"How warm it is!" said he, as he shook his pipe.
"It is indeed; the sun burns one."
"Would you like to go into the dining-room for a moment? Sometimes, when I feel as if there was something heavy on my stomach, I take a little dram."
"How about the heat?"
"Oh, a little brandy is refreshing."
"Very well, neighbour, let's take a drink; I will pay for it," said Iermola, as he got down from the wagon.
The inn in question was one among others where the Jew was constantly on the watch for the peasant, his poor dupe.
The Israelite who lived here did not hesitate to avow that he made his living by selling brandy. There was no courtyard in front of the inn and no stable for horses.
The house was crooked and broken-down, half in ruins and considerably sunken in the ground; but the narrow space in front of it showed at a glance that it was much frequented.
It was situated at a cross-road where three ways met, in the midst of an old forest of oak and undergrowth of alder, visibly damaged by the wheels of wagons, and offering a sight to travellers which at once explained the history of Dubowka (this was the name of the inn hidden among the brush-wood). All around there was nothing but remains of straw, hay, grain, bark, bones, bits of bread, egg-shells, fragments of broken china,--to say nothing of the different spots which showed plainly that many of the teams which stopped in front of the inn of Iuk remained there longer than they had intended.