Ountain, 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