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Old House

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2> When on quiet Sunday afternoons the bell sounded at the door of Ulwing’s house, a sudden silence fell over all in the green room. Nobody mentioned it, yet each of them knew what came to the others’ minds. This hour was Uncle Sebastian’s hour. Summer passed away. One morning, the bandy-legged little old man emerged again from the dawn and silently pasted on the walls the last pages of the great book. Mamsell Tini protested in vain—Anne would stop. She read the poster. “It is all over.” She went on, saying never a word, and her imagination, restricted by the walls of a town, ignorant of the free, limitless fields, showed her a quaint picture. She saw in her mind a great square, something like the Town Hall Market, but even larger than that. Around it, trees in a row. Grass everywhere, red-capped soldiers lying motionless in the grass. Her feverish eyes closed. “It is all over....” One evening, grandfather Jörg was arrested[Pg 98] in his bookshop. He was led, surrounded by bayonets, through the town. Many people were taken like that in those times. Those who remained free spoke in whispers of these things. Anne heard something about grandfather Jörg printing some proclamation; that was why he had to go to prison. But nobody seemed to know exactly what happened. The printing press was closed down by the soldiers; the apple tree at the corner of Snake Street was cut down and in the bookshop young Jörg had to place the bookshelf in such a way that one could see from the street into the deepest recess of the shop. It was many months before Ulrich Jörg was released. Meanwhile he had turned quite old and tiny. The town too looked as if it had aged. People got accustomed to that. People will get accustomed to anything. The streets were full of Imperial officers and quiet women in mourning.... Slowly the traces of the bombardment disappeared. On Ulwing’s house, however, the mutilated pillar-man remained untouched. John Hubert disliked this untidiness. “It has to stay like that!” growled the builder. He never told them why. One day two students passed under the open window of the office. One of the boys said: “This old house has got a national guardsman; look at him, he has been to the war.” [Pg 99] The pen of Christopher Ulwing stopped abruptly. What? People had already come to call his house old? Where were those who shook their heads when he began to build here on the deserted shore, on the shifting sands? Since then a town had sprung up around him. How many years ago was it? How old was he himself? He did not reckon it up; the thought of his age was to him like an object one picks up by chance and throws away without taking the trouble to examine. Annihilation disgusted him. He rebelled against it. He avoided everything that might remind him of it. To build! To build! One could kill death with that. To build a house was like building up life. To draw plans; homes for life. To work for posterity. That rejuvenates man. But the town had come to a standstill. Ulwing the builder called his grandchildren into his room, and—a thing he had never done before—he listened to their talk attentively. He was painfully impressed by the discovery that among themselves they spoke a language differing from that which they used with him. So the difference between generations was great enough to give the very words a different meaning! Were all efforts to draw them together vain? He thought of those gone before him. They too must have known this. They too must have kept it concealed. How many secrets there must be between succeeding generations! And each[Pg 100] generation takes its own secrets with it to the grave, so that the following may live. These were Christopher Ulwing’s hardest days. He built ruined houses up anew. He built himself up anew too. And while he seemed more powerful than ever, business men around him failed and complained. “Building land will have to be sold; one can’t stick to things in these times,” said the contractors and looked enquiringly at Christopher Ulwing. “What was the great carpenter’s opinion?” But his expression remained cold and immovable. Christopher Ulwing never opened the conversation except when he had to give orders; otherwise he waited and observed. In the evening the window of the green room remained long alight. John Hubert and Augustus Füger sat there in the cosy armchairs in the corner and now young Otto Füger was present too, always respectful, always inquisitive. “These are bad times,” sighed the little book-keeper, “one hears of nothing but bankruptcy.” “One goes down, the other up,” growled the builder, “never say die.” “During the revolution it was possible to expect better times,” said John Hubert, “but at present....” His father interrupted him. “These things too will come to an end.” “The question is, won’t these things end us first?” [Pg 101] “Not me and the town!” said the builder. “Do you hear Füger? Any building land for sale by auction has to be bought up. The houses for sale must be bought too. I have capital. I have credit. Everything must be bought up. Within five years I will set the whole thing in order.” “Five years....” John Hubert looked at his father. Time left no mark on him. Next day, Christopher Ulwing gave his grandson a book on architecture. Woodcuts of churches and palaces were in the text. “We shall build some like that, you and I, when you are an architect.” “Write your name in it,” said John Hubert. “Where is the date? A careful businessman never writes his name down without a date.” “Businessman!” This word sounded bleak in young Christopher’s ears. He looked down crestfallen and drew his mouth to one side. He had retained this movement since the shell had struck the house. As soon as he felt himself unobserved he put the book aside. He went to Gál’s. It was still the little hunchback who did his mathematical work for him. After that, he bent his steps to the Hosszu’s; he thought of his Latin preparation. Christopher had some time since been transferred to a private school so as to receive his education in Hungarian. This was his grandfather’s[Pg 102] choice. His father approved of the school because it admitted only boys of the best families. Christopher had new schoolmates. All were children of nobles. They were not the kind that would have envied young Müller, the apothecary’s son, the possession of his jars and bottles, as the boys in Christopher’s old school used to do. They would not have taken the slightest interest in gaudy strings and crude-coloured pictures like those Adam Walter used to produce from his pockets in playtime. They talked of horses, saddles, dogs. Practically every one of them was country-bred and had only come to town for school. Christopher continued none the less to go on Sundays to the Hosszu’s; he saw Sophie rarely; but when the young lady happened to come accidentally into Gabriel’s room, the boy would blush and dared not look at her. But many were the times when he had gone a long way round through Grenadier’s Street so that he might look up stealthily under his hat to the windows of the Hosszu house. One afternoon, when he turned into the street he saw his father going in the same direction. He wore an embroidered waistcoat and walked ceremoniously. The boy stopped, stared at him, then ran away suddenly. Since the dancing lessons John Hubert had paid several visits to the Hosszu’s. An accident revealed to him the cause of his[Pg 103] attraction. One day, on taking his departure, he left a new yellow glove behind him. He turned back on the stairs, but Sophie was already running after him. When she handed him the glove, her hand felt warm. John Hubert perceived suddenly that Sophie had lovely eyes and that her figure was slender. After this, his visits to the Hosszu’s became still more frequent. Mrs. Hosszu was knitting with two yard-long wooden needles near the window and never looked up, but if Sophie spoke in whispers to John Hubert she left the room hurriedly. Occasionally, she stayed out for a very long time. Then she opened the door unexpectedly, quietly. And she would look at the girl with a question in her eyes. “Why does she look like that?” thought John Hubert and felt ill at ease. That day it was Sophie’s father who came in instead of his wife. Simon Hosszu was a toothless, red-faced man. One of his eyes watered constantly for which reason he wore a gold earring in his left ear. He spoke of everything quickly, plausibly. He never gave time for thought. While John Hubert listened to him he quite forgot that the name of old Hosszu had lately been mentioned with suspicion in business circles. Hosszu owned water mills. The great steam mill did him considerable damage. None the less, he spoke as if the water mills had a great[Pg 104] future before them. He got enthusiastic. In confidence he mentioned brilliant strokes of business to be done—timber, plans of lime kilns. A brewery. A paper mill.... “If I had capital, I should become a rich man.” John Hubert was bewildered by his audacious plans. He loved money, and the idea of presenting plans of his own to his father pleased him. He raised his brows. He tried to retain it all in his memory. On leaving he pressed the hand of Simon Hosszu warmly. The anteroom was saturated with the smell of cooking. A dirty towel lay on the table. Sophie snatched it up and hid it behind her back. John Hubert took shorter leave of her than usual. In the street he tried to think of Sophie’s pretty face, but the odour of the kitchen and the dirty towel upset him unpleasantly. He began to think of Simon Hosszu’s various plans. He could not understand what they amounted to. Now that he presented Hosszu’s plans in his own language they seemed less convincing. They became dim and risky. He had to drop one after the other. The facts, no longer distorted by eloquence, glared at him soberly in their real light. After supper he remained alone with his father in the green room; they spoke of various firms and enterprises; he beat round the bush for a long time. Christopher Ulwing watched his son attentively,[Pg 105] with knitted brows. When John Hubert mentioned the name of Simon Hosszu, the expectant expression disappeared from the builder’s face. He leaned back in his chair. “Simon Hosszu is in a pretty bad way; he has exhausted his credit everywhere,” and then he added, indifferently, as if speaking casually: “It is curious, up to now he has spared us. I can’t understand what he has in mind.” John Hubert could not help thinking of Mrs. Hosszu, who knitted and never looked up, who left the room and appeared unexpectedly in the door. His father’s voice rang in his ear: what had they in mind?... And Sophie? No, she was not in the conspiracy. He acquitted the girl in his mind. He felt distinctly that she was very dear to him. His bedroom was beyond that of the children. Everything there was as perfectly in its place as the necktie on his collar. On the dressing table, brushes, combs, bottles, jars, all arranged in order. John Hubert counted the money in his purse. He thought how his most cherished wishes had always been curbed. Now he burnt the natural desire of a virile man, which in his case was mingled with the fear of its imminent disappearance; the knowledge that the hours of his manhood were already numbered sharpened his craving. He longed for woman with an intensity[Pg 106] of which youth is incapable. He wished for a woman bending to his will, weaker than he, and the memory of a little sempstress crossed his mind. How he had loved her, for his dominion over her and.... Then Sophie’s image abruptly became confused with the fading picture of the poor simple girl. Without any continuity he thought of his children. “Would Sophie be a good mother to them?” He asked himself in vain. He could not answer the question. Mrs. Hosszu, the dirty towel, Simon Hosszu’s bad reputation, his shady propositions, his dangerous plausibility.... That influence frightened him and it became clear to him that henceforth his desire would be restrained by two hostile forces, the builder’s will and his own sober brain. In his mind’s eye he saw Sophie’s lovely shaded eyes looking at him. They reproached him gently, just as the eyes of the other girl had done on the day they parted. John Hubert felt a bitter pain rend him from head to foot. The old pain, the pain of thwarted hopes so familiar to him since his youth. Past and present were all the same to him. He would not make a clean cut between the two and he just had to continue to curb the aspirations of his soul. The ray of light that had shone on him during the past few months was now extinguished. He proceeded to turn the key in his watch. He went on just as before. Gently ticking time[Pg 107] was again meaningless to him: work and compromise, that was all. And as he looked up into the mirror, his face stared at him, tired and old. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> [Pg 108] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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