By what miracle was the fragment of roof still held in place over the room which it sheltered? How had this remnant of the building been preserved? These were questions difficult to answer.
Quite near the old building, a paling of half-rotten laths surrounded a small garden, shaded at one end by a clump of pines and large oaks.
Above the roof rose the old chimney, black, bare, and cracked, which, however, still served to warm the sole inhabitant of this poor lodging. The mouldiness of the beams, which were rotting on the ground, extended to the walls, which remained standing; the work of destruction might here be seen in all stages from beginning to completion, and one might quite certainly foretell the time when these miserable ruins would be only a vast mass of wood, mud, and useless rubbish. Gazing upon this wretched dwelling, it seemed cruel to think that a man should be obliged to find shelter there. Yet Iermola, accustomed to his pile of trash, approached this den without repugnance; he opened the door and entered his chamber. Then, as it was very dark inside, he hastened to kindle the fire and make a blaze of pine wood which he kept ready for this purpose in the little hearth of his stove.
Gradually every corner of the room was lighted up, and might be seen distinctly by the blaze of the dry wood. It was a small chamber situated in an angle of the building, where the roof and walls were still left, and which must formerly have been used as a bedchamber and office for the innkeeper.
The doorway opening into the large dining-hall of the inn, now entirely destroyed and uninhabitable, had a few planks nailed across it which were chinked with a mixture of chopped straw and mud. The large old stove, having been patched and mended every year, had lost its rectangular form and become externally utterly irregular, bulged out, rounded, dented, and altogether shapeless; and the metal plates which formerly closed it were now replaced by some tiles. Inside the fireplace, now stopped up, a few planks served as cupboard shelves, and the end of the mantel-piece as table and sideboard.
It may be easily imagined that the furniture was not elegant. It was partly of village manufacture, and had been roughly made with axe and saw; the rest was composed of a few respectable old pieces brought from the dwor. When the new owners sent Iermola away empty-handed, after thirty years of service, he was granted, as sole recompense for a long life of labour and devotion, permission to take with him a few old, broken, and useless pieces of furniture which otherwise would have been thrown on the rubbish pile. The poor but worthy and industrious old man had succeeded in transforming these into almost comfortable furnishings. The ingenious Iermola knew how to make the most of the least thing; and so his one apartment was soon quite decked out with souvenirs of his youth and happy days. He slept on an old sofa with broken and twisted feet, which was of fine wood, and had once been painted white and gilded. At his head stood a little round table supporting a chess-board which had been made and inlaid by the hand of some old master; two or three old chairs, upon whose seats some boards, nailed on, took the place of the velvet cushions, were evidently of Dantzick manufacture, but it was only by the aid of numberless nails and strings that the different pieces succeeded in holding together. Near them was a large wooden chest painted green, whose rough appearance clearly indicated that it had been made in the village. A bench, rough-hewn with an axe, was near the door; another table of unplaned plank served to hold all his collection of jugs and plates of common pottery. In contrast, on the mantel-piece stood a small pitcher of fine Sèvres china, without a handle; egg-cups and mustard-pots with delicate bright flowers shone there, a tea-pot of Saxon china with dainty feet, one of which had been broken off fifty years before, a cup of Wedgwood, and a butter-dish of Russian manufacture in the shape of a paschal lamb. The general appearance of the good man's chamber was poor and neat, but sad, because it was filled with mementos of former comfort striving to conceal present poverty. The drapery which covered the wall near his bed was a fragment of Turkey carpet, torn and patched, but still in strong contrast with the coarse bed-coverings. Broken glasses, porcelain, and bits of china glittered beside pots of clay, mahogany, and pine. On the wall, not far from a rude picture of Our Lady of Poczai, was hung a fine engraving by Raphael Morghen, horribly mouldy and old, with part of one corner torn off; it was "The Last Supper," after the painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Farther on was an old picture of the twelve apostles, by Hoffmann, of Prague, and a small painting on wood of the German school, much injured, and representing the birth of our Saviour.
The only real adornment of the room, therefore, was the exquisite neatness and order which reigned in it. There was no litter to be seen in any part of it, not the smallest crumb or the least speck of dust; each thing was in its place, and although in this poor apartment all sorts of things were mingled,--provisions, food, cooking utensils, the poor man's wardrobe, and all his simple stores,--there was neither inconvenience nor confusion. Cupboards were made on the walls, shelves set up in the corners of the room, the large chests rolled under the table; the hiding-place behind the stove--the fireplace, over which a piece of cloth was hung--served to shut up and conceal all disorderly objects. Even the chips and bits of wood used to kindle the fire were piled up neatly in their own proper corner. It is true that Iermola had very near at hand, in the ruins of the inn, a sort of cellar surrounded by walls, where he stored his more cumbrous provisions; but he could not leave many things in a place which had no fastening, for poverty, scorning the laws of proprietorship, often dares to share with poverty.
On entering, the old man contented himself with lighting in the stove his pieces of resinous wood, for candles or oil were luxuries which he did not allow himself; then he looked around to see if all was in good order in his dwelling. After that he took one of his pots and proceeded to warm his supper, which the cossack's widow usually prepared for him in the village, or which he sometimes cooked himself on his return to his lodging; and then he seated himself on a stool in the corner of the fireplace, and began to say his prayers.
The wind sighed fitfully in the branches of the pines and the oaks close by his little garden; a deep silence reigned all about him; and Iermola, sad and motionless, was beginning to dream as he prayed, when in the midst of this profound stillness the cry of a baby was suddenly heard, at first feeble and indistinct, then loud and shrill.
It was like the cry of a new-born baby; and it seemed very near, as though it came from the other side of the garden, out of the clump of pines and oaks.