Pisemsky in Moscow. At the same time, Leskov was working on two of his "Stargorod Chronicles", later regarded as part of a trilogy, along with The Cathedral Folk, Old Years in Plodomasovo (1869) and A Decayed Family (1873), each featuring a strong female character: virtuous, courageous, noble and "reasonably humane". Both works bore signs of being unfinished. It later transpired that the second work was ill-received by Mikhail Katkov, and that Leskov, having lost all interest, simply refused to complete what otherwise might have been developed into a full-blown novel. Both chronicles were thinly veiled satires on certain aspects of the Orthodox church, especially those incongruities it had with intrinsic Christian values which had made it impossible (according to the author) for the latter to take root firmly in the Russian soil. On 16 November 1874, Leskov wrote to Ivan Aksakov: "The second part of A Decayed Family which appeared in god-awful shape, became the last straw for me." It was in the course of the publication of this second part that Katkov told one of his associates, Voskoboynikov: "We've made a mistake: this man is not one of us." In 1873 The Sealed Angel came out, about a miracle which caused an Old Believer community to return to the Orthodox fold. Influenced by traditional folk tales, it is regarded in retrospect one of Leskov's finest works, employing his skaz technique to the fullest effect. The Sealed Angel turned out to be the only story that avoided being heavily cut by The Russian Messenger because, as Leskov later wrote, "it slipped through, in the shadows, what with them being so busy." The story, rather critical of the authorities, resonated in high places and was read, reportedly, at the Court. Inspired by his 1872 journey to Lake Ladoga, The Enchanted Wanderer (1873) was an amorphous, loosely structured piece of work, with several plotlines intertwined – the form Leskov thought the traditional novel was destined to be superseded by. Decades later scholars praised the story, comparing the character of Ivan Flyagin to that of Ilya Muromets, as symbolizing "the physical and moral duress of the Russian man in times of trouble," but the response of contemporary critics was lukewarm, Nikolay Mikhaylovsky complaining of its general formlessness: "details stringed together like beads, totally interchangeable." While all of Leskov's previous works were severely cut, this was the first one to be rejected outright; it