ss and beauty had the early morning
imparted to the outlines of the building. The Count marvelled at so new a
sight. The tower seemed to him twice as high, for it rose up above the
early mist; the tin roof was gilded by the sun, and beneath it shone in
the sashes fragments of the broken panes, breaking the eastern beams into
many-coloured rainbows; the lower stories were wrapped in a mantle of mist
that hid from the eye the cracks and huge nicks. The cries of the distant
hunters, borne on the winds, echoed several times against the castle
walls; you would have sworn that the cry came from the castle, that under
the curtain of fog the walls had been restored and were again inhabited.

The Count liked new and unwonted sights, and called them romantic; he used
to say that he had a romantic head, but truth to say he was an out-and-out
crank. Sometimes when chasing a fox or a hare he would suddenly stop and
gaze mournfully at the sky, like a cat when it sees a sparrow on a tall
pine; often he wandered through the wood without dog or gun, like a
run-away recruit; often he sat by a brook motionless, inclining his head
over a stream, like a heron that wants to consume all the fish with its
eye. Such were the queer habits of the Count; everybody said that there
was some screw loose in him. Yet they respected him, for he was a
gentleman of ancient lineage, rich, kind to his peasants, and affable and
friendly with his neighbours, even with the Jews.

The Count's horse, which he had turned off the road, trotted straight
across the field to the threshold of the castle. The Count, left solitary,
sighed, looked at the walls, took out paper and pencil, and began to draw.
Thereupon, looking to one side, he saw a dozen steps away a man who seemed
likewise a lover of the picturesque; with his head thrown back and his
hands in his pockets he seemed to be counting the stones with his eyes.
The Count recognised him at once, but he had to call several times before
Gerwazy heard his voice. He was a man of gentle birth, a servitor of the
ancient lords of the castle, the last that remained of the Horeszkos'
retainers; a tall grey-haired old man with a hale and rugged countenance,
ploughed by wrinkles, gloomy and stem. Of old he had been famous among the
gentry for his jollity; but since the battle in which the owner of the
castle had perished, Gerwazy had changed, and now for many years he had
not gone to any fair or merry-making; since then no o