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<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2> On Saturday a letter came from Baroness Geramb. There would be no more dancing classes. All the light seemed to go from Christopher’s eyes. “But why?” said he, and hung his head sadly. “Dancing is unbecoming when there is a war on.” “So it is true? The war has come,” thought Anne, but still it seemed to her unreal, distant. Just as if one had read about it in a book. A book whose one-page chapters were stuck up every morning on the walls of the houses. It was after Christmas. The Danube was invisible. A dense, sticky fog moved on the window panes. Christopher ran out shivering into the dark morning. As usual, he was late; he had to leave his breakfast and eat his bread and butter in the street. He had no idea of his lesson. Behind him Florian carried a lantern. On winter mornings he always lit the boy’s way till he reached the paved streets. On the pavement of the inner town a bandy-legged old man got in front of Christopher. On one arm he had a large bundle of grimy papers while a pot of glue dangled from the other. People[Pg 74] in silent crowds waited at the corners of the streets for him; when they had read the fresh posters they walked away silent, dejected. “What is happening? What do they want with us?” they asked. People began to understand the grim realities of war; what was happening now roused their understanding. They thronged in front of the money-changers’ shops. Soldiers’ swords rattled on the pavement. Everybody hurried as if he had some urgent business to settle before nightfall. Anne was at her music lesson when a huge black and yellow flag was hoisted on a flagstaff on the bastions of Buda. In those times, flags changed frequently. “Freedom is dead,” said Sztaviarsky and cursed in Polish. “Freedom!” Anne thought of the two feverish eyes. So it was for freedom’s sake that there was a war? She now looked angrily on the Croatian soldiers whom the Imperial officers had quartered on them. The red-faced sergeant was eating a raw onion in the middle of the courtyard. The soldiers, like clumsy big children, were throwing snowballs. They trod on the shrubs, made havoc of everything. They made a snow-man in front of the pump and covered the head with a red cap like the one worn by Hungarian soldiers; then they riddled it with bullets.... [Pg 75] The snow-man had melted away. Slowly the lilac bushes in the garden began to sprout. The Croatians were washing their dirty linen near the pump. They stood half-naked near the troughs. The wind blew soapsuds against their hairy chests. All of a sudden an unusual bugle call was heard; it sounded like a cry of distress. Anne ran to the window. Soldiers were running in front of the house. In the courtyard the Croatians were snatching their shirts from the trough and putting them on, all soaking. They rode off after the rest and did not come back again. A few days later, Anne dreamed at night that there was a thunderstorm. Towards morning there was a sound in the room as if peas by the handful were being thrown against the window panes—many, many peas. Later, as if some invisible bodies were precipitated through the air, every window of the house was set a-rattling. “Put up the wooden shutters!” shouted the builder from the porch. Christopher came breathlessly up the stairs. “School is closed!” His pocket bulged with barley sugar and he was stuffing it into his mouth, two pieces at a time. John Hubert, who had run to school for Christopher, arrived behind him. His lovely, well-groomed hair was hanging over his forehead and the correct necktie had slipped to one side of his[Pg 76] collar. Gasping he called Florian and had the big gate locked behind him. A candle was burning in the master builder’s room, deprived of daylight by the shutters. Contrary to his habit, John Hubert, without waiting this time to have a seat offered to him, sank limply into an armchair. “Thank goodness you are all here,” he said, making a caressing movement with his hand in the air. “I came along the shores of the Danube,” he continued hoarsely. “There were crowds of people and they said that the shells could not reach across the river. People from the shore sat about on stones. One was eating bacon. He ate quite calmly and suddenly he was without a head. For a time the corpse remained seated, and everything was covered with blood....” Horrified, he covered his eyes with his hand. “So it was a shell that fell into the confectioner’s shop in Little Bridge Street?” said Christopher, stuffing barley sugar into his mouth. “The pavement was all covered with sweets as if the shop had been turned inside out. The whole school filled its pockets for nothing.” The builder smiled. Behind the barred gates life continued. John Hubert put his necktie straight and sometimes in the course of the day forgot completely what he had seen. When he sat down to meals, however, he became pale. He pushed his plate aside. [Pg 77] From time to time, the window panes rattled. Woeful distant shrieks flew over the roofs. They were followed by the anguish of numb expectancy. People counted. The silence became crystalline and quivered in the air. “The shell has not burst!” They counted again, in helpless animal fear. Whose turn would it be next? On the banks of the Danube a stricken house howled out. Clouds of dust burst high up into the air. The sky became red, the colour of bleeding flesh. The wind blew a wave of hot air, heralding disaster, into the courtyard of Ulwing the builder. Behind the locked gate nobody knew which neighbouring house was expiring in a last hot breath. The Fügers hid in the cellar. John Hubert and the children had moved into the office, situated in the inner courtyard. The first floor became empty, except for Christopher Ulwing who remained in his bedroom, the single window of which opened into the deserted timber yard. “The house is strong,” said the builder to Mrs. Füger through the cellar window. “I built the walls well.” A furious crack came from the gate as if it had been flicked by a wet towel of gigantic dimensions. The windows broke in a clatter. The house shook to its foundations. With frightened lamentations, people rushed out of the cellar. Little Christopher’s snow-white[Pg 78] lips became distorted. The builder frowned as he used to do when contradicted by some fool. He went with long steps to the gate. “No, no,” shrieked Christopher, and began to sob spasmodically. But old Ulwing listened to no one. He kicked the side door open. One of the caryatids was without an arm. Under him lay a heap of débris of crumbled whitewash and a huge hole gaped from the wall. The shell had not exploded; it had stuck in the brickwork. The builder buttoned his coat up so as to be less of a target and went to the front of the house. He cast his eyes upwards. He contemplated the wrecked windows. Foreign enemies had hurt his house in the name of their Emperor. He turned quickly towards the Danube. The bridge of boats was aflame. His bridge! He glanced at poor little Buda, from the heart of which the sister town, defenceless Pest, was shot to death. The town and Christopher Ulwing had been small and poor together; they had risen together, they had become rich, and now they were wounded together. He began to curse as he used to do when he was a journeyman carpenter. Around him, there was no sign of life. Nothing moved in the streets. Closed shops. Bolted doors. The town was a great execution ground. Like men under sentence of death, the houses held their breath and were as much abandoned in their misfortunes as human destinies. Now[Pg 79] every house lived only for itself, died only for itself. The glare of the burning roofs was reflected in different windows. Sticky smoke crawled along the walls. The bells of a church near the river tolled. Rage and pain brought tears to Christopher Ulwing’s eyes while he glanced over the grimy, falling houses. How many were his work! He loved them all. He pitied them, pitied himself.... But this lasted only for a second. He clenched his fist as if to restrain his over-flowing energy. He would be in need of it! The muscles of his arm became convulsed and he felt these convulsions reflected in his brain. If necessary, he would start afresh from the very beginning. There was still time. There was still a long life before him. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> [Pg 80] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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