We are like people who have lost their memories
on the way to a feast, and our steps, in which is only dimly felt
the remembrance of a purpose, take us nowhither. We loiter in musty
waiting-rooms, are frustrated by mobs, and foiled by an eternal
clamour. We have forgotten the feast and occupy ourselves in all
manner of foolish and irrelevant ways. Only now and again, struck
by the absurdity of our occupations, we grope after our lost
consciousness and feel somehow that somewhere out beyond is our real
destination, that somewhere out there a feast is proceeding, that a
cover is laid for us and dishes served, that though we are absent the
master calls a toast to us and sends messengers to find us.
* * * * *
The _somewhere-out-beyond_ has for me been Russia. I do not suggest
that it is Russia for every one. There are many tables at the feast,
and the messenger sent after the absent must tell of those who sit at
his own table. I think there is the same wine and the same fare at all
tables. I tell of the hospitality of Russia, the hospitality of mind
and of hand found amongst a simple people.
In October 1911 I arrived as a pilgrim at the monastery of Novy Afon,
or, to translate the Russian into more recognisable terms, New Athos,
and I obtained the hospitality of the monks.
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