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.
III
The monastery bells in pleasant liquid tones struck every quarter of
an hour, and at two o'clock in the morning I was awakened by a great
jangling, and the sound of steps along the stone corridors. I asked my
companions--I was sharing my room with an Armenian and a Russian--what
was the reason of the bell, and I learned that it was the call to
early prayers. We none of us got up, but I resolved to go next night
if it were possible.
Next day was one of relaxation after tramping. The Armenian went off
ten miles to a celebrated cave and a point of view, "the swallows'
nest"; he wished me to accompany him, but I had not come to Novy Afon
to find points of view or the picturesque--moreover he had come by
steamboat and was fresh, I had come on foot five hundred miles and
wanted a rest.
In the morning I looked through the workshops, chatted with a master in
the little monastery school, lounged in the orange groves and cedar
avenues. After dinner, as I sat near the pier, a monk pointed out to me
some artificial water where willows drooped, and white swans rode
gracefully under them. "You ought to come here at
_Kreschenie_--Twelfth-Night.
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