f the Old,
isn't it?"

I began trying to find out the reasons which had led him to take
so grave and bold a step as the change of religion, but he kept
repeating the same, "The New Testament is the natural continuation
of the Old"--a formula obviously not his own, but acquired--
which did not explain the question in the least. In spite of my
efforts and artifices, the reasons remained obscure. If one could
believe that he had embraced Orthodoxy from conviction, as he said
he had done, what was the nature and foundation of this conviction
it was impossible to grasp from his words. It was equally impossible
to assume that he had changed his religion from interested motives:
his cheap shabby clothes, his going on living at the expense of the
convent, and the uncertainty of his future, did not look like
interested motives. There was nothing for it but to accept the idea
that my companion had been impelled to change his religion by the
same restless spirit which had flung him like a chip of wood from
town to town, and which he, using the generally accepted formula,
called the craving for enlightenment.

Before going to bed I went into the corridor to get a drink of
water. When I came back my companion was standing in the middle of
the room, and he looked at me with a scared expression. His face
looked a greyish white, and there were drops of perspiration on his
forehead.

"My nerves are in an awful state," he muttered with a sickly smile,"
awful I It's acute psychological disturbance. But that's of no
consequence."

And he began reasoning again that the New Testament was a natural
continuation of the Old, that Judaism has outlived its day. . . .
Picking out his phrases, he seemed to be trying to put together the
forces of his conviction and to smother with them the uneasiness
of his soul, and to prove to himself that in giving up the religion
of his fathers he had done nothing dreadful or peculiar, but had
acted as a thinking man free from prejudice, and that therefore he
could boldly remain in a room all alone with his conscience. He was
trying to convince himself, and with his eyes besought my assistance.

Meanwhile a big clumsy wick had burned up on our tallow candle. It
was by now getting light. At the gloomy little window, which was
turning blue, we could distinctly see both banks of the Donets River
and the oak copse beyond the river. It was time to s sleep.

"It will be very interesting here to-morrow," said