Ulwing the builder was carried out of the old house and the pillar-men
looked into the hearse. Following behind, the mitred abbot, lighted wax
candles, singing priests; the Mayor, the Town Councillors, the flags of
the guilds; a big dark mass moving slowly under the summer sky.
The whole town followed Christopher Ulwing bare-headed and wherever he
passed on his journey, the bells of many churches tolled. Then the door
of the house was closed. The great master, the great silence, remained
within.
It was on the day after the funeral that the new head of the Ulwing
business took his father’s seat for the first time at the writing-desk
in front of the barred ground-floor window. The house was still full
of the scent of incense, faded flowers and the cold smoke of the
conflagration.
Nobody moved at that early hour. John Hubert was quite alone. Several
times he put his hands quite unnecessarily up to his necktie, then, as
if he had been pushed forward, he fell over the table and wept silently
for a long time. He sat up only when he heard steps in the neighbouring
room. While wiping his eyes, he noticed that the china inkstand was
not in its usual place. The sand had been put on the wrong side too. He
made a mental effort and replaced everything as he used to see it in
his father’s time.
There was a knock at the door. He remembered that this little door,
through which people had come for decades, respectful, bowing, pale
and imploring to the powerful Christopher Ulwing, now led to him. He
raised his head with confidence, but only for an instant; then, as if
frightened by what life was going to demand from him, he lowered it
again.
Augustus Füger stood in front of him. He had a parcel of papers under
his arm.
John Hubert Ulwing hesitated. He would now have to make decisions,
unaided, all by himself.
“These matters have all been settled according to the orders of the
late master,” said the little book-keeper, and in his crinkled face the
corners of his mouth went down like those of a child ready to cry.
Absent-mindedly John Hubert signed his name. He wiped his pen and stuck
it into the glass full of shot, as his father was wont to do.
And so it was thenceforth. The business went its old way with the old
movements though around it little by little the world changed. New
men, new businesses rose. The head of the Ulwing firm did not change
anything and externally his very life became the same as his father’s.
He seemed to age daily. When he rested, he closed his eyes.
The damage caused by the fire and the last bad years of business
weighed heavily on his shoulders. He had to grapple with the
liquidation of grandiose purchases, various charges, old contracts,
and many other problems. These were all clear and simple to the old
builder; they remained mysterious to him. Their solution was lost for
ever with the cool, mathematical mind of the builder. With his bony,
large, ruthless hands the power of the house of Ulwing had departed.
John Hubert tried to remedy all troubles by economy. That was all his
individuality contributed to the business. Cheap tools. Cheap methods.
He even restricted the household expenses and every Sunday afternoon
looked through Mamsell Tini’s books himself. This done, he called his
son into the green room and spoke of economy.
Christopher sat with tired eyes, bored, in the armchair and paid no
attention. Absent-mindedly he extracted the big-headed pin from the
crocheted lace cover, and then, quite forgetting how it came into his
hand, threw it under the sofa.
Netti brought the coffee on the tray with the parrot pattern, and lit
the paraffin lamp. All of a sudden Christopher was there no more.
He did not care any more for Gabriel Hosszu, nor for little Gál. He
went to the technical high-school. He had an intrigue with an actress,
and the noble youths from the country estates, whose acquaintance he
had made in the private school, were his friends. He spoke with them
cynically about women. In a back room of the “Hunter’s Horn” Inn, he
watched them for hours playing cards.
He tried it one day himself. He lost.... He wanted to win his money
back. His pocket was empty, his groping hand only touched his
tobacco-box. He snatched it away. His grandfather had kept snuff in it.
He was ashamed of the idea that had occurred to him, and he thrust the
box back into his pocket.
A man with thin lips asked him from the other end of the table:
“Well?”
Christopher reached again into his pocket. “I shall win it all back and
never gamble again.” He drew out the box and banged it on the table.
The knock roused the box. In an old-fashioned, chirping way, it sang
the little song which it had learned about a hundred years ago from
Ulwing the goldsmith. It sang it just in the same way but nobody paid
any attention to it. When the music was over, Christopher had lost his
game.
In the stifling cigar smoke his breath became heavy. Voices. Sickly,
wine-reeking heat. A long grey hand removed the snuff-box from the
table.
Christopher rose. He just heard someone say behind his back: “He plays
like a gentleman.” He passed wearily beside the tables. He seemed
indifferent. Only in the street did he realise what had happened and
his heart shrank with the anguish of deep sorrow. Was he sorry for
himself or for the loss of the tobacco-box? He didn’t know. It had
belonged to his grandfather and now a stranger owned it.... How often
had he seen it in those bony old hands, which had been raised for a
blessing when they were stretched towards him in the hour of death.
He shuddered with torture and fear. “I am a scoundrel”; he repeated
this several times so as to shame himself. Then he made a solemn vow
that he would never touch cards any more. Never, never, again.... This
calmed him to some extent.
When he drew out his new leather case next day, he noticed that Anne
followed him with her eyes. He observed this several times. Impatient
anger rose in him.
His father left the room. Anne turned to him.
“Have you lost it?”
“Of course I have!” Christopher was glad to be able to speak out. He
felt relieved, he felt as though the responsibility for the whole thing
were lifted from his shoulders.
Anne hung her head.
“Do you know where you lost it?... Yes?...” Her eyes shone. “What if
you promised a reward to the finder?”
“That requires money,” said Christopher sadly.
Anne ran to her cupboard. She took a small box from under her linen.
“It is not much, just my presents. It has been accumulating slowly for
a long time. Little Chris, go quickly. It will be all right. Promise
the whole lot.”
Christopher was pleased and ashamed at the same time. He reached out
for Anne’s hand. But the young girl snatched it back. She stretched
herself up to the big boy and tendered her cheek. Christopher kissed it
and ran away.
Anne looked after him. How she loved her brother! Now, perhaps
Christopher understood all that she could not tell him. He lived for
ever among men and men are ashamed of feeling. To hide it they whistle
and look out of the window. She too had been brought up with these
ideas. She was taught that feeling is deep and great only so long as
it keeps mute and becomes at once petty and ridiculous when it raises
its voice; so pitiably petty that it makes one blush and run out of
the room. It must never be shown. Nor did the others in the house
ever display it, nobody but Uncle Sebastian, long, long ago. And yet
how intensely she longed now and then for somebody who would show her
affection.
Her eyes wandered to her mother’s portrait. If only she would drop that
painted rose from her hand! If only for once she would caress her! Only
once, one single once, when she was alone in the room ... so lonely ...
always alone. Since Adam Walter had gone away, nobody remained with
whom she could talk. A new song, a new book came now and then from him
in distant Weimar. Then silence again for weeks.
Aimlessly Anne went down the stairs, across the garden to the great
wall. Since the fire the timber yard had been removed to the end of
the town. Behind the fencing, where in olden times rude strong men in
leather aprons worked the timber, nothing was left but waste ground.
The memories of her young life came slowly, dimly at first, then they
raced in vivid crowds.
Sunday afternoons. Stories and Uncle Sebastian. The scent of newly-hewn
oak logs and her grandfather. Music, dreams, her mother’s portrait.
That was all. Years ... years of childhood.
She sat down on the seat round the apple tree and leaned her head
against the tree’s trunk.
The sky was green between the leaves. The apple tree was in blossom.
Her grandfather Jörg’s shop came to her mind. And a voice and a song.
How confused all this was. She thought suddenly of two feverish eyes,
but somehow saw them in Adam Walter’s face. Then Mrs. Walter.... The
voice of Bertha Bajmoczy and railings around men. Small iron railings
even in the cemetery. They ceased on a hill-side. A glen between the
trees. She might turn her face towards it. And from the foot-path why
should she not turn back, just simply look behind her without any
cause, when there was nobody left in the glen....
She looked up. She felt eyes resting on her: Otto Füger was standing
in the bushes. From her childhood she had known this shifty, obstinate
look. It was everywhere, over her father’s writing-table, in the porch,
sometimes even at night, outside, under the window.
The expression of the short-sighted eyes became at once persistent and
obsequious. Anne would have liked to cast it from her. She nodded and
went into the house.
In the evening, she sat up late for Christopher. He did not come.
This night seemed longer to her than any others, it whispered to her
anxious, fearful premonitions.
Next day, Christopher confessed to his sister that he had gambled and
lost. And Anne also learned that she would never see her grandfather’s
snuff-box again.