Both are represented as finding so-called socialists to be merely crafty nihilists.

This raised another storm, and still further embittered Lyeskoff, who expressed himself in "To the Knife" (in the middle of the '70's), a mad production, wherein revolutionists (or "nihilists," as they were then generally called) were represented as condensed incarnations of the seven deadly sins.

These works had much to do with preventing Lyeskoff from taking that high place in the public estimation which his other works (a mass of novels and tales devoid of political tendency) and his great talent would have otherwise assured to him.

Of his large works, "The Cathedral Staff," with its sympathetic and life-like portraits of Archpriest Savely Tuberosoff and his athletic Deacon Achilles, and his "Episcopal Trifles" rank first.

The latter volume, which consists of a series of pictures setting forth the dark sides of life in the highest ecclesiastical hierarchy, created a great sensation in the early '80's, and raised a third storm, and the author fell into disfavor in official circles.
Perhaps the most perfect of his works is one of the shorter novels, "The Sealed Angel," which deals with the ways and beliefs of the Old Ritualists (though in the vicinity of Kieff, not in Melnikoff's province), and is regarded as a classic, besides being a pure delight to the initiated reader.