It will be profitable to describe the monastery just as I saw it and
felt it to be, on the occasion of my arrival there after five hundred
miles tramping in the autumn of 1911. I had overtaken many pilgrims
journeying thither, and the nearer I approached the more became their
numbers. There were many on foot and many in carts and coaches.
Multi-coloured diligences were packed with people and luggage--the
people often more miscellaneously packed than the luggage, clinging
on behind, squashed in the middle, sprawling on the top. The drivers
looked superb though dressed in thousand-times-mended black coats, the
post-boys tootled on their horns, and the passengers sang or shouted
to the music of accordions. Of course not all those in the coaches
were pilgrims religiously inclined; many were holiday seekers out for
the day. The gates of Novy Afon are open to all, even to the Mahometan
or the Pagan. It was a beautiful cloudless morning when I arrived at
this most wonderful monastery in the Russian world--a cluster of white
churches on a hill, a swarm of factories and workshops, cedar avenues,
orchards, vineyards, and, above all, tree-covered mountains crowned by
grey towers and ancient ruins, the whole looking out on the far sea.
At the monastery gates were a cluster of empty coaches waiting for
passengers, the drivers sitting in the dusty roadway meanwhile,
playing cards or eating chunks of red melon. Pilgrims with great
bundles on their backs stood staring vacantly at the walls or at the
sea; monks in long grey cloaks, square hats, and long hair, passed in
and out like bees about a hive, and from a distance came a musical
drone, the chanting of church services.
Pack on back, staff in hand, no one took me for other than a Russian
pilgrim till I showed my passport. I entered the monastery, asked one
of the monks where to go, and was at once shown to a room, a little
square whitewashed apartment with four hard couches; the room looked
upon the hostelry yard, and was lit within by electric light--the
monks' own manufacture. No one asked me any questions--they were too
hospitable to do that. I was at once taken for granted as one might
be by one's own family after returning home from a week-end in the
country. When I had disposed my clothes, brushed away some of the
dust, changed boots, and washed, the novice who had shown me my room
tapped at the door and, looking in with a smile, told me I had come
just in time for dinner. All along the many corridors I heard the
tinkling of a dinner-bell and a scuttling of many feet.
The dinner was served in three halls: two of them were more exclusive
apartments where those might go who did not care to rub shoulders with
the common people; but the other was a large barn where any one who
liked to come took the chances of his fellow-man, be he peasant or
pilgrim. It was in the barn that I took my seat among a great crowd of
folk at two long, narrow tables. Round about us on the walls were a
multiplicity of brightly coloured ikons, pictures of the abbot, of
Tsars, of miraculous happenings and last judgments. On the tables at
regular intervals were large iron saucepans full of soup, platters of
black bread, and flagons of red wine.
A notice on the wall informed that without prayer eating or drinking
was forbidden, and I wondered what was going to happen; for although
we had all helped ourselves in Russian fashion, no one had as yet said
grace, and there was an air of waiting among the party. Suddenly a
voice of command cried "Stand!" and we all stood like soldiers on
drill. We all faced round to the ikons, and to a monk standing in
front of them. A long prayer was said in a very military fashion, and
then we all crossed ourselves and took our places at the tables once
more. Five of the brethren were in attendance, and fluttered up and
down, shifting the bread or refilling the wine bowls.
We were a mixed company--aged road-worn pilgrims, bright boys come
from a local watering-place by coach, red-kerchiefed peasant women,
pleasant citizens' wives in town-made blouses, Caucasians, a Turk, a
Jew, an Austrian waiter, and many others that I took no stock of.
The diet is a fast one, just as the hard beds are penance beds, and
no one can procure anything different at Novy Afon for any amount of
money. Even in the hall reserved for dignitaries and officials the
fare was the same as for us in the _tiers état_. The soup was of
vegetables only, and much inferior to what the tramp makes for himself
by the roadside. The second course was cold salt fish or boiled beans
and mushrooms, and the third was dry maize-meal porridge. As each
plate was put on the table the brother told us it came from God, and
whispered a blessing.
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.