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.