e turned it about before his
eyes and said irresolutely:

"Excuse my troubling you, . . . have you a knife?"

I gave him a knife.

"The sausage is disgusting," he said, frowning and cutting himself
off a little bit. "In the shop here they sell you rubbish and fleece
you horribly. . . . I would offer you a piece, but you would scarcely
care to consume it. Will you have some?"

In his language, too, there was something typical that had a very
great deal in common with what was characteristic in his face, but
what it was exactly I still could not decide. To inspire confidence
and to show that I was not ill-humoured, I took some of the proffered
sausage. It certainly was horrible; one needed the teeth of a good
house-dog to deal with it. As we worked our jaws we got into
conversation; we began complaining to each other of the lengthiness
of the service.

"The rule here approaches that of Mount Athos," I said; "but at
Athos the night services last ten hours, and on great feast-days
--fourteen! You should go there for prayers!"

"Yes," answered my companion, and he wagged his head, "I have been
here for three weeks. And you know, every day services, every day
services. On ordinary days at midnight they ring for matins, at
five o'clock for early mass, at nine o'clock for late mass. Sleep
is utterly out of the question. In the daytime there are hymns of
praise, special prayers, vespers. . . . And when I was preparing
for the sacrament I was simply dropping from exhaustion." He sighed
and went on: "And it's awkward not to go to church. . . . The monks
give one a room, feed one, and, you know, one is ashamed not to go.
One wouldn't mind standing it for a day or two, perhaps, but three
weeks is too much--much too much I Are you here for long?"

"I am going to-morrow evening."

"But I am staying another fortnight."

"But I thought it was not the rule to stay for so long here?" I
said.

"Yes, that's true: if anyone stays too long, sponging on the monks,
he is asked to go. Judge for yourself, if the proletariat were
allowed to stay on here as long as they liked there would never be
a room vacant, and they would eat up the whole monastery. That's
true. But the monks make an exception for me, and I hope they won't
turn me out for some time. You know I am a convert."

"You mean?"

"I am a Jew baptized. . . . Only lately I have embraced orthodoxy."

Now I understood what I had before been utterly unable to understand
f