_THE OLD HOUSE_
_A Novel_
_By_
CÉCILE TORMAY
TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN BY
E. TORDAY
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1922 : : : : NEW YORK
Copyright, 1922, by
Robert M. McBride & Co.
_Printed in the
United States of America_
Published, September, 1922
CHAPTER I
1
It was evening. Winter hung white over the earth. Great snowflakes
crept over the snow towards the coach. They moved ghostlike over the
silent, treeless plain. Mountains rose behind them in the snow. Small
church towers and roofs crowded over each other. Here and there little
squares flared up in the darkness.
Night fell as the coach reached the excise barrier. Beyond, two sentry
boxes buried in the snow faced each other. The coachman shouted between
his hands. A drowsy voice answered and white cockades began to move
in the dark recesses of the boxes. The light of a lamp emerged from
the guard’s cottage. Behind the gleam a man with a rifle over his arm
strolled towards the vehicle.
The high-wheeled travelling coach was painted in two colours: the
upper part dark green, the lower, including the wheels, bright yellow.
From near the driver’s seat small oil lamps shed their light over the
horses’ backs. The animals steamed in the cold.
The guard lifted his lantern. At the touch of the crude light, the
coach window rattled and descended. In its empty frame appeared a
powerful grey head. Two steady cold eyes looked into the guard’s face.
The man stepped back. He bowed respectfully.
“The Ulwing coach!” He drew the barrier aside. The civil guards in the
sentry boxes presented arms.
“You may pass!”
The light of the coach’s lamps wandered over crooked palings, over
waste ground--a large deserted market--the wall of a church. Along the
winding lanes lightless houses, squatting above the ditches, sulked
with closed eyes in the dark. Further on the houses became higher.
Not a living thing was to be seen until near the palace of Prince
Grassalkovich a night-watchman waded through the snow. From the end
of a stick he held in his hand dangled a lantern. The shadow of his
halberd moved on the wall like some black beast rearing over his head.
From the tower of the town hall a hoarse voice shouted into the
quiet night: “Praised be the Lord Jesus!” and higher up the watchman
announced that he was awake.
Then the township relapsed into silence. Snow fell leisurely between
old gabled roofs. Under jutting eaves streets crept forth from all
sides, crooked, suspicious, like conspirators. Where they met they
formed a ramshackle square. In the middle of the square the Servites’
Fountain played in front of the church; water murmured frigidly from
its spout like a voice from the dark that prayed slowly, haltingly.
A solitary lamp at a corner house thrust out from an iron bracket
into the street. Whenever it rocked at the wind’s pleasure, the chain
creaked gently and the beam of its light shrunk on the wall till it
was no bigger than a child’s fist. Another lone lamp in the middle of
New Market Place. Its smoky light was absorbed by the falling snow and
never reached the ground.
Christopher Ulwing drew his head into his fur-collared coat. The
almanac proclaimed full moon for to-night. Whenever this happened, the
civic authorities saved lamp-oil; could they accept responsibility
if the heavens failed to comply with the calendar and left the town
in darkness? In any case, at this time of night the only place for
peaceful citizens was by their own fireside.
Two lamps alight.... And even these were superfluous.
Pest, the old-fashioned little town had gone to rest and the fancy came
to Christopher Ulwing that it was asleep even in day time, and that he
was the only person in it who was ever quite awake.
He raised his head; the Leopold suburb had been reached. The carriage
had come to the end of the rough, jerky cobbles. Under the wheels the
ruts became soft and deep. The breeze blowing from the direction of
the Danube ruffled the horses’ manes gently.
All of a sudden, a clear, pleasant murmur broke the silence. The great
life-giving river pursued its mysterious course through the darkness,
invisible even as life itself.
Beyond it were massed the white hills of Buda. On the Pest side an
uninterrupted plain stretched between the town and the river. In the
white waste the house of Christopher Ulwing stood alone. For well nigh
thirty years it had been called in town “the new house.” The building
of it had been a great event. The citizens of the Inner Town used to
make excursions on Sundays to see it. They looked at it, discussed it,
and shook their heads. They could not grasp why Ulwing the builder
should put his house there in the sand when plenty of building ground
could be got cheaply, in the lovely narrow streets of the Inner Town.
But he would have his own way and loved his house all the more. The
child of his mind, the product of his work, his bricks, it was entirely
his own. Though once upon a time....
While Christopher Ulwing listened unconsciously to the murmur of the
Danube, silent shades rose from afar and spoke to his soul. He thought
of the ancient Ulwings who had lived in the great dark German forest.
They were woodcutters on the shores of the Danube and they followed
their calling downstream. Some acquired citizenship in a small German
town. They became master carpenters and smiths. They worked oak and
iron, simple, rude materials, and were moulded in the image of the
stuff they worked in. Honest, strong men. Then one happened to wander
into Hungary; he settled down in Pozsony and became apprenticed to
a goldsmith. He wrought in gold and ivory. His hand became lighter,
his eye more sensitive than his ancestors’. He was an artist....
Christopher Ulwing thought of him--his father. There were two boys, he
and his brother Sebastian, and when the parental house became empty,
they too like those before them, heard the call. They left Pozsony on
the banks of the Danube. They followed the river, orphans, poor.
Many a year had passed since. Many a thing had changed.
Christopher Ulwing drew out his snuff box. It was his father’s work and
his only inheritance. He tapped it lightly with two fingers. As it sank
back into his pocket, he bent towards the window.
His house now became distinctly visible; the steep double roof, the
compact storied front, the mullioned windows in the yellow wall, the
door of solid oak with its semi-circular top like a pair of frowning
eyebrows. Two urns stood above the ends of the cornice and two caryatid
pillars flanked the door. Every recess, every protruding wall of the
house appeared soft and white.
Indoors the coach had been noticed. The windows of the upper story
became first light and then dark again in quick succession. Someone was
running along the rooms with a candle. The big oak gate opened. The
wheels clattered, the travelling box was jerked against the back of the
coach and all of a sudden the caryatids--human pillars--looked into the
coach window. The noise of the hoofs and the wheels echoed like thunder
under the archway of the porch.
The manservant lowered the steps of the coach.
A young man stood on the landing of the staircase. He held a candle
high above his head. The light streamed over his thick fair hair. His
face was in the shade.
“Good evening, John Hubert!” shouted Ulwing to his son. His voice
sounded deep and sharp, like a hammer dropping on steel. “How are the
children?” He turned quickly round. This sudden movement flung the many
capes of his coat over his shoulders.
The servant’s good-natured face emerged from the darkness.
“The book-keeper has been waiting for a long time....”
“Is everybody asleep in this town?”
“Of course I am not asleep, of course I am not----” and there was
Augustus Füger rushing down the stairs. He was always in a hurry, his
breath came short, he held his small bald head on one side as if he
were listening.
Christopher Ulwing slapped him on the back.
“Sorry, Füger. My day lasts as long as my work.”
John Hubert came to meet his father. His coat was bottle green. His
waistcoat and nankin trousers were buff. On his exaggeratedly high
collar the necktie, twisted twice round, displayed itself in elegant
folds. He bowed respectfully and kissed his father’s hand. He resembled
him, but he was shorter, his eyes were paler and his face softer.
A petticoat rustled on the square slabs of the dark corridor behind
them.
Christopher Ulwing did not even turn round. “Good evening, Mamsell. I
am not hungry.” Throwing his overcoat on a chair, he went into his room.
Mamsell Tini’s long, stiff face, flanked by two hair cushions covering
her ears, looked disappointedly after the builder; she had kept his
supper in vain. She threw her key-basket from one arm to the other and
sailed angrily back into the darkness of the corridor.
The room of Christopher Ulwing was low and vaulted. White muslin
curtains hung at its two bay windows. On the round table, a candle was
burning; it was made of tallow but stood in a silver candle-stick. Its
light flickered slowly over the checked linen covers of the spacious
armchairs.
“Sit down, Füger. You, too,” said Ulwing to his son, but remained
standing himself.
“The Palatine has entrusted me with the repair of the castle. I
concluded the bargain about the forest.” He took a letter up from the
table. Whatever he wanted his hand seized, his fist grabbed, without
hesitation. Meanwhile he dictated short, precise instructions to the
book-keeper.
Füger wrote hurriedly in his yellow-covered note book. He always
carried it about him; even when he went to Mass it peeped out of his
pocket.
John Hubert sat uncomfortably in the bulging armchair. Above the
sofa hung the portraits of the architects Fischer von Erlach and
Mansard, fine old small engravings. He knew those two faces, but took
no interest in them. He began to look at the green wall paper. Small
squares, green wreaths. He looked at each of them separately. Meanwhile
he became drowsy. Several times he withdrew the big-headed pin which
fastened the tidy to the armchair and each time restuck it in the same
place. Then he coughed, though he really wanted to yawn.
Füger was still taking notes. He only spoke when the builder had
stopped.
“Mr. Münster called here. His creditors are driving him into
bankruptcy.”
Christopher Ulwing’s look became stern.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
Füger shrugged his shoulders.
“I haven’t had a chance to put a word in....”
The builder stood motionless in the middle of the room. He contracted
his brows as if he were peering into the far distance.
Martin George Münster, the powerful contractor, the qualified
architect, was ruined. The last rival, the great enemy who had so many
times baulked him, counted no more. He thought of humiliations, of
breathless hard fights, and of the many men who had had to go down that
he might rise. He had vanquished them all. Now, at last, he was really
at the top.
With his big fingers he gave a contented twist to the smart white curl
which he wore on the side of his head.
Füger watched him attentively. Just then, the candle lit up the
builder’s bony, clean-shaven face, tanned by the cold wind. His hair
and eyebrows seemed whiter, his eyes bluer than usual. His chin, turned
slightly to one side and drawn tightly into an open white collar, gave
him a peculiar, obstinate expression.
“There is no sign of old age about him!” thought the little book-keeper,
and waited to be addressed.
“Mr. Münster lost three hundred thousand Rhenish guldens. He could not
stand that.”
Christopher Ulwing nodded. Meanwhile he calculated, cool and unmoved.
“I must see the books and balance sheet of Münster’s firm.” While he
spoke, he reflected that he was now rich enough to have a heart. A
heart is a great burden and hampers a man in his movements. As long
as he was rising, he had had to set it aside. That was over. He had
reached the summit.
“I will help Martin George Münster,” he said quietly, “I will put him
on his legs again, but so that in future he shall stand by me, not
against me.”
Füger, moved, blinked several times in quick succession under his
spectacles, as if applauding his master with his eyelids.
This settled business for Christopher Ulwing. He snuffed the candle.
Turning to his son:
“Have you been to the Town Hall?”
John Hubert felt his father’s voice as if it had gripped him by the
shoulder and shaken him.
“Are you not tired, sir?” As a last defence this question rose to his
lips. It might free him and leave the matter till to-morrow. But his
father did not even deem it deserving of an answer.
“Did you make a speech?”
“Yes....” John Hubert’s voice was soft and hesitating. He always spoke
his words in such a way as to make it easy to withdraw them. “I said
what you told me to, but I fear it did little good....”
“You think so?” For a moment a cunning light flashed up in Christopher
Ulwing’s eye, then he smiled contemptuously. “True. Such as we must
act. We may think too, but only if we get a great gentleman to tell
our thoughts. Nevertheless, I want you to speak. I shall make of you a
gentleman great enough to get a hearing.”
Füger bowed. John Hubert began to complain. “When I proposed to plant
trees along the streets of the town, a citizen asked me if I had become
a gardener. As to the lighting of the streets they said that drunkards
can cling to the walls of the houses. A lamp-post would serve no other
purpose.”
“That will change!” The builder’s voice warmed with great strong
confidence.
Young Ulwing continued without warmth.
“I told them of our new brickfields and informed them that henceforth
we shall sell bricks by retail to the suburban people. This did not
please them. The councillors whispered together.”
“What did they say?” asked Christopher Ulwing coldly.
John Hubert cast his eyes down.
“Well, they said that the great carpenter had always made gold out of
other people’s misery. The great carpenter! That is what they call you,
sir, among themselves, though they presented you last year with the
freedom of the city....”
Ulwing waved his hand disparagingly.
“Whatever honours I received from the Town Hall count for little. They
have laden me with them for their weight to hamper my movements, so
that I may let them sleep in peace.”
“And steal in peace,” said Füger, making an ironical circular movement
with his hand towards his pocket.
“Let them be,” growled the builder, “there is many an honest man among
them.”
The book-keeper stretched his neck as if he were listening intently,
then bowed solemnly and left the room.
Christopher Ulwing, left alone with his son, turned sharply to him.
“What else did you say in the Town Hall?”
“But you gave me no other instructions...?”
“Surely you must have said something more? Something of your own?”
There was silence.
Young Ulwing had a feeling that he was treated with great injustice.
Was not his father responsible for everything? He had made him a man.
And now he was discontented with his achievement. In an instant, like
lightning, it all flashed across his mind. His childhood, his years
in the technical school, much timid fluttering, nameless bitterness,
cowardly compromise. And those times, when he still had a will to
will, when he wanted to love and choose: it was crushed by his father.
His father chose someone else. A poor sempstress was not what Ulwing
the builder wanted. He wanted the daughter of Ulrich Jörg. She was
all right. She was rich. It lasted a short time. Christina Jörg
died. But even then he was not allowed to think of another woman, a
new life. “The children!” his father said, and he resigned himself
because Christopher Ulwing was the stronger and could hold his own more
vehemently. Unwonted defiance mounted into his head. For a moment he
rose as if to accuse, his jaw turned slightly sideways.
The old man saw his own image in him. He looked intently as if he
wanted to fix forever that beam of energy now flashing up in his
son’s eye. He had often longed for it vainly, and now it had come
unexpectedly, produced by causes he could not understand.
But slowly it all died away in John Hubert’s eyes. Christopher Ulwing
bowed his head.
“Go,” he said harshly, “now I am really tired.” In that moment he
looked like a weary old woodcutter. His eyelids fell, his big bony
hands hung heavily out of his sleeves.
A door closed quietly in the corridor with a spasmodic creaking. Ulwing
the builder would have liked it better if it had been slammed. But
his son shut every door so carefully. He could not say why. “What is
going to happen when I don’t stand by his side?” he shuddered. His
vitality was so inexhaustible that the idea of death always struck him
as something strange, antagonistic. “What is going to happen?” The
question died away, he gave it no further thought. He stepped towards
the next room ... his grandchildren! They would continue what the
great carpenter began. They would be strong. He opened the door. He
crossed the dining room. He smelt apples and bread in the dark. One
more room, and beyond that the children.
The air was warm. A night-light burned on the top of a chest of
drawers. Miss Tini had fallen asleep sitting beside it with her shabby
prayer book on her knees. The shadow of her nightcap rose like a black
trowel on the wall. In the deep recess of the earthen-ware stove water
was warming in a blue jug. From the little beds the soft breathing of
children was audible.
Ulwing leaned carefully over one of the beds. The boy slept there. His
small body was curled up under the blankets as if seeking shelter in
his sleep from something that came with night and prowled around his
bed.
The old man bent over him and kissed his forehead. The boy moaned,
stared for a second, frightened, into the air, then hid trembling in
his pillows.
Mamsell Tini woke, but dared not move. The master builder stood so
humbly before the child, that it did not become a salaried person to
see such a thing. She turned her head away and listened thus to her
master’s voice.
“I didn’t mean to. Now, don’t be afraid, little Christopher. It is I.”
The child was already asleep.
Ulwing the builder stepped to the other bed. He kissed Anne too. The
little girl was not startled. Her fair hair, like a silver spray, moved
around her head on the pillow. She thrust her tiny arms round her
grandfather’s neck and returned his kiss.
When, on the tips of his toes, Christopher Ulwing left the room, Miss
Tini looked after him. She thought that, after all, the Ulwings were
kindly people.
2
A glaring white light streamed through the windows into the room.
Winter had come over the world during the night and the children put
their heads together to discuss it. They had forgotten since last year
what winter was like.
Below, the great green water crawled cold between its white banks. The
castle hill opposite was white too. The top of the bastions, the ridges
of the roofs, the spires of the steeples, everything that was usually
sharp and pointed was now rounded and blunted by the snow.
The church tower of Our Lady belonged to Anne. The Garrison Church
was little Christopher’s. A long time had passed since the children
had divided these from their windows, and, because Christopher grew
peevish, Anne had also given him the shingled roof of the Town Hall
of Buda and the observatory on Mount St. Gellert. She only kept the
Jesuits’ Stairs to herself.
“And I’ll tell on you, how you spat into the clerk’s tumbler. No, no,
I won’t give it!” Anne shook her head so emphatically that her fair
hair got all tangled in front of her eyes. She would not have given the
Jesuits’ Stairs for anything in the world. That was the way up to the
castle, to Uncle Sebastian. And she often looked over to him from the
nursery window. In the morning, when she woke, she waved both hands
towards the other shore. In the evening she put a tallow candle on the
window-sill to let Uncle Sebastian see that she was thinking of him.
Then Sebastian Ulwing would answer from the other shore. He lit a small
heap of straw on the castle wall and through the intense darkness the
tiny flames wished each other good night above the Danube.
“The Jesuits’ Stairs are mine,” said Anne resolutely and went into the
other room.
The little boy sulked for some time and then followed her on tiptoe.
In the doorway he looked round anxiously. He was afraid of this room
though it was brighter than any other and Anne called it the sunshine
room. The yellow-checked wall paper looked sparkling and even on a
cloudy day the cherry-wood furniture looked as if the sun shone on it.
The chairs’ legs stood stiffly on the floor of scrubbed boards and
their backs were like lyres. That room was mother’s. She did not live
in it because she had gone to heaven and had not yet returned home, but
everything was left as it had been when she went away. Her portrait
hung above the flowered couch, her sewing-machine stood in the recess
near the window. The piano had been hers too and the children were
forbidden to touch it. Yet, Christopher was quite sure that it was full
of piano-mice, who at night, when everybody is asleep, run about in
silver shoes and then the air rings with their patter.
“Let us go from here,” he said trembling, “but you go first.”
There was nobody in grandfather’s room. Only some crackling from the
stove. Only the ticking of the marble clock on the writing table.
Suddenly little Christopher became braver. He ran to the stove. The
stove was a solid silver-grey earthenware column. On its top there was
an urn emitting white china flames, rigid white china flames. This was
beautiful and incomprehensible and Christopher liked to look at them.
He pointed to the brass door. Through the ventilators one could see
what was going on inside the stove.
“Now the stove fairies are dancing in there!”
In vain Anne looked through the holes; she could not see any fairies.
Ordinary flames were bobbing up above the cinders. The smoke slowly
twisted itself up into the chimney.
“Aren’t they lovely? They have red dresses and sing,” said the boy. The
little girl turned away bored.
“I only hear the ticking of the clock.” Suddenly she stood on tiptoe.
When she did so, the corners of her eyes and of her mouth rose
slightly. She too wanted to invent something curious:
“Tick-tack.... A little dwarf hobbles in the room. Do you hear?
Tick-tack....”
Christopher’s eyes shone with delight.
“I do hear.... And the dwarf never stops, does he?”
“Never,” said Anne convincingly, though she was not quite sure herself,
“he never stops, but we must not talk about it to the grown-ups.”
Christopher repeated religiously:
“The grown-ups must never know. And this is truly true, isn’t it?
Grandpa has said it too, hasn’t he?”
Anne remembered that grandpa never told stories about dwarfs and
fairies.
“Yes, Grandpa has said it,” the boy confirmed himself.
The whole thing got mixed up in Anne’s brain. And from that moment both
believed absolutely that their grandfather had said it and that it
was really a dwarf who walked in the room, hobbling with small steps,
without ever stopping. Tick-tack....
“Do you hear it?”
The peaceful silence of the corridor echoed the ticking of the clock.
It could even be heard on the staircase which sank like a cave from the
corridor to the hall. And then the dwarf vanished out of the children’s
heads.
The back garden was white and the roof looked like a hillside covered
with snow. Where the dragon-headed gargoyle protruded, the house turned
sharply and its inner wing extended into the deep back garden. Mr.
Augustus Füger lived there with his wife and his son Otto.
Mrs. Augustus Füger, Henrietta, was for ever sitting in the window and
sewing. At this very moment, her big bonnet was visible, looking like a
white cat on the window sill. Fortunately, she did not look out of the
window. The garden belonged entirely to the children. Theirs was the
winged pump of the well, theirs the circular seat round the apple tree.
Their kingdom.... In winter the garden seemed small, but in summer when
the trees were covered with leaves and the lilac-bushes hid the secret
places, it became enormous. Through its high wall a gate led to the
world’s end; a grilled gate which grown-ups alone were privileged to
open.
Sometimes Anne and Christopher would peep longingly for hours through
its rails. They could see the roof of the tool-shed, the tar boiler
and a motley of pieces of timber, beams, floorings, piles. What lovely
slides they would have made if only one could have got at them! The
old folks called this glorious, disorderly place, where rude big men
in leather aprons used to work, the timber yard. The children did not
approve of this name, they preferred “world’s end.” They liked it on
a summer Sunday best when all was quiet and the smell of the heated
timber penetrated the courtyard and even the house. Then one could
believe in the secret known to Christopher. It was not a timber yard at
all. The grown-ups had no business with it. It was beyond all manner
of doubt the playground of giant children who had strewn it with their
building bricks.
“And when I sleep, they play with them,” the boy whispered.
“One can’t believe that just now,” Anne answered seriously, “when
everything is so clear.”
Crestfallen, Christopher walked behind her in the snow. They only
stopped under the porch in front of a door bearing a board with the
inscription “Canzelei.”[A] This word sounded like a sneeze. It tickled
the children’s lips. It made them laugh.
Anne and Christopher knocked their shoulders together.
“Canzelei.... Canzelei!”
The door opened. The clerk appeared on the threshold. He was a thin
little man with a starved expression, wearing a long alpaca frock-coat;
when he walked, his knees knocked together. Anne knew something about
him. Grandpa had said it when he was in a temper: Feuerlein was stupid!
The only one among grown-ups of whom one knew such a thing beyond doubt.
The children looked at each other and their small cheeks swelled with
suppressed laughter; then, like snakes, they slid through the open door
into the office.
“He is stupid, though he is grown up,” Anne whispered into the boy’s
ear.
“And I will spit into his tumbler!” Now they laughed freely,
triumphantly.
Their laughter suddenly stopped.
Mr. Gemming, the draughtsman, had banged his triangular ruler down and
began to growl. Augustus Füger tugged the sleeve-protector he wore on
his right arm during business hours.
“Don’t grumble, Gemming. Don’t forget that one day he will be head of
the firm, won’t you, little Christopher? And you will sit in there
behind the great writing table?”
Christopher looked fearfully towards the door that led to his
grandfather’s office. In there? Always? Quiet and serious--even when he
wanted to play with his tin soldiers? With a shudder, he rushed across
the room. No, he would rather not set his foot here again; nasty place
that smelt of ink.
The door from which he had fled opened. Ulwing the builder showed a
strange gentleman through the room.
The little book-keeper began to write suddenly. Gemming dipped his
pencil into the inkstand. In the neighbouring room the pens scratched
and the children shrank to the wall. The strange gentleman stopped.
Anne saw his face clearly; it was fat and pale. Under his heavy double
chin the sail-like collar looked crushed.
“Thank you,” said the strange gentleman and cast his eyes down as
if he were ashamed of something. He held out a flabby white hand to
Christopher Ulwing. The hand trembled. His lips quivered too.
“Don’t mention it, Mr. Münster. It is just business....”
This was said by the builder under the porch, and they heard it in the
office.
Gemming began to shake the point of the pencil he had dipped in the
ink. Füger blinked and blinked. Both felt that Martin George Münster
had fallen from his greatness to their own level. He too was in
Ulwing’s service.
When the builder returned, his crooked chin settled snugly in his open
collar.
Suddenly he perceived the children.
“What are _you_ doing here?” He would have liked to sit down with them
on the heap of office books. Just for a minute, just long enough to let
their hands stroke his face. He took his repeater out of his pocket.
“It can’t be done.” He still had to settle with many people.
Contractors, timber merchants, masons, carters--they were all waiting
behind the grating, in the big room opening into the garden. And John
Hubert had already twice thrust his head through the door as if he
wanted to call him. He went on. But on the threshold he had to turn
back. “This afternoon we will go to Uncle Sebastian. We will take leave
of him before the floating bridge is removed.”
The children grinned with delight.
“We shall go in a coach, shan’t we?” asked the boy.
“We shall walk,” answered Ulwing drily; “the horses are needed to cart
wood!” And with that he slammed the door behind him.
“Walk,” repeated Christopher, disappointed. “I don’t like it. And I
won’t go. And I have a pain in my foot.”
He walked lamely, rubbing his shoulders against the wall. He moaned
pitiably. But Anne knew all the while that he was shamming.