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.