Russian Rambles

their hair as for their voices and execution. The russet-brown and golden locks of some of them fell in heavy waves to their waists. In fact, long, waving hair seemed to be a specialty with the monks of this monastery, and they wore it in braids when off duty. I had seen priests in St. Petersburg who so utterly beyond a doubt frizzed their scanty hair on days of grand festivals, that the three tufts pertaining to the three too slender hair pins on which they had been done up stood out in painfully isolated disagreement. What would they not have given for such splendid manes as these Kieff singers possessed!

We ascended to the gallery, to obtain a better view of the scene. Peasant men in sheepskins (tulupi),-the temperature verged on 100 degrees Fahrenheit,-in coats of dark brown homespun wool girt with sashes which had once been bright; female pilgrims in wadded coats girt into shapelessness over cotton gowns of brilliant hues, knelt in prayer all about the not very spacious floor. Their traveling-sacks on their backs, the tin tea-kettles and cooking paraphernalia at their belts, swayed into perilous positions as they rocked back and forth, striking the floor devoutly with their brows, rising only to throw back their long hair, cross themselves rapidly, and resume the 'ground salutations,' until we were fairly dizzy at the sight. Some of them placed red, yellow, or green tapers-the first instance of such a taste in colors which we had observed-on the sharp points of the silver candelabra standing before the holy pictures in the ikonostas, already overcrowded. A monk was incessantly engaged in removing the tapers when only half consumed, to make way for the ever-swelling flood of fresh tapers. Another monk was as incessantly engaged in receiving the prosfori. A prosfora is leavened bread in the shape of a tiny double loaf, which is sold at the doors of churches, and bears on its upper surface certain symbolic signs, as a rule. The Communion is prepared from similar loaves by the priest, who removes certain portions with a spear-shaped knife, and places them in the wine of the chalice. The wine and bread are administered with a spoon to communicants. From the loaves bought at the door pieces are cut in memory of dead friends, whose souls are to be prayed for, or of living friends, whose health is prayed for by the priest at a certain point of the service, in accordance with the indications sent up to the altar with the loaves on slips of paper, such as 'For the soul of Ivan Vasilievitch,' 'For the health of Tatiana Pavlovna.' Thus is preserved the memory of early Christian times, when the Christians brought wine and oil and bread for their worship; and the best having been selected for sacred use, portions were taken from the remainder in memory of those who sent or brought them, after the rest was used to refresh the congregation during a pause in the all-night service between vespers and matins. After the service, in our modern times, the prosfori are given back to the owners, who cross themselves and eat the bread reverently on the spot or elsewhere, as blessed but not sacramental. At this monastery, the prosfori prepared for memorial use had a group of the local saints stamped on top, instead of the usual cross and characters. It is considered a delicate attention on the part of a person who has been on a pilgrimage to any of the holy places to bring back a prosfora for a friend. It is very good when sliced and eaten with tea, omitting the bottom crust, which may have been dated in ink by the pilgrim. Some of the peasants at this monastery church sent in to be blessed huge packages of prosfori tied up in gay cotton kerchiefs.

The service ended, and the chief treasure of the monastery, the miraculous image of the Assumption of the Virgin,-the Falling Asleep of the Virgin is the Russian name,-was let slowly down on its silken cords from above the Imperial Gate, where a twelve-fold silver lamp, with glass cups of different colors, has burned unquenched since 1812, in commemoration of Russia's deliverance from 'the twelve tribes,' as the French invasion is termed. The congregation pressed forward eagerly to salute the venerated image. Tradition asserts that it was brought from Constantinople to Kieff in the year 1073, with the Virgin's special blessing for the monastery. By reason of age and the smoke from conflagrations in which the monastery has suffered, the image is so darkened that one is cast back upon one's imagination and the copies for comprehension of this treasure's outlines. What is perfectly comprehensible, however, is the galaxy of diamonds, brilliants, and gems thickly set in the golden garments which cover all but the hands and feet of the personages in the picture, and illuminate it with flashes of many-hued light. After a few minutes, the image was drawn up again to its place,-a most unusual position for a valued holy image, though certainly safe, and one not occupied, so far as I am aware, by any other in the country.

It occurred to us that it might prove an interesting experiment to try the monastery inn for breakfast, and even to sojourn there for a day or two, and abandon the open sewers and other traces of advanced civilization in the town. Our way thither led past the free lodgings for poor pilgrims, which were swarming with the devout of both sexes, although it was not the busiest season for shrine-visiting. That comes in the spring, before the harvest, at all monasteries, and, in this particular monastery, on the feast of the Assumption, August 15 (Russian style), 27 (European style). But there was a sufficient contingent of the annual one million pilgrims present to give us a very fair idea of the reverence in which this, the chief of all Russian monasteries, is held, and of the throngs which it attracts. But, as usual in Russia, sight alone convinced us of their existence; they were chatting quietly, sitting and lying about with enviable calmness, or eating the sour black bread and boiled buckwheat groats provided by the monastery. I talked with several of them, and found them quite unconscious that they were not comfortably, even luxuriously, housed and fed.

The inn for travelers of means was a large, plain, airy building, with no lodgers, apparently. The monks seemed frightened at the sight of us. That was a novelty. But they escorted us over the house in procession. We looked at a very clean, very plain room, containing four beds. It appeared, from their explanations, that pilgrims have gregarious tastes, and that this was their nearest approach to a single room. I inquired the price. 'According to your zeal,' was the reply. How much more effective than 'What you please' in luring the silver from lukewarm pockets! The good monks never found out how warm our zeal was, after all, for the reason that their table was never furnished with anything but fish and 'fasting food,' they said, though there was no fast in progress. The reason why, I could not discover; but we knew our own minds thoroughly on the subject of 'fasting food,' from mushroom soup, fish fried in sunflower oil, and coffee without milk to that most insipid of dessert dishes, kisel, made of potato flour, sweetened, and slightly soured with fruit juice. They told us that we might have meat sent out from town, if we wished; but as the town lay several versts distant, that did not seem a very practical way of coquetting with the Evil One under their roof. Accordingly, we withdrew; to their relief, I am sure. As we had already lived in a monastery inn, it had not occurred to us that there could be any impropriety in doing so, but that must have been the cause of their looks of alarm. I believe that one can remain for a fortnight at this inn without payment, unless conscience interferes; and people who had stayed there told me that meat had been served to them from the monastery kitchen; so that puzzle still remains a puzzle to me.

We went to see the brethren dine in the refectory, an ancient, vaulted building of stone, near the cathedral. Under a white stone slab near the entrance lie the bodies of Kotchubey and Iskra, who were unjustly executed by Peter the Great for their loyal denunciation of Mazeppa's meditated treachery. Within, the walls of the antechamber were decorated with dizzy perspective views of Jerusalem, the saints, and pious elders of the monastery. At the end of the long dining-hall, beyond an ikonostas, was a church, as is customary in these refectories. Judging from the number of servitors whom we had met hurrying towards the cells with sets of porcelain dinner-trays, not many monks intended to join the common table, and it did not chance to be one of the four days in the year when the Metropolitan of Kieff and other dignitaries dine there in full vestments.

At last, a score of monks entered, chanted a prayer at a signal from a small bell, and seated themselves on benches affixed to the wall which ran round three sides of the room. The napkins on the tables which stood before the benches consisted of long towels, each of which lay across four or five of the pewter platters from which they ate, as the table was set in preparation. If it had been a festal day, there would have been several courses, with beer, mead, and even wine to wash them down. As it was, the monks ate their black bread and boiled buckwheat groats, served in huge dishes, with their wooden spoons, and drank kvas, brewed from sour black bread, at a signal from the bell, after the first dish only, as the rule requires. While they ate, a monk, stationed at a desk near by, read aloud the extracts from the Lives of the Saints appointed for the day. This was one of the 'sights,' but we found it curious and melancholy to see strong, healthy men turned into monks and content with that meagre fare. Frugality and dominion over the flesh are good, of course, but minds from west of the Atlantic Ocean never seem quite to get into sympathy with the monastic idea; and we always felt, when we met monks, as though they ought all to be off at work somewhere,-I will not say 'earning money,' for they do that as it is in such great monasteries as that of Kieff, but lightening the burden of the peasants, impossible as that is under present conditions, or making themselves of some commonplace, practical use in the world.

The strongest point of the Lavra, even equal to the ancient and venerated ikona of the Assumption in the great cathedral, is the catacombs, from which the convent takes its name.