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
ground at the entrance, while between its bars had grown the
grass, which also covered the large and empty court-yard. In the
depths of this yard stood a low, iron-roofed, smoke-begrimed
building. The house itself was of course unoccupied, but this
shed, formerly a blacksmith's forge, was now turned into a
"dosshouse," kept by a retired Captain named Aristid Fomich
Kuvalda.
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