d
bore an absurd resemblance to a china bowl. And that, to complete the
resemblance, his long and massive nose, a feature grossly
disproportionate to the rest of his diminutive face, might equally well
have passed for the spout of the receptacle indicated.

Yet a face out of the common it was, like the whole of his personality.
And this was the fact which had captivated me from the moment when I
had beheld him participating in a vigil service held in the
neighbouring church of the monastery of New Athos. There, spare, but
with his withered form erect, and his head slightly tilted, he had been
gazing at the Crucifix with a radiant smile, and moving his thin lips
in a sort of whispered, confidential, friendly conversation with the
Saviour. Indeed, so much had the man's smooth, round features (features
as beardless as those of a Skopetz [A member of the Skoptzi, a
non-Orthodox sect the members of which "do make of themselves eunuchs
for the Lord's sake."], save for two bright tufts at the corners of the
mouth) been instinct with intimacy, with a consciousness of actually
being in the presence of the Son of God, that the spectacle,
transcending anything of the kind that my eyes had before beheld, had
led me, with its total absence of the customary laboured, servile,
pusillanimous attitude towards the Almighty which I had generally found
to be the rule, to accord the man my whole interest, and, as long as
the service had lasted, to keep an eye upon one who could thus converse
with God without rendering Him constant obeisance, or again and again
making the sign of the cross, or invariably making it to the
accompaniment of groans and tears which had always hitherto obtruded
itself upon my notice.

Again had I encountered the man when I had had supper at the workmen's
barraque, and then proceeded to the monastery's guest-chamber. Seated
at a table under a circle of light falling from a lamp suspended from
the ceiling, he had gathered around him a knot of pilgrims and their
women, and was holding forth in low, cheerful tones that yet had in
them the telling, incisive note of the preacher, of the man who
frequently converses with his fellow men.

"One thing it may be best always to disclose," he was saying, "and
another thing to conceal. If aught in ourselves seems harmful or
senseless, let us put to ourselves the question: 'Why is this so?'
Contrariwise ought a prudent man never to thrust himself forward and
say: 'How discre