No one ever visited them or sought them from
without. Steamers never called--only occasional feluccas came in
bringing Caucasian tribesmen from neighbouring villages, and there was
no carriage-way to any town.
We talked later of present-day matters, the abbot being at once
omniscient and omni-ignorant, and I finished my breakfast in time
to accompany him to church. I went to morning service in the great
high-walled cathedral and saw all the brothers pray. Of the people of
the neighbourhood there were only three; these with the monks formed
the whole congregation--there is no village at Pitsoonda. Imagine a
gigantic and noble building fit to be the living heart of a great
metropolis, and inside of it but a few little pictures, brightly
painted, and a diminutive rood-screen, scarcely higher than a
five-barred gate. On the ceiling of the great dome was painted a
lively and striking picture of Christ, probably done of old time, but
in countenance resembling, strangely enough, the accepted portrait of
Robert Louis Stevenson--a Christ with a certain amount of cynicism,
one who might have smoked upon occasion. No doubt it was painted by a
Greek: a Russian would never have done anything so Western.
The monks, looking ancient and dwarf-like, for they had never cut
their beards, were accommodated in little pews along the walls, and
they could stand and rest their shoulders upon the high arms of the
pews and doze, but could not sit, for there were no seats.
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