling had been consumed and the last tankard of Plaensky Prazdroi, a type of beer, had been drained away.

Sounds of scholarly snores could be heard around several fireplaces that evening, and even Prior Sembera abandoned his usual habit of finishing off the day with paperwork and prayer, and joined Brother Antonin in a lively song or two around the piano.

It would be very wrong to say that any of the monks wished Brother Victor anything but a rapid recovery from his illness, but when, over the next few days, his condition did not improve, there was, perhaps, slightly less sincerity in their voices when they called at his bedside to "wish him back in his kitchen as soon as possible".