"No chicken, but small pigeons," we exclaimed—"how ridiculous; why, they are so tiny there is nothing on them."
Yet it turned out the creatures were not pigeons but the typical fowls eaten in Finland during the month of July. Almost as soon as the baby chicken has learnt to walk about alone, and long before he is the possessor of real feathers, his owner marks him for slaughter; he is killed and eaten. Very extravagant, but very delicious. A Hamburger fowl or a French poussin is good and tender, but he is nothing to be compared with the succulent Finlander, whose wishing-bone is not one inch long.
Having devoured a whole fowl for my dinner, I brought away the small bone as a memento of a ravenous appetite—unappeased by an entire spring chicken.
Brother Sebastian smiled at the incident, and we tried to persuade him to change his mind and join us; he looked longingly at the modest dainties which seemed to bring back recollections of the days when he lived in the world, and enjoyed the pleasures thereof, but he only said—
"Besten Dank, meine Dame, but my conscience will not let me eat such luxuries. I cannot take more than the Church allows in fast times—the tea and bread is amply sufficient, for this is white bread, and that is a delicacy I have not tasted for years; all ours is black and sour. I should like to eat a sardine, but my conscience would kill me afterwards, you see."
As we did not wish to kill the unsophisticated youth, we pressed him no further.
What a picture we made, we four, in a far-away chamber of the Valamo Monastery with that beautiful boy sitting on the queer coverleted couch.
He told us that three years previously he had "made a fault." We did not ask of what nature, and he did not say; he only stated that his father who was a high official in the Russian Army, had, on the advice of the priest, sent him here to repent.
"Was it not very strange at first?"
"Yes, for you see we live in Moscow, and my father knows every one, and there are many grand people always at our house. It seemed difficult to me because most of the inmates here are peasants, and once within the monastery walls we are all equal; we are all men, and God's servants. Rank counts as nothing, for no one knows our names except the Igumen himself. When we enter we give up our garments, our money, our identity, and clothe ourselves as servants of the Church until we leave again, or take the vows of monks and give up the world for ever."