The strangers approached it. The castle had fallen into ruins before the builders had finished their task. The tower had stood there for ages. It was built of unhewn stone, and had small windows and loop-holes. The former lords of the land had looked down from its summit on the tops of the trees, which then stretched far into the plain. They had then ruled with a rod of iron the serfs who cultivated their land, and toiled and died for them. Many an arrow had sped through those loop-holes at the enemy storming below, and many a Tartar horse had been overthrown before those massive walls. Years ago, a despot of the district had, in expiation of former sins, begun to add to the gray tower the walls of a holy monastery; but the monastery never got finished, and the useless walls had already stood there long, when the late count took it into his head to convert them into a lordly dwelling for his race, and to raise a house unparalleled for magnificence in the whole country.
The front of the house was added on to both sides of the tower, which projected in the middle. The intention had been to have a high terrace-road up to the castle, and the principal entrance had been made in the tower, and arched over; but the terrace never having been formed, the stone threshold of the main door was quite inaccessible without the help of ladders, and the wide opening was left. The window-spaces of the lower floor were merely closed up with boards, while on the second story were some window-frames of beautifully carved wood, in which large panes had once been placed, but they had got broken. In other windows were temporary frames of rough deal, with small panes of muddy glass let into them. A company of jackdaws sat on the top of the tower, looking down in amazement on the strangers, and every now and then one flew off, screaming loudly, to contemplate the intruders from a new point of view.
"A house for crows and bats, not for human beings," said Anton. "At least, I see no way of getting into it."
The landlord now took them round the building. Behind, where the two wings made a sort of horse-shoe, there were low entrances to the cellars and offices; beneath which, again, were stables, great arched kitchens, and small cells for the serfs. A wooden staircase led to the upper story. The door turned creaking on its hinges, and a narrow passage took them through a side wing to the front part of the house. There all was at least magnificently planned. The circular entrance-hall—an arched room of the old tower—was painted in mosaic, and through the great doorway-opening was seen a wide expanse of country. A broad staircase, worthy of a palace, led up to another round hall, with narrow windows, the second story of the tower. On each side lay suites of apartments: large, lofty, desolate rooms, with heavy oak folding-doors, and dirty plastered walls, the ceiling made of fir branches arranged in squares; in some rooms colossal green tile stoves, in other rooms no stoves at all; in some, beautiful inlaid floors, in others rude deal boards. An immense saloon, with two gigantic chimney-pieces, had merely a provisional ceiling of old laths. The castle was fitted for a wild Asiatic household, for hangings of leather and of silk from France, for costly woodwork from England, for massive silver services from German mines, for a proud master, numerous guests, and a troop of retainers to fill the halls and ante-rooms. The builder of the castle had looked back to the wealth of his wild ancestors when he devised the plan; he had had hundreds of trees cut down in the woods, and his hereditary bondsmen had kneaded many thousand bricks with their own hands and feet; but Time, the inexorable, had raised his finger against him, and none of his hopes had been realized. His ruin first, and then his death, occurred during the progress of the building; and his son, brought up among strangers, had, as fast as one fool could, hurried on the ruin of his house. Now the walls of the Slavonic castle stood with doors and windows gaping wide, but no guest spoke his good wishes as he entered; only wild birds flew in and out, and the marten crept over the floors. Useless and unsightly the walls stood there, threatening to crumble and fall, like the race that had raised them up.
Anton passed with rapid step from room to room, vainly hoping to find one in which he could even imagine the two ladies, who were looking forward to this house as their asylum. He opened door after door, went up and down creaking steps, disturbed the birds who had flown in through the open archway, and still clung to their last summer's nest; but he found nothing save uninhabitable rooms, with dirty plastered walls, or without any plaster at all. Every where draughts, gaping doors, and windows boarded up. Some oats had been shaken out in the large saloon; and a few rooms looked as if they might have been temporarily made use of, but a few old chairs and a rude table were all the furniture they contained.
At length Anton ascended the decayed staircase in the tower, and found himself on its summit. Thence he saw the whole pile of building below him, and looked far into the plain. To his left the sun sank down behind gray masses of cloud into the depths of the forest; to his right lay the irregular square of the farm-yard, and beyond it the untidy village; behind him ran the brook, with a strip of meadow-land on either side. Wild pear-trees, the delight of the Polish farmer, rose here and there in the fields, with their thick and branching crowns; and under each was an oasis of grass and bushes, gayly colored by the fallen leaves. These trees, the dwelling-places of countless birds, alone broke the monotonous surface of the plain—these, and at the verge of the horizon, on all sides, the dark forest mentioned above. The sky was gray, the ground colorless, the trees and bushes that bordered the brook were bare, and the forest, with its promontories and bays, looked like a wall that separated this spot of earth from the rest of humanity, from civilization, from every joy and charm of life.
Anton's heart sank. "Poor Lenore! poor family!" he groaned aloud; "things look terrible, but they could be improved. With money and taste every thing is possible. This house might, without prodigious expense, be metamorphosed by the upholsterer into a gorgeous residence. It would be easy to level the pasture-land around—to sow it with fine grass—to intersperse it with a few gayly-colored flower-beds—and to plant out the village. Nothing is wanting to change the whole face of the district but capital, industry, and judgment. But how is the baron to procure these? To make any thing of this place should be the task of some fresh and active life, and the baron is broken down; and thousands of dollars would be needed, and years would pass away before the soil would do more than pay the expenses of its culture, or yield any interest whatever on the capital sunk in it."
Meanwhile Karl was contemplating two particular rooms in the upper story with a knowing eye. "These take my fancy more than any of the others," said he to the landlord; "they have plastered walls, floors, stoves—nay, even windows. To be sure, the panes are a good deal broken, but, till we can get better glass, paper is not to be despised. We will settle ourselves here. Could you get me somebody who knows how to handle a broom and scrubbing-cloth? Good, you can; and now listen: try to bring me a few sheets of paper; I have got glue with me; we will first get some wood, then I will heat the stove, melt my glue, and paper up broken panes. But, above all, help me to carry up our luggage from the yard—and let us be quick about it."
His zeal communicated itself to the landlord; the luggage was got up stairs; Karl unpacked a case full of tools of every kind, and the host ran to call his maid from the public house.
Meanwhile horses' hoofs rang on the court-yard, and some well-dressed men stopped before the late steward's dwelling, and knocked loudly at the closed door. At a call from Anton, Karl hurried up to them.