But this was not enough. It was Vitberg’s intention to convert the hill itself into the lowest part of the cathedral, to build a colonnade to the river, and then, on a foundation laid on three sides by nature herself, to erect a second and a third church. But all the three churches made one; for Vitberg’s cathedral, like the chief dogma of Christianity, was both triple and indivisible.
The lowest of the three churches, hewn in the rock, was a parallelogram in the shape of a coffin or dead body. All that was visible was a massive entrance supported on columns of almost Egyptian size; the church itself was hidden in the primitive unworked rock. It was lighted by lamps in high Etruscan candelabra; a feeble ray of daylight from the second church passed into it through a transparent picture of the Nativity. All the heroes who fell in 1812 were to rest in this crypt; a perpetual mass was to be said there for those who had fallen on the field of battle; and the names of them all, from the chief commanders to the private soldiers, were to be engraved on the walls.
On the top of this coffin or cemetery rose the second church, in the form of a Greek cross with limbs of equal length spreading to the four quarters, a temple of life, of suffering, of labour. The colonnade which led up to it was adorned with statues of the Patriarchs and Judges. At the entrance were the Prophets; they stood outside the church, pointing out the way which they could not tread themselves. Inside this temple the Gospel story and the Acts of the Apostles were represented on the walls.
Above this building, crowning it, completing it, and including it, the third church was to be built in the shape of the Pantheon. It was brightly lighted, as the home of the Spirit, of unbroken peace, of eternity; and eternity was represented by its shape. Here there were no pictures or sculpture; but there was an exterior frieze representing the archangels, and the whole was surmounted by a colossal dome.
Sad is my present recollection of Vitberg’s main idea; he had worked it out in every detail, in complete accordance at every point with Christian theology and architectural beauty.
This astonishing man spent a whole lifetime over his conception. It was his sole occupation during the ten years that his trial lasted; in poverty and exile, he devoted several hours of each day to his cathedral. He lived in it; he could not believe that it would never be built; his whole life—his memories, his consolations, his fame—was wrapped up in that portfolio.
It may be that in the future, when the martyr is dead, some later artist may shake the dust from those leaves and piously give to the world that record of suffering, those plans over which the strong man, after his brief hour of glory had gone out, spent a life of darkness and pain.
His plan was full of genius, and startling in its extravagance; for this reason Alexander chose it, and for this reason it should have been carried out. It is said that the hill could never have supported such a building; but I do not believe it, especially in view of all the modern triumphs of engineering in America and England, those suspension-bridges and tunnels which a train takes eight minutes to pass through.
Milorádovitch advised Vitberg to have granite monoliths for the great pillars of the lowest church. Someone pointed out that the process of bringing these from Finland would be very costly. “That is the very reason why we should get them,” answered Milorádovitch; “if there were granite quarries on the Moscow River, where would be the wonder in erecting the pillars?”
Milorádovitch was a soldier, but he understood the element of romance in war and in other things. Magnificent ends are gained by magnificent means. Nature alone attains to greatness without effort.