Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/30

4 almost without his knowledge and understanding, into the depths of his soul there crept a shadow of doubt. This was obvious in his earnest request that I would at least bow before the chief relic. It was plain that he was no longer anxious about the safety of the heretic, but that the Almighty's failure to send due punishment was troubling him. After we had finished with the catacombs I wished to return alone, but my guide would not leave me. Before long I realised that the monk on his side wanted to acquire knowledge. He gave free rein to his curiosity, to his eager desire to learn something of the world, of Europe. His world-hunger sparkled in his eyes, and I could not satisfy his appetite for narrative and explanation. At length he, a Russian, began to ask me, a nonrussian, about Moscow, Petrograd, Russia. Several times we paced the distance between the hermitage and the margin of the forest. My companion never wearied in his interrogations. Hitherto he had known the world in the light of the Bible and the legends of the saints, but now he was listening to the unheard of and unsuspected. At length I had to make my way back to the principal monastery. Despite my repeated and cordial thanks, the monk accompanied me to the very gate; there he continued to stand, and would not take his homeward path after my last words of farewell had been uttered—what on earth did the man want? Did he expect a gratuity? The thought had been worrying me for some little time. I was ashamed of it; it hurt me to entertain it; but in the end I found it impossible to doubt that this strictly religious contemner of the world was accustomed to receive tips! My head was whirling with thoughts about Russia and Europe, belief and unbelief; and I blushed as I slipped a note into the extended palm of the guardian of Gethsemane.

This experience and many similar ones, especially those gained during a pilgrimage to another leading monastery, and during my intercourse with the "old believers" and the sectaries—in a word, the observation and study of the religious life of the churches, afford ample insight into Old Russia of the days before Peter the Great. To understand European and Europeanised Russia, it is necessary to know what Moscow, the third Rome, has been and still is for Russia in matters of civilisation.

I owe to Tolstoi my introduction to the old believer wonderland. One of the best old believer curio dealers in