I do not know; but I made a
point of mentioning the incident to several Russian friends, including a
priest, and learned, to my surprise, that, though I was not a member of
a Russian Church, I could legally have stood godmother to a man, though
I could not have done so to a woman; and that a godmother could have
been dispensed with. Men who are not members of the Russian Church can,
in like manner, stand as godfathers to women, but not to men. Moreover,
every one seemed to doubt the probability of a Jew quitting his own
religion in earnest, and they thought that his object had been to obtain
from me a suit of clothes, practical gifts to the godchild being the
custom in such cases. I had been too dull to take the hint!

A few months later, a St. Petersburg newspaper related a notorious
instance of a Jew who had been sufficiently clever to get himself
baptized a number of times, securing on each occasion wealthy and
generous sponsors. Why the man from Minsk should have selected me, in my
plain serge traveling gown, I cannot tell, unless it was because he saw
that I did not wear the garb of the Russian merchant class, or look like
them, and observation or report had taught him that the aristocratic
classes above the merchants are most susceptible to the pleasure of
patronizing converts; though to do them justice, Russians make no
attempt at converting people to their church. I have been assured by a
Russian Jew that his co-religionists never do, really, change their
faith. Indeed, it is difficult to understand how they can even be
supposed to do so, in the face of their strong traditions, in which they
are so thoroughly drilled. Therefore, if Russians stand sponsors to
Jews, while expressing skepticism as to conversion in general, they
cannot complain if unscrupulous persons take advantage of their
inconsistency. I should probably have refused to act as godmother, even
had I known that I was legally entitled to do so.

Our searches in the lower town, Podol, for rugs like those in the
monastery resulted in nothing but amusement. Those rugs had been made in
the old days of serfdom, on private estates, and are not to be bought.

By dint of loitering about in the churches, monasteries, catacombs,
markets, listening to that Little Russian dialect which is so sweet on
the lips of the natives, though it looks so uncouth when one sees their
ballads in print, and by gazing out over the ever beautiful river and
steppe, I came at