There was not much talking; every one was busy eating and drinking.  The wine was drunk plentifully, though without any toasts.  One felt that more generosity was expressed in the provision of wine than in the other victuals.  But for the meal only ten minutes and then once more the peremptory voice “Stand!” and we all listened to a long thank-offering and bowed before the ikons.  Dinner was over.

Dinner was at eleven in the morning; tea with black bread and no butter at three; supper, a repetition of the dinner menu, at seven; and all doors closed and the people in their beds by eight-thirty.  After many nights in the open I slept once more with a roof over my head, and looking up in the night, missed the stars and wondered where they were.

III

The monastery bells in pleasant liquid tones struck every quarter of an hour, and at two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a great jangling, and the sound of steps along the stone corridors.  I asked my companions—­I was sharing my room with an Armenian and a Russian—­what was the reason of the bell, and I learned that it was the call to early prayers.  We none of us got up, but I resolved to go next night if it were possible.

Next day was one of relaxation after tramping.  The Armenian went off ten miles to a celebrated cave and a point of view, “the swallows’ nest”; he wished me to accompany him, but I had not come to Novy Afon to find points of view or the picturesque—­moreover he had come by steamboat and was fresh, I had come on foot five hundred miles and wanted a rest.

In the morning I looked through the workshops, chatted with a master in the little monastery school, lounged in the orange groves and cedar avenues.  After dinner, as I sat near the pier, a monk pointed out to me some artificial water where willows drooped, and white swans rode gracefully under them.  “You ought to come here at Kreschenie—­Twelfth-Night.  We make of that water a little Jordan in memory of the Jordan where the Son of God was baptized.  The ponds are all decorated with fresh-cut grass, laurel leaves, and cypress branches, myrtle and oleander, many roses and wild flowers.  Scarcely anywhere in all Russia could there be found such flowers at that time of the year.”

“Have you pilgrims then?” I asked.

“Oh yes, many.  They come from all the district round about, to dip themselves in the water after it has been made holy.  We keep the festival very solemnly.  The Archimandrite comes down from the monastery, and after him the priests, the monks, the lay brethren, the labourers, the banners and their bearers, and the sacred Ikons.  There is a long service.  Though the month is January, the weather is often bright and warm as early summer, and the mountains look very beautiful.”