crosses shine beneath the rays of the sun. During the rainy
weather the neighbouring town pours its water into this main
road, which, at other times, is full of its dust, and all these
miserable houses seem, as it were, thrown by some powerful hand
into that heap of dust, rubbish, and rain-water. They cling to
the ground beneath the high mountain, exposed to the sun,
surrounded by decaying refuse, and their sodden appearance
impresses one with the same feeling as would the half-rotten
trunk of an old tree.

At the end of the main street, as if thrown out of the town,
stood a two-storied house, which had been rented from Petunikoff,
a merchant and resident of the town. It was in comparatively
good order, being further from the mountain, while near it were
the open fields, and about half-a-mile away the river ran its
winding course.

This large old house had the most dismal aspect amidst its
surroundings. The walls bent outwards and there was hardly a
pane of glass in any of the windows, except some of the fragments
which looked like the water of the marshes--dull green. The
spaces of wall between the windows were covered with spots, as if
time were trying to write there in hieroglyphics the history of
the old house, and the tottering roof added still more to its
pitiable condition. It seemed as if the whole building bent
towards the ground, to await the last stroke of that fate which
should transform it into a chaos of rotting remains, and finally
into dust.

The gates were open, one half of them displaced and lying on the