appearance; whereas, were I to throw the doors open, and show them the
splendour of the rooms and halls, they would stare in amazement. Every
one of the rooms is a perfect museum, and contains precious rarities.
One is full of carved furniture of costly woods, inlaid with ivory,
mother-of-pearl, gold and silver, and rich stones of the time of
'Ulászló.' The next contains all sorts of pottery of past
centuries--Roman and Etruscan, Chinese and Japanese, Sèvres and Dresden,
old Hungarian, and so forth. The third room is full of weapons of all
ages--panoplies, coats of mail, shields, bucklers, saddles. In the
fourth room are gowns and trains and coats of brocade, and artistic
embroidery and tapestry. The fifth room is a picture-gallery of
unlimited value; and then comes a library that has not its equal on this
continent, nor, I may say, on any other. High up to the ceiling the
large hall is filled with precious and rare old products; books with
clasps that are themselves curiosities of rare beauty. But those books!
If your medical colleagues had the privilege of entering this library
and peeping into those books, I doubt if they would be willing to part
with them ever after. Why, there is actually a book to invoke the devil
with! I did not dare to look into it, but you young fellows are such
sceptics that you will deny the existence of God and Devil presently,
and you will take the risk of reading that book.

"All these treasures were hoarded together by my father--may God bless
and rest his soul! He was called a miser throughout his life, and he
denied himself all comfort in order to spend his income in replenishing
his collection of rarities. Shortly after the birth of his second son,
your father, our mother grew tired of his mania and the sacrifices she
had daily to make, and left him, taking us boys with her, while he
remained alone among his beloved curiosities, which became dearer to him
on account of the high price he had to pay for them. When we boys--your