The walls were still covered with frescoes, the colours almost unspoilt; the richly carved altar-screen still showed signs of gilding; hardly defaced were its many little pictures of saints. The stalwart pillars separating one part from the other stood strong and untouched except that in parts their plaster coating had crumbled away.
Quite unique was the charm of that ruin. The blue sky above was its roof, and the solemn saints stared down from the walls as if demanding why no kindly hand was raised to protect their fragile beauty from storm and rain.
I know not why such a treasure was allowed to fall to pieces—perchance there is no time to look after old ruins in a country where so much has still to be done! Indeed, the church was rarely fascinating, thus exposed to the light of the day, yet distressing was the thought that, if not soon covered in, the lovely frescoes would entirely fall away.
There was a figure of the Holy Virgin that especially attracted my attention; she stared at me from her golden background with large, pathetic eyes. Upon her knees the Child Christ sat, stiffly upright, one hand raised in blessing; the child was tiny, with a strange pale countenance and eyes much too large for its face.
I could not tear myself away from this forsaken place of prayer; again and again I made the round of it, absorbing into my soul the picture it made.
At last I left it, but many times did I turn round to have a last look.
The sunflowers stood in tall groups, their heads bent towards the church as though trying to look inside; a flight of snow-white doves circled about it, their spotless wings flashing in the light. It was the last I saw of it—the ruined walls, and, floating above them, those snow-white doves.
*
*—*
Much more would I delight to relate about these little churches. For me the topic is full of unending charm; but there are many things that I must still talk about, so regretfully I turn away to other scenes.
The most lonely inhabitants of Rumania are the shepherds—more lonely even than the monks in their cells, for the monks are gathered together in congregations, whilst the shepherds spend whole months alone with their dogs upon desolate mountain-tops.