"'Well,' continued the priest, 'now pay attention! Those who are already Christians need only to lift up the right hand, and repeat after me the creed. That will soon be done. But with the damned Jews one has always a special trouble--the Jews I must first baptise. Jews, step forward!--the other vermin can remain where they now are.' In this solemn manner the ceremony was brought to a conclusion. "On the day following," M. Walerian continued, "the second act was performed: the selection of a trade. This act was as spontaneous as our religious conversion; only, some individual regard became here indispensable. Three young Government officials were deputed to record our wishes, and to comply with them as far as the exigencies of the case admitted. The official before whom I appeared was very juvenile. Though externally very polished, he was in reality a frightfully coarse and cruel youth, without a spark of human feeling, so far as we were concerned. We afforded him no small amount of merriment. This youth inquired carefully concerning our wishes, and invariably ordered the very opposite. Among us was a noble lady from Poland, of very ancient lineage, very feeble and miserable, whose utter helplessness might well inspire the most callous heart with respect and compassion. The lady was too old to be married to one of the 'forced ones,' and was therefore asked to state what kind of occupation she desired. She entreated to be employed in some school for daughters of military officers, there being a demand for such service; but the young gentleman ordered her to go as laundress to the barracks at Mohilew! An aged Jew had been sent to Siberia for having smuggled prohibited books across the frontiers. He had been the owner of a printing establishment, and was well acquainted with the business. 'Could he not be employed in one of the Imperial printing offices; and if possible,' urged the aged man, 'be permitted to reside in a place where few or no Jews lived?' He had under compulsion changed his religion; to which he was yet fervently attached, and trembled at the thought that his former co-religionists would none the less avoid him as an apostate. The young official noted down his request, and made him a police agent at Miaskowka, a small town in the government district of Podolien, almost exclusively inhabited by Jews. Another, a former schoolmaster, in the last stages of consumption, begged on his knees to be permitted to die quietly in some country village. 'That is certainly a modest request!' observed this worthless youth; and sent him as a waiter to a hospital. Need I tell how I fared? Being misled, like the rest, by the hypocritical air and seeming concern of this rascal, I made known to him my desire to obtain the post of under-steward at some remote Crown estate, where I might have as little intercourse as possible with my fellow-men. And thus, sir, I became the keeper of the small inn on a much-frequented highway!"