In a city night is never fully asleep. Somehow, it is forever awake.
Here and there it opens its eye in a window and winks. A door opens
with a gaping mouth. Steps are about. Their echo strikes the walls of
the houses and resounds to the neighbouring lane though no one walks
there.
The great river breathed heavily, coolly. The stars spent themselves in
the firmament. Christopher turned from the fishmarket to the embankment
of the Danube. Now and then he stopped, then he walked on wearily,
unsteadily under the slumbering houses. He went on, full of contempt.
Was that all? So the grown-ups’ great secret was no more than that? He
pulled his hat over his eyes. He was afraid of someone looking into
them.
Florian just opened the gate. His broom swished with uniform, equal
sounds over the stones of the pavement. When the servant had finished
and had retired to the house, Christopher slunk in unobserved by the
side entrance.
He looked anxiously for a minute towards the stairs. Candle-light
descended from above, step by step. He did not realize at once what it
meant. He only felt danger and hid in the wooden recess of the cellar
stairs.
Heavy, firm steps came downward. They came irresistibly and their
sound seemed to tread on him. He crouched down trembling. He saw his
grandfather. He was going to work. He carried a candle in his hand. His
shadow was of superhuman height on the white wall. He himself looked
superhuman to the shrinking boy. Under the porch his shadow extended.
It reached the courtyard. It continued over the wall. It must have
dominated the houses too, the whole town. Christopher looked after
it; he could not see its end and in his dark recess he felt himself
infinitely small and miserable beside the great shadow.
Staggering with exhaustion he stole upstairs. On tiptoe. Along the
corridor. One of the big stone steps was loose. He knew it well. He
avoided it like a traitor.
He stopped for a moment before Anne’s door. In the clear tranquillity
he felt as if some dirt stuck to his face, his hand, his whole body;
degrading, shameful dirt.
Later on, he lay for a long time with open eyes in the dark, as he used
to in olden times when he was still a child. The darkness was as empty
as his heart. What he had longed for was gone. All that remained in his
blood was disgust and fatigue.
He was waked by the noise of the clatter of heavy carts under the
porch. The steps of workmen were going towards the timber yard. Ulwing
the builder was not contented to buy land and houses. Now everything
was cheap. He bought building material from the ruined contractors.
Enormous quantities of timber, so that his firm might be ready when
work started.
Christopher took no interest in this. At this time nothing interested
him. Even when he heard that Sophie Hosszu had become the bride of
Ignace Hold he remained indifferent. He just thought of the cornelian
horse-head which dangled and touched Sophie.
A week passed away. Christopher spoke practically to nobody in the
house, but whenever he addressed Anne, his expression was sarcastic, as
if he wanted to vent on her his contempt for all that was woman. He had
never felt so strong and independent as now.
Then ... one night, like a re-opened wound, a soulless recollection
struck him. The recollection was all body. A female body.
The gloom of the night became populated. Figures approached, more and
more. The darkness became gradually a huge cauldron, in which bare arms
swarmed, soft outlines, white shoulders, vulgar female faces.
Next day, Christopher went towards the fishmarket. He recognised the
house. He knocked. And when he came away again from the girl he had
learned that for the future he would need money.
He thought of his grandfather, his father. He saw them working forever
and ever and they never seemed to spend any money. What were they doing
with it? They must have a lot. Strangers had told him so. Even the girl
with the bestial eyes knew it, as well as the others, those with the
painted faces who winked in such a way that only he saw it. How did
they know him? What did they want? Why do they emerge from their dirty
houses when he passes by? Why do they lie in wait for him at the street
corners? Wait, offer themselves and follow him obstinately.... And at
night when he wants to sleep their image comes. The room gets crowded.
They sit on his bed. They press him to give them their pay. But whence
is he to procure the money?
Suddenly he saw his grandfather before him, as he had seen him from the
cellar entrance. The great shadow at early dawn. He shrank. He blushed
for every one of his miserable thoughts. It was all dirt. He too was
going to work, hard, honestly, like the old ones. He would be kind to
everybody. Even to Anne he would be kind. And he would never again set
foot in the house of the girl with the bestial eyes.
But when the hour struck, he again became restless. To restrain
himself, he called to his mind the image of his grandfather going to
work. The image faded, became powerless and the frightful, hideous
force attracted him anew. On the stairs he realised that it was useless
to struggle; the fishmarket called him irresistibly.
Downstairs, in the porch, he found himself unexpectedly face to face
with Anne and his father. Anne had a bunch of fuchsias in her hand.
“Come with us to the cemetery, to Uncle Sebastian,” said the girl,
getting into the carriage.
Only when he was in the street did Christopher realise that he had
given no answer. He looked after them.
The carriage was disappearing in the direction of the Danube.
On the wooden pavement of the chain-bridge the sound of the wheels
became soft. The bridge swayed gently, in unison with the river as
if it had petrified over the Danube out of the elements of the water
and recalled its origin. Anne had the feeling that the bridge and the
river were but one and that the carriage was floating. Before her eyes
the sun played on the iron supports of the bridge as if they were the
strings of a giant harp. The sky looked ever so high and blue over the
castle hill. Beyond, on the old battlefield, dense grass had grown out
of the many deaths. Behind the acacia trees little double-windowed
middle-class houses were visible: arched green gates, steep roofs,
touching one another.
“How small everything is here....”
John Hubert looked up.
“One day a city may rise here too. Pest was not even as big as this
when your grandfather settled in it.”
In front of the carriage the geese fled with much gabbling in all
directions. Dogs barked. At the Devil’s ditch a shepherd played the
flute.
Anne looked about bewildered, thinking of an old toy of hers. The toy
was a farm. The goodwife was taller than the stable and stood on a
round disc. Trees, geese and the gooseherd all had round foundations.
Instinctively she looked at the shepherd’s feet and then laughed aloud.
The whole place seemed unreal to her.
Farther on in Christina-town the houses separated. They stood alone,
broad, gaudy, like peasant women, surrounded by kitchen gardens.
At the communal farm, they left the carriage. They continued on foot
towards the military cemetery. The citizens of Buda had buried Uncle
Sebastian there.
“Why?” asked Anne. “He was not a soldier.”
“But he was a hero,” answered John Hubert, though he had never been
quite able to understand Uncle Sebastian’s death. His father kept
silence about the details. On the other hand, the citizens in the
castle told confused stories of great deeds. He liked to believe what
they said because it flattered him. And whenever the exploits of the
clockmaker were mentioned, he observed modestly, but with satisfaction,
that the hero was one of his close relations. He grew used to the
honour thrust on him. He bore it with erected head as he wore his high
collars.
Anne remembered something. Three years ago, her grandfather had said
to her, looking fixedly into her eyes: “The citizens of the castle
consider Uncle Sebastian a hero. They may be mistaken. You are the only
person in the world who is sure not to be mistaken if you believe him
to be one.” She remembered it well. He said no more. But from that day
he, whom till then she had merely loved, became also the object of her
admiration and the hero of all around her.
The trees grew between the graves like a wood, a wood where people were
buried. Here it was not the graves that decided the trees’ position;
they had to take their places as the wood decided. And life here drew
abundant strength from death’s rich harvest. In many places the stone
crosses had fallen or sunk into the moss. A weeping willow drooped over
a crypt. It bent over it like a sylvan woman, whose green loose hair
covered a face which was doubtless weeping in the shade.
Anne prayed for a long time at Uncle Sebastian’s grave. Then they
went on in silence. Around some graves the gilt spearheads of low
railings sparkled in the grass. Railings, frontiers, even around the
dead, to separate those who loved each other, to isolate those whom
nobody loved. But Anne felt hopeful that in the ground, underneath the
obstructions erected by the living, the dead might stretch friendly
hands to each other.
On the hillside the graves ceased. Death vanished from between the
trees, life alone continued. The wood was their only companion in the
summer’s quietude.
On the edge of a small glen a straw hat lay on the grass. They looked
up surprised. A bare-headed young man stood in the glen turning towards
the sun. The approaching steps attracted his attention. His eyes were
brown. His gaze seemed darker than his eyes. He appeared vexed. Then
his eyes fell on Anne. Her small, girlish face tried hard to remain
serious, but her eyes were already laughing ironically and her lips
were on the verge of doing so. The stranger felt embarrassed.
John Hubert Ulwing raised his beaver, ruffled by the boughs. He asked
for the footpath leading to the communal farm.
The young man indicated the direction. His handsome, manly hand was
elegant and narrow. He wore an old seal ring with a green stone. He
walked a few steps with the Ulwings. When they reached the footpath, he
bowed in silence.
Anne nodded. The waves of her soft shepherdess hat of Florentine straw
threw for an instant a shadow over her eyes. She was rather sorry the
footpath had been so near. The steps behind her were already receding.
She bent down and picked a flower. Only now did she notice how many
flowers there were in the wood.
She hung her hat over her arm. One more, one more ... and the bunch
grew in her hand. A Canterbury bell gave itself up, root and all. The
roots, like infinitely small bird-claws, held on to the moist soil.
For the first time Anne smelt the perfume of the earth. And when the
carriage entered the porch between the two pillar men, it struck Anne
that this was the first occasion on which wild flowers had come into
the old house.
She met Christopher on the staircase. Her brother held his head rigid
and seemed to be listening. She too heard her grandfather’s voice. It
came from far away, from the timber yard.
Amidst heaps of dry chips a carpenter had lit a pipe. The builder was
just then inspecting the yard. He perceived the bluish little cloud of
smoke in the air at once. The blood rushed to his head. He threatened
the man with his fists. The carpenter, awestruck, knocked his pipe out
and stamped on the burning tobacco. Next to him, a journeyman began to
split a fine big oak beam; in his fright, he deviated from the right
angle.
Old Ulwing’s face became dark red with anger. He pushed the man aside
and snatched the axe out of his hand.
“Look here!” he shouted in a voice that made all the men surrounding
him stop work. Then, like a captive bird of steel, with a swing the axe
rose in his grip. The chips flew. The oak recognised its master and
split at his powerful will.
Christopher Ulwing forgot everything. His chest panted and inhaled the
savour of the oak. The inherited ancestral instincts and movements
revived; though displaced for a long time by strenuous intellectual
work and rendered superfluous by long prosperity, the gigantic strength
of his youth awoke again. There was nothing in the whole world but the
timber of the oak and himself. For a moment the men got a glimpse of
the great carpenter whose former strength was the subject of endless
and ever increasing tales, told by the old masters of the craft to the
younger generation.
They saw him for one moment, then something happened. The raised axe
fell out of his powerful hand and dropped helplessly through the air.
It fell to the ground. The builder grasped his forehead as if it had
been struck by the axe and he began to sway slowly, terribly, like an
old tower whose foundation gives way. Nobody dared touch him. Meanwhile
the workmen stared in amazement.
Füger was the first to regain his presence of mind. He tendered his
shoulder to his chief.
John Hubert ran as pale as death across the yard.
Supported by two powerful journeymen carpenters the master builder
staggered along. His bent arms were round the men’s necks. His elbows
were higher than his shoulders. The face of the old man looked sallow
and masklike between the youthful faces of the men, crimson with their
effort.
“Not there,” he said scarcely audibly when they tried to drag him to
his bed in his room. He pointed with his chin to the window. They
pushed an armchair in front of it.
Soon the shrivelled face of Gárdos, the proto-medicus, appeared in
the door. When he left the room, he made the gesture of respectful
submission which is only known to priests and physicians. Priests make
it at the altar, in the presence of God, physicians when they face
death.
“The children....” The builder made an effort to turn round. His
halting look went slowly round the room.
Christopher clung trembling to the edge of the table. He had a feeling
that if this great searching glance were to find him, it would strike
upon his pupils and press his eyeballs inwards. Everything shrank in
him. His body wanted to vanish into space.
So death was like this! He had never seen it yet, though he had guessed
that it hovered everywhere and whispered fear into men’s ears. It had
whispered to him too when he was a child and he had to hide under his
blankets or run out of the room when the candle went out. But then
he did not yet understand the sibilant voice and his fear went astray
among phantoms, deep silence and darkness. For all that, it had always
been death.
He saw the others near him in a haze. His father, Füger, Gemming and
Feuerlein. The pointed long face of Tini was there too. It moved
correctly, with an appearance of unreality, between the washstand
and the armchair. It came and went. A wet towel in her hand. In the
corridor the workmen. Subdued, heavy steps. Changing, frightened faces
in the door. One pressed against the other, as if looking into a pit.
Suddenly he perceived Anne. How pale she was. Yet she moved calmly.
Now she knelt down near the armchair and her face was clasped by two
waxy hands. A grey head bent over her and gave her a long look, a look
insufferably prolonged. If he were never to release her? If he were to
take her with him?
Christopher sobbed. Someone pushed him forward. Now he too was kneeling
near the armchair. Now, now.... The fading eyes had found him. Two
hands of wax reached searchingly into the air, the fingers stretched,
tried to grasp something.
The boy fell to the floor without a sound. He was not aware that he was
carried out of the room.
Slowly the room became dark. The steps of the priest interrupted the
solemn silence of the corridor. Steps came and went. The smell of
incense pervaded the porch. The choir-boy’s bell rang along the street.
He rang as if he were playing ball with the sounds while one house was
telling another the news:
“Ulwing, the master builder, is dying....”
There was a throng on the staircase. The heavy, syncopated breathing of
the builder was audible in the corridor. Upstairs in the room, anxious,
tearful faces leant over the armchair.
Since the priest had gone, Christopher Ulwing had opened his eyes no
more. He was speechless and in the silence his brain fought desperately
against annihilation. It was too early. He was not yet ready. He
rebelled against it. So many plans.... He wanted to say something. He
sought for words, but could find none.... The words leading to men
were lost.... Colours appeared suddenly between his eyes and the lids,
hard splints of colour, which seemed to drop into them, pressing on
his eyeballs. Yellow spots. Black rings. Red zigzags. Then he felt a
pleasant, restful weariness, just like long ago, when he was a child
and his mother carried him in her arms into his bed. And Brother
Sebastian ... they wandered together, quietly, without fatigue.... A
town becomes visible, church-towers, houses; much waste land, on which
he is going to build. It is morning and the church bells ring.
John Hubert bent over his father. He was still breathing. It seemed
that his lips moved.
“It is morning!” The builder said that so loud that they all looked to
the window.
Above the further end of the timber yard a wonderful gleam appeared.
Füger looked at his watch: it was not yet midnight.
The gleam spread every minute. Red dust and sparks; at first one or
two, then more and more.
The little book-keeper began to perspire. He recalled all of a sudden
to his mind a man with a leather apron, knocking his pipe out and
trampling on the burning tobacco. Now he remembered clearly the
workman’s heavy boots in the sawdust. With desperate self-accusation he
remembered that after that he had thought no more of the matter....
A man ran through the courtyard.
“Fire!”
The cry was repeated, every corner of the house re-echoed it. Under
the steep roof the walls became orange. An unnatural red glow spread.
Through the window panes light streamed suddenly into the rooms.
“Fire!”
Now they were shouting it in the street, persistently, sharply. Carts
were thundering towards the Danube.
John Hubert rushed to the door. At the threshold it looked as if
he were going to fall. He staggered and turned back. He began to
calculate, perspiring with fear. His brain added and multiplied
confusedly, intensely. The loss was gigantic. The quantity of timber
and building material was enormous. The firm might be shaken by it.
Helplessly he stared at his father. But in the armchair there sat but
the ghost of an old man, smiling like a mask into the light of the
conflagration. Nothing more could be expected from him. His knees began
to shake.
Anne was worn out and looked wearily towards the window. She did not
dare to move her head. Something was giving way behind her brow.
Black figures were starting up on the walls of the yard. They pumped
water on the fire. People were standing on the roofs of the opposite
houses too.
Sooty horrors staggered in the air near the tar boiler. A suffocating
smell of burning poured through the windows. The conflagration spread
with awful speed. It raced towards the wall of the back garden.
A burning pile collapsed in the timber yard.
In the ominous light of the rooms Tini and the maidservants were
gesticulating madly before the open cupboards.
Anne leaned against the wall. “They want to abandon the house, they
want to flee.”
“Save it, save it!” she shrieked with a bloodless face.
Augustus Füger dropped panting into the room. He brought news. Now he
was gone. Now he was back again.
The fire had reached the roof of the toolshed. The air quivered with
heat. Hoarse crackling, spasmodic hissing, mingled with the cries of
many human voices.
The half-closed eyes of the builder rarely moved. He heard, he saw
nothing that happened around him. He was mysteriously distant from all
that.
Under the window the wasted leaves shrivelled up with a dry crackling
sound. The pump in the courtyard creaked uniformly. A fire engine
started to spray the hot walls.
In that instant a heavy, clipped voice floated through the air, like a
round disc of metal....
Something passed over the face of Christopher Ulwing.
“The church bells! It is morning and the church bells ring.”
All looked at him awestricken. The hands of the builder gripped the
armchair. John Hubert and Florian supported him on either side.
“Let me go!” That was the shadow of his old voice. He did not know that
nobody obeyed him any more.
“To build ... to build....” His chin went all to one side and his body
straightened itself with a frightful effort. The dying Christopher
Ulwing towered by a whole head above the living....
Then, as if something inside him had given him a twist, he turned half
way round. John Hubert and the servant bent under his weight. In their
arms the builder was dead. He had died standing and the gleam of the
burning oak remained in his broken eyes.
New water carts arrived below. Bugles shrieked along the streets.
Ladders climbed into the red air.
Long, panting snakes began to work: the pumps spat flying water among
the flames. But the fire retreated reluctantly, slowly ... gradually it
collapsed with a hiss.
The alarm bell of Leopold’s Town went on shouting its clamour, asking
for help, calling, complaining. All parishes responded. The whole of
Pest was alarmed. Sooty débris floated in the air rent by the tolling
of bells. Smoke covered the yellow walls. The water from the pumps flew
down the window panes.
In that night the old house became really old.