ry of religion and
began to search, diligently, through all the forms of anthropomorphism,
for that one which should display the most artistic beauty and formal
grace. It was impossible to hesitate long. There is no paganism of
obscure antiquity that can compare, in poetic beauty, with the
scarce-forgotten rites of the Hellenic Pantheon. Fired by an
unlooked-for enthusiasm in his chosen task of apostasy, he finally took
for his protective deity that least divine, weakest, and most exquisite
of the gods of the Greeks:--Aphrodite.

Mad Ivan! Far indeed went he in his bitter defiance of High God! His
attendants looked on in frightened mystification at the changes now
preparing in the inner of the two up-stairs rooms in which their master
had been wont to work. Some simple carpentry; a large number of unusual
articles commanded from Moscow: one, more expensive than all the others,
brought in a coffin-like box from France; the transferrence of all his
paraphernalia of work into the outer room; and behold the fane of Ivan's
new goddess!--a semicircular chamber hung in deep violet; in the centre
of the jut a low, circular pedestal, draped in black, and flanked on
either side by two high church candlesticks of wrought silver,
containing painted candles kept always alight, the windowless room
containing, beside these, only one, silver lamp hanging from the centre
of the sombre ceiling. Opposite the altar-pedestal, stood the single
piece of furniture in this strange room: a long, low couch of Spanish
leather, violet in color, placed so that the occupant could gaze
directly upon the figure finally lifted to the pedestal prepared for
her: an exquisite modern statue of Aphrodite of old, which had won a
young Frenchman the Prix de Rome, and was compared by those authorities
not inimical to the sculptor, to be worthy of the chisel of Praxiteles.
Ivan had taken advantage of the quarrel among the committee who were
considering it for purchase for the Luxembourg, and had bought it from
its affronted creator for one hundred thousand francs.

Three workmen and Piotr had, during its preparation, gained glimpses of
this room. Afterwards Piotr entered it once or twice in the month for
the purpose of cleaning. But, barring this, once the door was shut on
the completed shrine, no one save Ivan beheld it; though he soon knew it
to be the chief reason why he was spoken of with bated breath by his own
servants; and called by the inhabitants of Kl