"It is very wonderful," said Turan. "It must require great skill
and patience and time."
"That it does," replied the old man, "though having done it so
long I am quicker than most; but mine are the most natural. Why,
I would defy the wife of that warrior to say that insofar as
appearances are concerned he does not live," and he pointed at
the man upon the thoat. "Many of them, of course, are brought
here wasted or badly wounded and these I have to repair. That is
where great skill is required, for everyone wants his dead to
look as they did at their best in life; but you shall learn--to
mount them and paint them and repair them and sometimes to make
an ugly one look beautiful. And it will be a great comfort to be
able to mount your own. Why, for fifteen hundred years no one has
mounted my own dead but myself.
"I have many, my balconies are crowded with them; but I keep a
great room for my wives. I have them all, as far back as the
first one, and many is the evening I spend with them--quiet
evenings and very pleasant.
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