is ineffable, and it is worth while coming to Moscow simply for the sake of hearing it. I waited until the end of the first service and then I was borne by the crowd to one of the narrow entrances and hurled through the doorway outside. The crowd was not rough, they were not jostling one another, but with cheerful carelessness people dived into it as you dive into a scrimmage at football, and propelled the unresisting herd towards the entrance; the result being, of course, that a mass of people got wedged into the doorway and the process of getting out took infinitely longer than it need have done, and had there been a panic nothing could have prevented one’s being crushed to death. After this I went to a friend’s house to break the fast and eat koulich, Pascha, and Easter eggs, and finally returned home when the dawn was faintly shining on the dark waters of the Moscow river, whence the ice disappeared only last week. This morning people come to bring one Easter greetings and to give one Easter eggs and to receive gifts. I was writing in my sitting-room, and I heard a faint mutter in the next room, a small voice murmuring, “Gospodi, Gospodi” (“Lord, Lord”). I went to see who it was and found it was the policeman, sighing for his tip, not wishing to disturb, but at the same time anxious to indicate his presence. He brought me a crimson egg. Then came the doorkeeper and the cook. And the policeman must, I think, have been pleased with his tip, because policemen have been coming ever since, and there are not more than two who belong to my street. In the afternoon I went to a hospital for wounded soldiers to see them keep Easter, which they did by playing blind man’s buff to the sound of a flute played by one poor man who is crippled for life. One of the soldiers gave me as an Easter gift a poem, which I will translate literally as it is a curious human document. It is called “Past and Present.” This one is “Present”:—