Tamoszius has no mercy. The sweat starts out on his forehead, and he
bends over like a cyclist on the last lap of a race. His body shakes and
throbs like a runaway steam engine, and the ear cannot follow the flying
showers of notes--there is a pale blue mist where you look to see his
bowing arm. With a most wonderful rush he comes to the end of the tune,
and flings up his hands and staggers back exhausted; and with a final
shout of delight the dancers fly apart, reeling here and there, bringing
up against the walls of the room.

After this there is beer for every one, the musicians included, and
the revelers take a long breath and prepare for the great event of the
evening, which is the acziavimas. The acziavimas is a ceremony which,
once begun, will continue for three or four hours, and it involves one
uninterrupted dance. The guests form a great ring, locking hands, and,
when the music starts up, begin to move around in a circle. In the
center stands the bride, and, one by one, the men step into the
enclosure and dance with her. Each dances for several minutes--as long
as he pleases; it is a very merry proceeding, with laughter and singing,
and when the guest has finished, he finds himself face to face with Teta
Elzbieta, who holds the hat. Into it he drops a sum of money--a dollar,
or perhaps five dollars, according to his power, and his estimate of
the value of the privilege. The guests are expected to pay for this
entertainment; if they be proper guests, they will see that there is a
neat sum left over for the bride and bridegroom to start life upon.

Most fearful they are to contemplate, the expenses of this
entertainment. They will certainly be over two hundred dollars and maybe
three hundred; and three hundred dollars is more than the year's income
of many a person in this room. There are able-bodied men here who work
from early morning until late at night, in ice-cold cellars with a