Through the Land of the Serb

by M. E. Durham

Towels, curtains, bed linen, all were pious offerings to the monastery. Each was embroidered with the donor's name and a motto, and the cushions were covered with beings who looked painfully like Cupids but were doubtless Cherubim. But none of these interesting facts did I discover till the next morning, when the monastery bell clanged loudly at four o'clock and woke me up. I struggled with a desire to sleep for several days, but as I had to see the church, draw it, and ride to Rashka, I got up at five and went out into the corridor. All the land was hidden in a dense white mist. The moisture clung clammily to tree and wall, and fell heavily, plap, plap, to the ground, and I shivered in a thin cotton shirt. Nikola appeared almost immediately with coffee and milk and bread, and my pandur with my coat, and, by the time I had breakfasted, the Archimandrite was waiting below to show me the church.

The old man unlocked the door, and he, I, and the pandur went in. We entered a narthex, a late addition to the church which spoils its proportions, and saw before us the original west front of the building, all of pure white marble, and the exquisite doorway—a square-headed door surmounted by a lunette with the figure of the Virgin between two angels in high relief, and framed with the most delicate mouldings upon which the fanciful monsters and arabesques of Byzantine art interlace, and the invention and execution are alike perfect. A small detached pier standing upon the back of a grotesque beast, as in the early churches of the North Italian towns, stood on either side of the door and supported the projecting upper mouldings; but they have both been sadly mutilated, for the Turks occupied the Imperial monastery (Tsarska Lavra) and stabled their horses in its church. To do them justice, however, they did not treat the building more cruelly than our own countrymen treated our own cathedrals, and much of the carving is as clean cut as when Stefan Nemanja raised it, in 1190. The Archimandrite sighed over the mutilations, but was pleased at my delighted appreciation of his church. We passed into the old building, through the little old narthex, into the body of the church. This is entirely frescoed, but the paintings are all newly restored, except those just inside the door, where great figures of weird Byzantine ascetics, the hermit saints—Onofrio, Marcus, Peter Antony, and Alexis—show grimly in the original fresco, and a rude painting of the Last Supper with fragments of some other subjects still cling to the walls. The north and south doors have also been beautiful, but they have suffered more severely than that of the west. Of the windows, one only is intact; the others have been adequately restored. The present dome, a recent and very poor attempt in plaster, is to be shortly replaced. Again the old man bewailed the destruction wrought by the Turks. "And it is your own country that has helped them," he said sadly, and shook his head.

He showed me the treasures of the church, the shrine of St. Simeone (King Stefan Nemanja) and the great silver casket, adorned with reliefs of scenes from the saints life, presented by Alexander Karageorgevich, in which to worthily preserve the sacred relics. He called the pandur to assist him, and together the young soldier and the Archimandrite unfolded with exceeding care the splendid crimson velvet covering for it, a gift from the then reigning king (Alexander Obrenovich), destined to cover the shrine on the saint's day. The Archimandrite looked at it lovingly, the pandur with awe and amazement, and then they tenderly put it away again, while I wondered over the much detested king who had presented it, and the king who had died seven hundred years ago and had wrought so well for his land that he is yet revered in it as a saint. In spite of time and the Turks, the Imperial monastery still preserves many of its old treasures, church vessels and vestments. A magnificent crimson-and-gold one, the Archimandrite told me, undoubtedly belonged to St. Sava, and it may have done so; but a gilt censer, also said to be the saint's, one of the church's precious relics which he looked on with believing eyes, betrays both by design and workmanship that it is of a later date. There was a very old reliquary, also the property of St. Sava, and there were three or four old manuscript books, and all he handled with a simple pride that was pretty to see. The last cupboard that he unlocked was perhaps the most interesting of all to me, for it contained a mass of votive offerings, most of them personal ornaments, splendid specimens of Turkish, Albanian, Bosnian, and Herzegovinian work, things barbaric and beautiful, choice examples of the finest native work, some of it undoubtedly very old. The last of the treasures was locked up again, and we left the treasury.

CHURCH, STUDENITZA, WEST DOOR.

Then the pandur and the Archimandrite had a little discussion, and the kind old man told me that the ride to Rashka was a long one, that I had better stay until to-morrow, then I should have time to draw the church and to rest. I was his guest, and he begged I would stay. The church should be left open, and I might draw what I pleased. I accepted the more gratefully as the sky threatened rain and it was damp and cold. He instructed the pandur to bring a table and chair into the church, and then I was left to my own devices. The time flew, and when I heard the clink of spurs on the marble floor, and the pandur saluting said, "Are you hungry?" I merely said "No," and went on. When, however, he reappeared in about twenty minutes and repeated his inquiry with an anxious face, I looked at my watch, realised I had been working for four hours, and hastily followed him to the corridor, where the poor Archimandrite was pacing up and down by the table, evidently wanting his dinner badly, and much relieved by my appearance. The forms observed were much the same as on the previous evening, and he talked of the sad state of "our people" in Macedonia and Old Servia, and lamented that the quarrels of great nations should cause the suffering of little ones. "Between your country and Russia we can do nothing. You keep the Turk in Europe." A portrait of Peter the Great hung on the wall. Here, as everywhere else in Servia, I found Russia the Serbs' only hope of salvation.

I spent the afternoon drawing the monastery buildings. It was very still, and the plash of the tiny fountain and the clink of the pandur's spurs as he hovered about me were the only sounds. The air was heavy with lime blossom; now and then a long-haired, black-robed monk glided silently by, and it was all unreal and dream-like. As evening drew on I heard the clicking of the amber beads, and the Archimandrite appeared. "You are always doing something," he said; "you have no rest. They say all the English are like that"; and he instructed Nikola to bring me a glass of slivovitz and a plateful of jam.

Nor did his kindness and courtesy ever cease, and his stately black figure bowing farewell was the last I saw of him as I passed through the monastery gates in the early morning and rode out into the world again with my escort.

This time I made good progress, for the pandur was no slug. I followed him up a torrent bed, over stock and stone, in a pretty straight line to the top of the mountain ridge, where we struck the high road, and after resting the horses an hour, rode easily down into and along the valley of the I bar. The nearer we got to the frontier the more conversational the youth became. He pointed out the ruins of two churches burnt by the Turks, and then cried, "See, here they are!" as a cart full of turbaned men creaked down the road. "Turks!" he said with contempt, "all Turks!" As a turn in the road revealed a hill at the end of the valley crowned with a building, "There is the Turkish fortress," he said, "and the frontier." "That is all Turkish?" I asked, pointing ahead. "It is Old Servia" (Stara Srbija), he replied firmly. I was on the edge of the coveted land, and the cartridges in my companion's belt were meant for those who hold it. Rashka is a tiny village on the very edge. We pulled up at the inn door, and the pandur went off to report me to the authorities. They arrived almost at once, the Nachelnik and the police captain, reinforced by the doctor, who spoke a little French, and a friendly youth who spoke some German. I was dimly aware of questions in three languages, blinked at them helplessly, and said that I was going to sleep. At which they all laughed, wished me good repose, and left me. By the time I had slept off Studenitza and the ride, the pandur had reported that I drew, also that I had been in Montenegro. Consequently, when I reappeared, I had a festive time over my sketch-book with the authorities. Pictures "done by hand" were quite a new idea.