Sunday had come round again. Christopher went alone with his father to
the dancing lesson.
“I should like to stay at home,” said Anne, in her timid, veiled voice.
She looked so imploring that they let her have her way.
At the usual hour in the afternoon the bell sounded at the gate. Uncle
Sebastian stood between its pillars.
Anne ran to meet him. From his writing table the builder nodded his
head.
“Sit down.” He continued to write close small numbers into a
linen-bound book. He did not put his pen down till Netti appeared with
coffee on the parrot-painted tray. The steam of the milkcan passed
yellow through the light of the candle. The smell of coffee penetrated
the room. The two old men now talked of days gone by.
“Things were better then,” growled Uncle Sebastian every now and then,
without ever attempting to justify his statement. Meanwhile he dipped
big pieces of white bread into his coffee. He brushed the crumbs into
his hand and put them into his waistcoat pocket for the birds.
It struck Anne that her grandfather never spoke to Uncle Sebastian
as he spoke to adults, but rather in the way he had with her and
Christopher. At first he seemed indulgent, later he became impatient.
“So it was better then, was it?” And he told the tale of some noble
gentleman who had had one of his serfs thrashed half-dead because he
dared to pick flowers under the castle window for his bride. The girl
was beautiful. The gentleman looked at her and sent the serf to the
army against Buonaparte as a grenadier--for life.
“Nowadays, the noble gentlemen go themselves to war, and in our parts
they even share their land with their former serfs. Do you understand,
Sebastian? Without compulsion, of their own free will.”
“Are we noble too?” asked Anne from her corner of the check-covered
couch.
The two old men looked at each other. They burst into a good-humoured
laugh. The builder rose and took a much-worn booklet out of the writing
desk. On the binding of the book a double-headed eagle held the arms of
Hungary between its claws.
“This is my patent of nobility. I have sold neither myself nor anybody
else for it.”
Anne opened the book and spelt out slowly the old-fashioned writing:
“Pozsony. Anno Domini 1797.... Christopher Ulwing. Sixteen years old.
Stature: tall. Face: long. Hair: fair. Eyes: blue. Occupation: civil
carpenter.”
Anne blushed.
“That was I,” and the master builder put his hand on the passport.
Then, with quaint satisfaction, he looked round the room as if
exhibiting with his eyes the comfort he had earned by his labour. For
the first time Anne understood this look which she had observed on her
grandfather’s face on countless occasions.
“I am a free citizen,” said Christopher Ulwing. The words embellished,
gave power to his sharp, metallic voice. Unconsciously, Anne imitated
with her small head the old man’s gesture.
The thoughts of Sebastian Ulwing moved less quickly. They stuck at the
passport.
“Do you remember?...” These words carried the old men beyond the years.
They talked of the mail-coach which had overturned at the gate of
Hatvan. Of the mounted courier from Vienna, how they made him drunk at
the Three Roses Inn. The gunsmith, the chirurgeon and other powerful
artisans held him down while the bell-founder cut his pig-tail off
though there was a wire inside to curl it up on his back.
The builder got tired of this subject. He became serious.
“It was all pig-tails then. People wore them in their very brains.
Withal, times are better now....”
Sebastian Ulwing shook his head obstinately. Suddenly his face lit up,
as if he had found the reason for all his statements.
“We were young then.” He uttered this modestly and smiled. “My head
turns when I remember your putting shingles on the roof of the parish
church. You sat on the crest-beam and dangled your feet towards the
Danube. Wouldn’t you get giddy now if you were sent there!”
Anne, immobile, watched her grandfather’s hand lying near her on the
table. And as if she wanted to atone for the injury inflicted by the
strange girls, she bent over and kissed it.
“What’s that?” Christopher Ulwing withdrew his hand absent-mindedly.
Anne cast her eyes down, for she felt as if she had exhibited a feeling
the others could not understand.... Then she slipped unobserved out
of the room.... In the sunshine room a volume lay on the music chest.
On the green marbled cover were printed the words “Nursery Songs,”
surrounded by a wreath. On the first page a faded inscription,
Christina Jörg, Anno 1822. Anne sat down to the piano. Her small
fingers erred for some time hesitatingly over the keys. Then she began
to sing sweetly one of the songs:
Two prentice lads once wandered
To strange lands, far away....
Shy, untrained, the little song rose. Her voice, veiled when she
talked, rang out clear when she was singing. She herself was struck by
this difference and it seemed to her that till this moment she had been
mute all her life. She felt elated by the discovery of the power to
express herself without risking the mocking derision of the others; now
her grandfather would not draw his hand away from her.
Two prentice lads once wandered,
To strange lands, far away....
Uncle Sebastian rose from his armchair and carefully opened the
dining-room door. For a long time, the two old men listened....
Christopher came home from the dancing class. He rushed to Anne
noisily. His eyes gleamed with boyish delight. A faded flower was
stuck in his buttonhole. His hand went for ever up to the flower. He
talked and talked, leaning his elbows on the piano. Anne looked at
him surprised; she found him handsome. Half his face was hidden by
the curls of his girlish hair. His upper lip was drawn up slightly by
the upward bent of his small nose. This gave him a charming, startled
expression, not to be found in any other member of the Ulwing family.
Instinctively, Anne looked at her mother’s portrait....
In the evening when bedtime came, Christopher searched impatiently for
his prayer book. He could not find it. He hid the flower under his
pillow.
For a long time, he lay with open eyes in the dark. Once he whispered
to himself: “Little Chris, I hope to see you again soon,” and in doing
so he tried to imitate Sophie’s intonation. Then he drew his hand over
his head slowly, gently, just as Sophie had done while speaking to his
father.
He went into a peaceful rapture. He repeated the stroking, the words
“Little Chris....” He repeated it often, so often that its charm wore
off. It was his own voice he heard now, his own hand he felt. They
ceased to cause a pleasant tremor; tired out, he went to sleep over
Sophie’s flower.
When Ulwing the builder went next morning into the dining-room it was
still practically dark. He always got up very early and liked to take
his breakfast alone. A candle burned in the middle of the table and the
flickering of its flame danced over the china and was reflected in the
mirror of the plate chest. The shadows of the chair-backs were cast
high up on the walls.
Christopher Ulwing read the paper rapidly.
“Nonsense,” he thought. “Send an Imperial Commissioner with full powers
from Vienna? Why should they?” There was no other news besides that in
the newspaper, crowded though it was with small print. As if the censor
were at work again.
He carried the candle in his hand into the office. A big batch of
papers lay on the table. John Hubert’s regular, careful handwriting
was visible on all of them. The builder bent over his work, his pen
scratched spasmodically.
Facing him, the coloured map of Pest-Buda in its gilt frame became
lighter and lighter. The whitewashed wall of the room was covered with
plans. A couch stood near the stove and this was all covered with
papers.
Steps clattered outside in the silent morning. Occasionally the shadow
of a passing head fell on the low window and then small round clouds
ran over the paper under Christopher Ulwing’s pen. Others came and
went. Time passed. All of a sudden many furious steps began running
towards the Danube. The blades of straightened scythes sparkled in the
sun.
The servants ran to the gate.
“What has happened?”
A voice answered back:
“They have hanged the Imperial Commissioner on a lamp post!”
“No--they have torn him to pieces....”
“They stabbed him on the boat-bridge.”
“Is he dead?” asked a late-comer.
The builder put his pen down. He stared at the window as if an awful
face were grinning frightfully at him. “It has been coming for months.
Now it has happened....” Without any reason he picked up his writings
and laid them down again. He would have to get accustomed to this too.
His crooked chin disappeared stiffly in the fold of his open collar and
he resumed the addition of the numbers which aligned themselves in a
long column on the paper.
Outside they sang somewhere the song Anne had heard for the first time
from Grandfather Jörg’s shop. In the kitchen Netti was beating cream to
its rhythm. And in the evening, just as on any other day, the lamps on
the boat-bridge were lit, not excepting the one on which a man had died
that day. Its light was just as calm as the other’s. The streets spoke
no more of what had happened. In the darkness the Danube washed the
city’s bloody hand.