“I beg for only one favour. Give me a sufficient sum to enable me to return to my country and embrace my beloved mother.” “All right; I’ll think it over ... Chenapan!” Day after day passed—still they did not heat my room, and still he thought. During that time I reached the last degree of prostration, and no longer complained to any one, but my eyes shed tears of themselves. If any dog had been in my position it might have aroused compassion—but he was silent! Afterwards I learned that such things are called in the Russian language “jokes.” But if these are their _jokes_, what must their cruelties be? At last he sent for me. “All right,” he said; “I will give you four hundred francs, but only on condition that you become a convert to the Greek faith.” I looked into his eyes with amazement, but those eyes expressed nothing, save an inflexibility that admits of no reply. I cannot remember how the ceremony was performed.... I am even not quite certain whether it was a _real_ ceremony, and whether the priest’s part was not played by the Pompadour’s adjutant disguised. Justice compels me to add, however, that, after the ceremony was over, he behaved to me like a _grand seigneur_, that is, he gave me not only the whole of the sum agreed upon, but also two beautiful, hardly-worn suits, and ordered that I should be driven free of expense to the boundary of the next Pompadourdom. My hope did not deceive me. God had touched his heart at last! Twelve days later I had reached the banks of the Seine, and, graciously received back into the service by Monseigneur Maupas, was strolling about the boulevards, humming merrily— “Les lois de la France, Votre Excellence! Mourir, mourir, Toujours mourir!” Oh, ma France! Oh, ma mère! [Illustration] _THE CROCODILE._ AN EXTRAORDINARY EVENT; OR, A PASSAGE IN THE PASSAGE. (_The true narrative of how a gentleman of a certain age and a certain appearance was swallowed alive and whole by the crocodile of the Passage, and of what were the consequences._) BY FÈDOR DOSTOYÈVSKY. “Ohè Lambert! Où est Lambert? As tu vu Lambert?”