It was the inn that is in every provincial faubourg, with large stables and small bedrooms, where one sees in the middle of the court chickens pilfering the oats under the muddy gigs of the commercial travellers-a good old house, with worm-eaten balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights, always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows made yellow by the flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that always smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in Sundayclothes, has a cafe on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen-garden.
Probintzietako hiripe guztietan dauden horietako ostatu bat zen, ikuilu handirekin eta lotarako gela txikirekin, larrainaren erdian oiloak ikusten direla oloari mokoka denda-bidaiarien gurtarin lokatzatuen pean; -ostatu zahar ederrak, negu-gauetako haizetan kirrinka dagiten zur bipitsuzko balkoiekin, beti jendez, zarataz eta janariz beterik, mahai beltzak kafe pattarrez likistuak dituztela, leiar lodiak euliek horizkaturik, dafaila umelak ardo-urdinez orbanduak;