radise awaited them. How different was the reality from these
conjectures!

Blanka watched through the long hours by the dead man's couch. So passed
her wedding night.

At early dawn the tolling of bells announced to the people of Toroczko
that death had laid his cold hand on one of their number. Those who had
been wedding guests the day before now came as mourners to the house of
the Adorjans.

The brothers were out on the mountainside. Graves for the dead in
Toroczko are hewn out of the solid rock, and the side of some bare cliff
serves the people for a cemetery. Here each family has a vault, which,
as years pass, penetrates more and more deeply into the mountainside,
until in many cases it becomes a veritable tunnel. No name is carved
over these vaults, and only the memory of the survivors serves to
distinguish one tomb from another. When a man dies, his relatives take
it on themselves to hollow out his grave in the cliff. This is an old
and pious custom. If, however, there is no man in the family to render
this last service, the neighbours gladly offer their help. It would be a
grievous thing in Toroczko to have one's grave dug by a hired
grave-digger.

In the afternoon the catafalque was erected in the church, and the
entire population assembled to pay the last honours to the deceased. The
people sang, and the pastor delivered a funeral discourse. Then all
accompanied the remains to the rock-hewn cemetery. Men bore the coffin
on their shoulders, and on the coffin lay the dead man's sword, crowned
with garlands, and his shako pierced with a bullet-hole. Leading the
procession marched a student chorus singing a dirge, while weeping women
brought up the rear. When the family vault was reached, the seven
brothers of the deceased took the coffin and laid it in the niche
prepared to receive it; then they rolled a great stone before the
opening, came out of the vault, and kissed one another.

After that a plain villager, an old and gray-haired man, mounted a stone
pulpit and addressed the assembly, telling them who it was they were
burying, how he had lived, how he had been loved, and in what manner he
had come to his end. The speaker closed with the hope that the memory of
the departed might last as long as there were dwellers in the valley to
speak his name. The pastor then blessed the grave and pronounced a
benediction on the company before him. Finally the student choir
rendered a closing selection, while the wo