“Have you ever visited a church of the Old Believers?”

“No.  They told me that there was one in Petersburg, but that I should not be admitted because I wore a bonnet instead of a kerchief, and did not know how to cross myself and bow properly.”

“I’ll take you, if you like,” he said.  “We will go as guests of the priest.  He is a friend of mine.”  Then he told us about it.  Many years ago, a band of Kazaks and their priests migrated across the frontier into Turkey because they were “Old Believers;” that is to say, they belonged to the sect which refused to accept the reforms of errors (which had crept into the service-books and ritual through the carelessness of copyists and ignorance of the proper forms) instituted by the Patriarch Nikon in the time of Peter the Great’s father, after consulting the Greek Patriarchs and books.  In earlier times, these Old Believers burned themselves by the thousand.  In the present century, this band of Kazaks simply emigrated.  Then came the Crimean war.  The Kazaks set out for the wars, the priest blessed them for the campaign, and prayed for victory against Russia.  Moreover, they went to battle with their flock, and were captured.  Prisoners of war, traitors to both church and state, these three priests were condemned to residence in a monastery in Suzdal.  “I was in the army then,” said Count Tolstoy, “and heard of the matter at the time.  Then I forgot all about it; so did everybody else, apparently.  Long afterward, an Old Believer, a merchant in Tula, spoke to me about it, and I found that the three priests were still alive and in the monastery.  I managed to get them released, and we became friends.  One died; one of the others is here in Moscow, a very old man now.  We will go and see him, but I must find out the hour of the evening service.  You will see the ritual as it was three hundred years ago.”

“You must not utter a word, or smile,” said one of the company.  “They will think that you are ridiculing them, and will turn you out.”

“Oh, no,” said the count.  “Still, it is better not to speak.”

“I have had some experience,” I remarked.  “Last Sunday, at the Saviour Cathedral, I asked my mother if I should hold her heavy fur coat for her; and she smiled slightly as she said, ‘No, thank you.’  A peasant heard our foreign tongue, saw the smile, and really alarmed us by the fierce way in which he glared at us.  We only appeased his wrath by bowing low when the priest came out with the incense.”

So that plan was made, and some others.

When we were descending the stairs, Count Tolstoy came out upon the upper landing, which is decorated with the skin of the big bear which figures in one of his stories, and called after us:—­

“Shall you be ashamed of my dress when I come to the hotel for you?”

“I am ashamed that you should ask such a question,” I answered; and he laughed and retreated.  I allowed the lackey to put on my galoshes and coat, as usual, by the way.