Czipra. Let me learn from her how a dead man must
behave. My death will not be so fine as hers: I shall not breathe my
soul into the soul of my loved one: yet I shall be a gay
travelling-companion."

Pain interrupted his words.

When it ceased, he laughed at himself.

"How a foolish mass of flesh protests! It will not allow itself to be
overlorded. Yet we were only guests here! '_Animula, vagula, blandula.
Hospes comesque corporis. Quae nunc adibis loca? Frigidula, palidula,
undula! Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos._' Certainly you will be '_extra
dominium_' immediately. And my lord Stomach, his Grace, and my lord
Heart, his Excellency, and my lord Head, his Royal Highness all must
resign office."

The doctor declared he must be suffering terrible agony all the time he
was jesting and laughing; and he laughed when other people would have
gnashed their teeth and cried aloud.

"We have disputed often, Lorand," said the old man, always in a fainter
voice, "about that German savant who asserted that the inhabitants of
other planets are much nobler men than we here on earth. If he asks what
has become of me, tell him I have advanced. I have gone to a planet
where there are no peasants: barons clean earls' boots. Don't laugh at
me, I beg, if I am talking foolishly.--But death dictates very curious
verses."

The hand-grasp with which he greeted Lorand, proved that it was his
last.

After that his hand drooped, his eyes languished, his face became ever
more and more yellow.

Once again he raised his eyes.

They met Lorand's gaze.

He wished to smile: in a whisper, straining desperately he said:

"Immediately now ... I shall know--what is--in the foggy spots of the
Northern Dog-star:--and in the eyeless worm's----entrails."

Then, suddenly, with a forced final spasmodic effort, he seized the arms
of his chair, and rose, lifted up his right arm, and turned to the
magistrate.

"Sir," he cried in a strong full-toned voice, "I have appealed."

He fell back in the arm-chair.

Some minutes later every wrinkle disappeared from his face, it became as
smooth as marble, and calm, as those of dead persons are wont to be.

Lorand was standing there with clasped hands between his two dear dead
ones.

* * * * *

On the morrow at dawn Lorand rose for his journey and stepped into the
cart with a closed lead coffin. So he took home his dead bride.

The second letter which Topandy had written to