Over the entrance to these catacombs stands a church.  The walls of the vestibule where my mother, the merchant, and I waited for a sufficient party to assemble, were covered with frescoes representing the passage of the soul through the various stages of purgatory.  Beginning with the death scene (which greatly resembled the ikona of the Assumption in the cathedral) in the lower left-hand corner, the white-robed soul, escorted by two angels, passed through all the halting-places for the various sins, each represented by the appointed devil, duly labeled.  But the artist’s fancy had not been very fruitful on this fascinating theme.  The devils were so exactly alike that the only moral one could draw was, that he might as well commit the biggest and most profitable sin on the list, and make something out of it in this life, as to confine himself to the petty peccadilloes which profit not here, and get well punished hereafter.  The series ended with the presentation of the soul before the judgment seat, on the fortieth day after death.  Round the corner, Lazarus reclining in Abraham’s bosom and the rich man in the flames were conversing, their remarks crossing each other in mid-air, in a novel fashion.

When the guide was ready, each of us bought a taper, and the procession set out through the iron grating, down a narrow, winding stair, from which low, dark passages opened out at various angles.  On each side of these narrow passages, along which we were led, reposed the “incorruptible” bodies of St. Antony and his comrades, in open coffins lacquered or covered with sheets of silver.  The bodies seemed very small, and all of one size, and they were wrapped in hideous prints or plaid silks.  At the head of each saint flickered a tiny shrine-lamp, before a holy picture (ikona) of the occupant of the coffin.  It was a surprise to find the giant Ilya of Murom, who figures as the chief of the bogatyri (heroes) in the Russian epic songs, ensconced here among the saints, and no larger than they.  Next to the silk-enveloped head of St. John the Great Sufferer, which still projects as in life, when he buried himself to the neck in the earth,—­as though he were not sufficiently underground already,—­in order to preserve his purity, the most gruesome sight which we beheld in those dim catacombs was a group of chrism-exuding skulls of unknown saints, under glass bells.

On emerging from this gloomy retreat, we postponed meditating upon the special pleasure which the Lord was supposed to have taken in seeing beings made to live aboveground turning into troglodytes, and set out for the Fedosy, or far catacombs, in the hope that they might assist us in solving that problem.

We chose the most difficult way, descending into the intervening ravine by innumerable steps to view the two sacred wells, only to have our raging thirst and our curiosity effectually quenched by the sight of a pilgrim thrusting his head, covered with long, matted hair, into one of them.  The ascent of more innumerable steps brought us to the cradle of the monastery, Ilarion’s caverns.