What most struck the poor monk was the fact that in spite of his strict fasting and great age, Father Ferapont still looked a vigorous old man. He was tall, held himself erect, and had a thin, but fresh and healthy face. There was no doubt he still had considerable strength. He was of athletic build. In spite of his great age he was not even quite gray, and still had very thick hair and a full beard, both of which had once been black. His eyes were gray, large and luminous, but strikingly prominent. He spoke with a broad accent. He was dressed in a peasant’s long reddish coat of coarse convict cloth (as it used to be called) and had a stout rope round his waist. His throat and chest were bare. Beneath his coat, his shirt of the coarsest linen showed almost black with dirt, not having been changed for months. They said that he wore irons weighing thirty pounds under his coat. His stockingless feet were thrust in old slippers almost dropping to pieces. “From the little Obdorsk monastery, from St. Sylvester,” the monk answered humbly, whilst his keen and inquisitive, but rather frightened little eyes kept watch on the hermit. “I have been at your Sylvester’s. I used to stay there. Is Sylvester well?” The monk hesitated. “You are a senseless lot! How do you keep the fasts?” “Our dietary is according to the ancient conventual rules. During Lent there are no meals provided for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. For Tuesday and Thursday we have white bread, stewed fruit with honey, wild berries, or salt cabbage and wholemeal stirabout. On Saturday white cabbage soup, noodles with peas, kasha, all with hemp oil. On weekdays we have dried fish and kasha with the cabbage soup. From Monday till Saturday evening, six whole days in Holy Week, nothing is cooked, and we have only bread and water, and that sparingly; if possible not taking food every day, just the same as is ordered for first week in Lent. On Good Friday nothing is eaten. In the same way on the Saturday we have to fast till three o’clock, and then take a little bread and water and drink a single cup of wine. On Holy Thursday we drink wine and have something cooked without oil or not cooked at all, inasmuch as the Laodicean council lays down for Holy Thursday: ‘It is unseemly by remitting the fast on the Holy Thursday to dishonor the whole of Lent!’ This is how we keep the fast. But what is that compared with you, holy Father,” added the monk, growing more confident, “for all the year round, even at Easter, you take nothing but bread and water, and what we should eat in two days lasts you full seven. It’s truly marvelous—your great abstinence.” “And mushrooms?” asked Father Ferapont, suddenly. “Mushrooms?” repeated the surprised monk.