No wonder, then, if to the author of "Szomorú Napok," the whole world seemed out of joint. The book itself is, primarily, a tale of suffering, crime, and punishment; but it is also a bitter satire on the crying abuses and anomalies due to the semi-feudal condition of things which had prevailed in Hungary for centuries, the reformation and correction of which had been the chief mission of the Liberal Party in Hungary to which Jókai belonged. The brutal ignorance of the common people, the criminal neglect of the gentry which made such ignorance possible, the imbecility of mere mob-rule, and the mischievousness of demagogic pedantry--these are the objects of the author's satiric lash. As literature, despite the occasional crudities and extravagances of a too exuberant genius that has yet to learn self-restraint, "Szomorú Napok" stands very high. It is animated by a fine, contagious indignation, and its vividly terrible episodes, which appal while they fascinate the reader, seem to be written in characters of blood and fire. The descriptions of the plague-stricken land and the conflagration of the headsman's house must be numbered among the finest passages that have ever flowed from Jókai's pen. But the mild, idyllic strain, so characteristic of Jókai, who is nothing if not romantic, runs through the sombre and lurid tableau like a bright silver thread, and the _dénouement_, in which all enmities are reconciled, all evil-doers are punished, and Gentleness and Heroism receive their retributive crowns, is a singularly happy one. Moreover, in "Szomorú Napok" will be found some of Jókai's most original characters, notably, the ludicrous, if infinitely mischievous, political crotcheteer, "Numa Pompilius;" the drunken cantor, Michael Kordé, whose grotesque adventure in the dog-kennel is a true _Fantasiestück à la Callot_; the infra-human Mekipiros; the half-crazy Leather-bell; and that fine, soldierly type, General Vértessy. R. NISBET BAIN. _October_, 1900. THE DAY OF WRATH. CHAPTER I. THE BIRD OF ILL-OMEN. Whoever has traversed the long single street of Hétfalu will have noticed three houses whose exterior plainly shows that nobody dwells in them. The first of these three houses is outside the village on a great green hill, round which the herds of the village peacefully crop the pasture. Only now and then does one or other of these quiet beasts start back when it suddenly comes upon a white skeleton, or a bleached bullock-horn, in the thickest patches of the high grass. The house itself has no roof, and the soot with which years of heavy rains have bedaubed the walls, points to the fact that once upon a time the place was burnt out. Now, dry white stalks of straw wave upon the mouldering balustrades. The iron supports have been taken out of the windows, on the threshold thorns and thistles grow luxuriantly. There is no trace of a path--perhaps there never was one.