Tlie monk with whom I had twined the thread of conversation was a man of abou^ forty years of age, and had been only four years in the convent. Before that time he had been a secular priest in Vossnessensk, but having lost his wife, whose children had died before her, he had entered a convent. lie said, " it is a melancholy thing to live alone as a priest. Here I have some society, and all sorts of little employments, wliich occupy me out of the time devoted to religious duties." I learned from him the most important particulars respectingthe convent. It is one of the oldest in the city, and has been from ancient times the seat of the metropolitan of Moscow. The present metropolitan, however, does not live in it, but in a magnificent house in Garden -street. He has done hke the czar. The one has taken to himself a new capital, the other a new house. The convent too has declined. There are still thirty monks resident in it ; eating and hungry monks, but not one is filled or satisfied.
I find nowhere more agreeable entertainment than within the walls of a cloister, whether it arises from a particular liking on my part for their silent courts, or because their galleries and gardens are in fact peculiarly adapted for conversation.
I stood long here with my good monk, who had as much objection to being alone as I had, and loved as I do the society of the cloister. He told me many things which I no longer remember, conversing rationally enough, till on some mention being made of miracles, he began all at once to recount a story of some saint's picture of Moshaisk, that betrayed all the child-like facility of faith, so peculiar to the Russians. The French, who in their belle France little dream of the many miracles they gave occasion to in the year 1812, were also in that little town which lies east of Moscow, and pointed their profane cannon at a picture which had till then been ranked among ordinary ones, but which on that occasion became all at once imbued with wonder-working power. The French, it was said, shot thirty-two balls at the picture, not one of which hit the mark, all remaining fixed round in a circle, " as may yet be seen." The violent concussion, however, struck off many fragments of stone, all of which the picture could not of course repair, as they were countless. Some of them struck the picture, and caused wounds whence blood flowed, which announced its miraculous quality. The trusting and naive openness with which Russians repeat such stories as these to strangers, without the least reserve, wins our love, even while the superstition they display, calls up a smile upon the lip.
The good monk, whom I had plagued with my questions on my first visit, asked me to come again the next morning, when he would show me the liisnitzi (treasuiy) of his convent. I did not fail to go, and found him hard at work with a white apron over his black habit, and a large paste brush, pasting with the help of one of the church attendants, large sheets of paper together. They were hangings for some fresco paintings of the church, done in gay colours by a painter from Switzerland. How fortunate it would have been if the good father could have painted them himself ! But these arts do not flourish here. The chief divisions of the cathedral are painted with scenes from the old cecumenic councils, in the Older of time they were held. The first was in Nicea, the second in Zaregrad (Constantinople), the third in Ephesus, the fourth in Chalcedon, the fifth in Constantinople, the sixth and seventh in Nicea. How near I felt to the east, and how evident was that influence of the two beautiful peninsulas, Greece and Asia Minor, which pervades the whole liistory of Russia! It is scarcely possible to enter a church in Moscow, witliout hearing the east spoken of, particularly Zarcgrad, the " imperial city." The Russians never speak of Constantinople under any other name. As they have their own name, so they have their own way of considering this city bcfoi-c which their barbarian forefathers fought,
and from wliich Christianity came to them, as the German races fought before Rome and afterwards received Christianity from her.