The orchard’s fruit, however, had been sold in advance in the spring. An Armenian had come, considered the blossom, and offered a price which was accepted. He had made a good speculation as it turned out, and he put a watchman in among the trees with a dog to see that nothing was stolen. The watchman was one of the unfortunate refugees from the territory now occupied by the Germans. Two years ago he had been a prosperous farmer with his own land and horses and cows and what not, now he is a miserable half-savage in sheepskins lying in a rain-soaked straw shelter in the orchard--sans land, sans wife, sans everything. A Roman Catholic he, but he went to the Orthodox Church on Sunday, as did also the Hungarian prisoners, for they said in their halting way what it is difficult for the more prosperous to understand, that _Bog odin_, God is One, and that if there be no Catholic church by, it is as easy to pray to God in the church that there is. VI FATHER YEVGENY THE faces in the passing crowd are always somewhat of an enigma. There are so many that we do not know, each with his own wide story, which, however, does not touch our story. One is tempted to go up and place the hand in the slightly unwilling and doubtful hand of the stranger and say, “I know you, do I not?” And it is always somewhat of a miracle if in the midst of the sea of faces there suddenly turns up the familiar face. There happened to me when I returned to Moscow after my stay at Mme. E.’s a miracle of this kind. I met one of my pilgrims again, one of those I accompanied to Jerusalem five years ago, whom I did not expect to see again--the aged hermit Yevgeny. I passed and repassed him twice, and he for his part stopped and seemed to be vaguely wondering what he should do next. ’Twas outside the Yaroslavsky station, and I was hurrying to catch a suburban train to visit some friends. There was a great swirl of traffic, and many trams were circling and groaning, emptying and receiving passengers. “Father Yevgeny,” said I. “Do you not recognise me?” He seemed taken aback, and shrank rather as if the devil had taken a new form to tempt him. I recalled that he was considerably troubled by the devil. “We met at Jerusalem, did we not?” said I. “Don’t you remember, we used to read the Bible together in the mornings?” Then he recognised me, and a bright and happy smile transfigured his pallid, wrinkled cheeks and sunken eyes. He lifted up his bent shoulders and kissed me, first on one cheek, then on the other, and proclaimed in a loud voice, “God has done this. It is a miracle. He meant that we should meet again. But how changed you are! You have grown taller. Yes, it is you. But it is a miracle. God has done it.”