forward. The roofs of these time-worn habitations are full of
holes, and have been patched here and there with laths; from underneath
them project mildewed beams, which are shaded by the dusty-leaved
elder-trees and crooked white willows--pitiable flora of those suburbs
inhabited by the poor.

The dull green time-stained panes of the windows look upon each other
with the cowardly glances of cheats. Through the street and towards the
adjacent mountain, runs the sinuous path, winding through the deep
ditches filled with rain-water. Here and there are piled heaps of dust
and other rubbish--either refuse or else put there purposely to keep
the rain-water from flooding the houses. On the top of the mountain,
among green gardens with dense foliage, beautiful stone houses lie
hidden; the belfries of the churches rise proudly towards the sky, and
their gilded 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 ground
at the entrance, while between its