Then he orders Gapka to fetch the ink-bottle, and, with his own hand, writes this inscription on the paper of seeds: "These melons were eaten on such and such a date." If there was a guest present, then it reads, "Such and such a person assisted." The late judge of Mirgorod always gazed at Ivan Ivanovitch's house with pleasure.

The little house is very pretty.

It pleases me because sheds and other little additions are built on to it on all sides; so that, looking at it from a distance, only roofs are visible, rising one above another, and greatly resembling a plate full of pancakes, or, better still, fungi growing on the trunk of a tree.

Moreover, the roof is all overgrown with weeds: a willow, an oak, and two apple-trees lean their spreading branches against it.

Through the trees peep little windows with carved and white-washed shutters, which project even into the street.
A very fine man, Ivan Ivanovitch! The commissioner of Poltava knows him too.