We entered the lodge, and in spite of my state of complete frigidity, I could not help admiring the picturesque disorder of this species of nest. The slate roof leaned against the rock on one side, and on the other against a wall six to seven feet high, disclosing to view the blackened beams propped up against each other. The lodge consisted of a single room, furnished with a bed which the gnome did not take the trouble to make up very often, and two small dusty windows with hexagonal panes which the moon turned to mother-of-pearl with its pale rays. A large, square table occupied the middle of the room. How this massive oak table had ever been brought through the narrow doorway, it would have been difficult to explain. Upon a few shelves were arranged some old volumes and rolls of parchment, and on the table lay open an enormous tome with illuminated initial letters, bound in vellum, with a silver clasp and corners; it looked to me like a collection of old chronicles. Lastly, two armchairs, one covered with red leather and the other upholstered with a down cushion, and bearing the unmistakable impression of the dwarf's body, completed the furniture of the place.
I will not stop to describe the desk with its five or six pens, the tobacco jar, the pipes scattered variously about, the little, low, iron stove in one corner of the room, with its door standing open, red hot, and sending a shower of sparks from time to time on to the stone floor, and the spitting cat with her back arched and her paw lifted in defiance of me.
All these objects were veiled in that smoky amber light which rests the eye, and of which the old Flemish masters alone possessed the secret.
"So you went out last night, monsieur the doctor," Knapwurst said to me when we were comfortably seated, he before his volume and I with my hands stretched out before the fire.
"Yes, rather early. A woodcutter of the Black Forest needed my services; he had cut his left foot with an axe stroke."
This explanation appeared to satisfy the dwarf; he lighted his black pipe, which hung down over his chin.
"You don't smoke, monsieur?"
"Indeed I do!"
"Well, help yourself to a pipe! I was just here," he said, stretching his long, yellow hand over the page, "reading the chronicles of Hertzog when you rang."
I now understood why he had kept me standing so long in the cold.