was wound round several
times with a white cloth.

"What kind of a foolish name[2] have you given your son?" asked the
Lieutenant of her. "Whoever heard of giving a human being the name
dead-man's-blood?"

[Footnote 2: That name is the Hungarian for dead man's blood.
(Transcriber's Note: The footnote is incorrect. "Sanga-moarta" is not
Hungarian, but rather Romanian.)]

"I did not give him this name, my lord," said the old woman, with
quavering voice. "The people of the village call him that because no
one has ever seen him laugh. He never talks to anybody, and if you
speak to him he does not answer. He did not weep when his father died
and he never cared for any girl. He is always wandering about in the
woods."

"All right, old woman, that does not concern me."

"I know, my lord, it does not concern you; but you must hear that the
handsomest girl in the village, the beautiful Floriza, fell in love
with my son. There is not a more beautiful girl in all the country
round! Such black eyes, such long black braids, such rosy cheeks, such
a slender figure! There was not the like far and wide. Then too, she
was so industrious and loved my son so. She had sixteen shifts in her
outfit, that she herself had spun and woven, and she wore a necklace
of two hundred silver pieces and twenty gold guldens--Sanga-moarta
never looked at the girl. When Floriza made him wreaths he would not
put them around his hat. When she gave him kerchiefs he would not
fasten them to his buttonhole. No matter what beautiful songs the girl
sang as he passed her door, Sanga-moarta never stopped. Yet she loved
him. Often she would say to him when they met on the street;--'You
never come to see me. I suppose you would not look at me if I should
die,' and Sanga-moarta would say:--'Yes, I should.' 'Then I will die
soon,' the maiden would say sorrowfully. 'I will come to see you
then,' Sanga-moarta would answer, and pass on. Are you tired of the
story, my good lord? it is almost done. The beautiful Floriza is dead.
Her heart was broken. There she lies on her bier. Before the house are
the branches of mourning. When Sanga-moarta sees this and learns that
Floriza is dead he will come out of the woods to look at his dead love
as he promised, for he always keeps his word. Then you can talk with
him."

"Very well," said Clement, who had grown serious and was almost
annoyed that peasants who had certainly not read Horace's Ars Poetica
should have their own