d
fascinating manners, to preside over the chief image shop of the
monastery.

"Where do you come from?" he had opened fire, with his most bewitching
glance.

"From the best country on earth."

"Is it Germany?"

The general idea among the untraveled classes in Russia is, that all of
the earth which does not belong to their own Emperor belongs to Germany,
just as _nyemetzky_ means "German" or "foreign," indifferently.

"No; guess again," I said.

"France?"

"No; further away."

"England, then?"

"No."

"Hungary?"

Evidently that man's geography was somewhat mixed, so I told him.

"America!" he exclaimed, with great vivacity. "Yes, indeed, it is the
best land of all. It is the richest!"

So that is the monastic as well as the secular standard of worth! This
experience, repeated frequently and nearly word for word, had begun to
weary me. Consequently I led the fat merchant a verbal chase, and
baffled him until he capitulated with, "Excuse me. Take no offense, I
beg, _sudarynya_. I only asked so by chance." Then I told him with the
same result.

This was not the last time, by many, that I was put through my national
catechism in Kieff. Every Kievlyanin to whom I spoke quizzed me. Of
course I was on a grand quizzing tour myself, but that was different, in
some way.

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 re