178 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



nuns are paid from ten rubles a year upward for water- 

 ing the flowers and keeping each grave trim. 



The shafts over such graves as had no house were 

 often quite as interesting. A photograph or crayon 

 portrait of the deceased is usually set in the monu- 

 ment and covered with glass. Or there is a bust or 

 small statuette, the latter being used chiefly in the case 

 of infants. The monument of a celebrated actress 

 was pointed out, whose life-size bust in bronze rested 

 on the top, together with a bronze mask and harp — 

 heathenism again, and a relic of the days when the 

 arms and horse of the dead warrior were buried with 

 him, and domestic implements were interred with his 

 wife or daughter. 



The weirdest thing in the cemetery was a grave that 

 is simply a glass house, containing a vault or cellar 

 with a trap-door and steps leading down into it. The 

 Sister told us its story. After twenty years of married 

 life, during which their prayers for offspring had been 

 unanswered, a couple were finally presented with a 

 daughter in 1873. Three years later the new-comer 

 died. The unhappy parents had the body embalmed 

 and placed in a coffin with a glass opening above the 

 face. The tomb in question was built and the coffin 

 deposited in the crypt. Every day for fourteen years 

 past the mother had visited the house, descended 

 through the trap-door, and spent some time looking 

 into the face of the little one through the glass. No 

 change had taken place in its appearance. This last 

 item was told us with a ring of honest pride in her 

 voice, as indicating the peculiar fitness of the convent 

 cemetery as a place of burial. 



