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Old House

<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</h2> The hanging lamp over the table in the green room had been lit. Anne’s hand fell slowly from the child’s cap she was crocheting. She had been aware for a long time of the irregular sounds of Christopher’s steps. Her brother walked restlessly up and down the rooms. Occasionally he bumped into the open wings of doors, then again he would make aimless, unnecessary circuits round the furniture. Anne noticed that Thomas dropped the newspaper he was reading upon his knees. He too was listening to the disordered steps. Again Christopher came in collision with a door, then he stopped nervously near the table. “Land fetches a big price nowadays.” While he spoke he lit a cigar and the smoke came in puffs from his lips. “It will never again fetch as much. We ought to sell some of the building sites; we have too many; at any rate I know of a better investment.” Anne did not like the idea. She would have liked to keep everything as it had been left to them by their grandfather. “Our grandfather would be the first to exploit this exorbitant boom,” said Christopher with unnecessary[Pg 213] temper. “You don’t understand these things, my dear.” Anne sighed. “You are right. Speak to Thomas about it.” “To me?” Illey laughed frigidly. Looking at Christopher his expression became haughty. “I understand that you gamble on the Stock Exchange and that you win. Take care. It is always like that at the start and then fortune turns. People only stop it when they have broken their necks.” “You have to remain cool, nothing else,” growled Christopher, “one must not lose one’s nerve. Anyhow, that has nothing to do with it. What is your opinion about selling building sites?” Thomas shrugged his shoulders. “I have no opinion. I am unacquainted with the circumstances.” He was aware that his obstinate reticence was nothing but the expression of his disappointed hopes. Yet he could not alter it. Christopher was delighted that everything went so smoothly. As a matter of fact he had already sold some of the sites. Now that the deed was done, he was given the required consent. He breathed more freely. He would sell the old timber yard too. Otto Füger was a clever go-between. Anne took up her work again. Thomas’s aloof indifference revolted her. She had lost her[Pg 214] confidence in Christopher. She suspected Otto Füger, but she did not understand business. She had never been taught anything but to sing, to embroider, to play the piano and to dance. She decided that when her little girl was born, she would make her learn everything that her mother did not know. And while still young, she should be taught that people can never be entirely happy. She would tell it to her simply, so that she could understand and not be obliged later on to hug to herself something that nobody wants and that is always unconsciously trampled on by those to whom it is vainly proffered. But the little girl, for whom Anne was waiting in the old house, never came. In spring the second boy was born and he was christened Ladislaus Thomas John Christopher in the old church, now rebuilt, at Leopold’s town. After that Anne was ill for a long time. The cold gleam, which had formerly made her glance so hard, disappeared from her eye. The lines of her fine eyebrows softened down. Her boyish bony little hands became softer, more womanly. Then she was about again, but the shadow of her sufferings remained on her face. Thomas was courteous and attentive. He brought her books. For hours he read to her aloud, without stopping, as if driven; he seemed to fear Anne’s gaze which his eye had to face when he put the book down. What did this gaze want? Did it say anything, or ask, or beg,[Pg 215] or command? No, Anne wanted nothing more from him. The time was past when.... He buried his face sadly in his hands. <hr class="tb" /> Year by year Thomas became more taciturn and if Anne asked him whether anything hurt him or if he had any worries, he shook his head impatiently. No, there was nothing the matter with him; that was just his Hungarian nature. But when he took his son on his knee he told him tales of big forests, an ancestral country house, an old garden. Fields, horses, harvests in the glaring sun ... and his face became rejuvenated and he held his head as of old, in the little glen, when he turned towards the sun. Anne had become accustomed not to be told these things by her husband. Nor did she mention Ille when letters in a female hand came thence and one handwriting, with its shapeless, rustic characters, repeated itself frequently. When once it happened that Otto Füger brought the mail up, Anne found one of these letters on the piano. She took it into her hand and the contact made her tremble. She had to struggle against herself; was it pride, honesty, or cowardice? She put the envelope untouched on Thomas’s table. She did not question him, she did not complain, but she never spoke of Ille again. From that time the name of this strange land became a ghost in the house. They never pronounced[Pg 216] it, but it was ever there between them. It seemed to Anne that even now it was stealing, hostile, through the silence, drawing Thomas away from her. Desperate fear possessed her; she felt that she was going to be left alone in icy darkness with no way out of it. “Thomas,” she said imploringly, as if calling for help, “why can’t we talk to each other?” Illey raised his head from between his hands. “Are you reproaching me with my nature again?” Anne perceived impatient irritation in her husband’s voice. “I did not mean it like that”; the woman stopped short as if a hand had been put rudely before her mouth. Night was pouring slowly into the sunshine room. They could not see each other’s faces when Thomas began suddenly to listen; he seemed to hear suppressed sobs.... No, it was imagination; his wife never cried. They had been silent for such a long time that Anne had merely fallen asleep in the corner of the couch. Illey rose and closed the door noiselessly behind him. During Anne’s illness Thomas had moved from the common bedroom into the back room which had once belonged to Ulwing the builder. When she improved, he did not himself know why, he remained there. His wife did not oppose it and he was fond of the room. From the[Pg 217] window he could touch the leaves of the chestnut tree and after rain the smell of the damp earth in the garden reached him. He sat on the window sill. Outside, the trees whispered. Thomas’s mind was gone from among the closed walls. Desire carried his soul beyond the town. He strolled alone and was met by a breeze smelling of rain. How he loved that! How he loved everything out of doors: the smells, the colours, the sounds, the steaming bogs of boiling summer, the frozen roads of winter, where one’s footsteps ring and the branches crack as they fall. Then the wind rises from the soughing reeds and life trembles over the world. In the furrows, the water soaks into the ground. The wood resounds with the amorous complaint of birds. Call ... answer. Do they always find their mate? In his heart Thomas nearly felt the silence of the woods. The seed of reproduction falls in this trembling, solemn peace. Birds float slowly in the sunshine. When the hour of the crops comes, summer is there. Harvest is in full swing everywhere and his blood is haunted with inherited memories. How often, how often, he has stopped at the edge of somebody else’s wheat-field and clenched his fist. Nowhere in the world is anything growing for him. This memory brought sad autumn weather to his mind. A deep sad fall ... and he comes[Pg 218] in a mist towards the town. He comes like an escaped convict brought back to his prison. Again the paved streets and narrow strips of smoky sky. Office, blotches of ink, paper and the old house, which is strange to him, and the lovely cold woman who does not understand him. Dim recollections stole upon him. Again he seemed to feel Anne’s two little protesting hands on his breast and that unsympathetic look which had more than once repelled his desire. He stretched his hand out of the window towards the chestnut tree. He picked a young shoot. The bough yielded itself easily, moist, fresh.... He thought of someone who had yielded herself as easily as the young shoot. She had been bred there on his old land, the daughter of the keeper in the swampy wood. Humble, as the former serf-girls had been with his ancestors, pretty too, with laughing eyes. She never asked what her master was brooding about, and yet she knew. The woods, the meadows, she too thought of them and she sang of them with the very voice of the earth. One did not need to listen, one could whistle, she expected no praise. No more do the birds.... Thomas could not remember how it was at first that he desired the girl. He simply wanted her, like the perfume of the woods, the soft meadows under his feet. His inherited man-conscience did[Pg 219] not reprove him. He did not think there was any sin, any unfaithfulness in it, for he did not love this girl. He really believed that he did not wrong Anne or deprive her of anything to which she attached any importance. He leaned again out of the window. He looked up to the sky. He would see it to-morrow above the woods.... Then he reached for his hat. A rare event with him, he longed to hear some gipsy music. He wanted to be solitary, somewhere where the fiddle played for him alone. He hesitated before Anne’s door. Should he go in? Perhaps she was still asleep.... His steps sounded in the sunshine room. Anne jumped up. If Thomas were to open the door she would throw herself into his arms ... but the steps passed by. She started to run after him, then stopped wearily before the threshold. She would abase herself uselessly. And as she stood there she remembered something. A dream. A desolated strange street. One solitary person at the furthest end. Thomas ... and she runs after him, but the distance does not become less. The street becomes longer. Thomas seems always further and further away and she cannot reach him.... She thought of her girlhood, the time full of promises. Was this to be their realization? Would everything remain forever like this?[Pg 220] Would she and Thomas never come together again? Live with each other and look at each other and remain strangers? She shuddered as though she were cold. Then she noticed that for a long time someone had been ringing the front door bell. Who could it be? The old friends came no more to her. Thomas was taciturn with them too. They may have thought it conceit and all stayed away. The relations of the Illey family were avoided by Anne. The voice of Bertha Bajmoczy stood between her and the descendants of the old landlords. A knock at the door. A lamp was burning in the corridor and the shape of a man appeared in the opening. It was Adam Walter. “After all this time....” And Anne thought how wonderful it was that the old friend should come back just this day when she felt her life so poor and lonely. Joy came to her heart for a moment. It seemed to her that her youth, her girlhood, had returned to her, with everything that distance embellished. Adam Walter was grave and serious like a man who has painful memories to bury in himself. Yet his eyes followed Anne’s movements eagerly while she reached to light the lamp. He longed and feared to see her face again. “She has suffered since I have seen her,” thought Adam Walter, “and it has beautified[Pg 221] her.” Anne’s veiled voice and her look broke open in him a wound which he thought had long ago healed. He too remembered his youth, when he went away from her all unsuspecting, when he worked, when he dreamed. Then he heard that Anne had married and in the same instant he realized that he loved her. He had loved her always. She seemed strangely tall and slender to him. The flame flared up. “To be here again with you ... it’s too good to be true.” “You ought not to speak like that.” Anne smiled her old, young smile, “or do you still say everything that passes through your mind? Do you remember the Ferdinand Müllers? And the new sign, the white head of Æsculapius? How we laughed....” “In those times everything was different,” said Walter dryly. Anne looked at him. “He too has become old. How hard his looks are,” and the smile that had rejuvenated her vanished from her face. And Walter’s voice became ironical. “And I thought I would create like God, just like Him. Then my opera failed, nobody wanted my sonatas. Nobody ... and now I am humbly thankful to become assistant professor in the National Academy of music.” He laughed lifelessly. “But perhaps it was bound to be like that. When a man in his youth wants[Pg 222] to become like God, he becomes at least an assistant professor in the end; who knows that if he had started with the ambition of becoming an assistant professor he would have ended by becoming nothing at all.” Anne looked sadly down. “So he too has failed to grasp what he reached for. Does nobody grasp it?” “Once upon a time we were all revolutionaries,” said Walter, “for is not youth a revolution in itself? We are all borne to the executioner: one for a thought, the other for a dream, and ... all of us for love. It sounds mad, but it is so. Man must die many deaths in himself to be able to live. I was just the same as the others and those that are young to-day are as we were in old times. In its unlimited conceit youth of every age believes that it has discovered the rising of the sun and all youth shouts vehemently that its sun will never set. That is as it ought to be. When the sun comes to set, the youth of another age believes the same thing. Men drop out, but their faith remains in others, and in others again, and that is the thing that matters.” It seemed to Anne, that Adam Walter, who once, when he was young, had guided her thoughts to freedom, now taught her the art of compromise. Again Walter attempted to be ironical, but his voice failed him. [Pg 223] “Man is full of colours, brilliant colours, when he starts. They all wear off. Only grey remains. The awful grey spreads and becomes greyer and greyer till it covers the man and his life.” “Oh, Walter, how sad all this is....” “To me it is sad no more. I have got over it. Don’t be sorry for me, please. Even for the grey people there are still some lovely things in this world. The grey ones see other people’s colours. They alone can see them truly. Since I have renounced creating myself, I enjoy peacefully, profoundly, other people’s creations. Before, I was aggressive and impatient, now I love even Schumann and Schubert, and all those who have dreamed and who woke from their dreams.” Anne sat with half-closed eyes, bent a little, and her pale hands were interlocked over her knee. “Have I grieved you?” asked Walter hesitatingly. The woman shook her head. “You have made me understand my own life....” “So she is no happier than I am,” thought Walter, and for the moment he felt irrepressibly reconciled to his fate. Then he was ashamed of the feeling. He had no right to it. Anne was not to blame for his state of mind. She knew nothing of it. “Do sing something....” [Pg 224] She looked at him with large, beaming eyes. It was a long time since anybody had said this to her. They began to talk of music. And this changed them into their old selves; they were boy and girl again, just as on Sundays in the old days. “Come again soon and bring your violin with you,” said Anne when they took leave of each other. Then it struck her that neither of them had mentioned Thomas. Adam Walter and Thomas Illey never became friends. They met with courteous rigidity. Adam Walter smiled disparagingly at Illey’s views, while Illey’s mocking gaze tried to call Anne’s attention to the musician’s ill-cut clothes and shapeless heavy boots. It mattered little to Anne. The piano stood mute no more in the sunshine room and a bright ray of light was cast on her life by the revival of music, which indifference and want of appreciation had silenced for so long. Its resurrection was her salvation. Her soul ceased to be strangled by the torture of enforced silence; it found relief and took flight on the wings of songs, attended, through many quiet evenings, by Walter’s soul cast into the music of his violin. Christopher looked in occasionally. He patted his old school-mate on the back and whistled softly to the music while he ran through Stock Exchange reports in the papers. Soon[Pg 225] after his uneven steps passed again through the corridor. He could not find peace anywhere. Calculations swarmed in his head. They appeared, but before he was able to grasp them they scattered and vanished. He had no idea if he was winning or losing and he dared not look at his accounts. Money became dearer and dearer. Banks restricted their credit. Suspicious rumours from Vienna reached the Stock Exchange of Pest. Quotations fluctuated and declined slowly, but he lacked the resolution to wind up his transactions. He was still waiting, still buying. He became intoxicated with the fascination of risks and blind hopes. His nerves were in a constant state of tremulous tension. The lust for gain became the torturing passion of his soul. His grandfather had been the money’s conqueror, his father its guardian and he, it seemed, was to become its adventurer. No matter, chance helped adventurers. His nights became very long. Restlessly, Christopher turned his head from one side to the other on his hot pillow. He rose early. He was no longer contented to send his agents on ’Change. He wanted to see the confusion, hear the noise, feel the universal pulsation of money as evinced in the excitement of the crowd. He rushed through the office. Otto Füger had become manager with full powers. He arranged[Pg 226] the cover for speculations, he received and paid out money in the name of the firm. Christopher had no time to see to anything. In unbusinesslike handwriting he put his name to anything. Then he rushed away, leaving the doors open behind him. It was a lovely May morning. At the Exchange in Dorothea Street brokers stood on the stairs and transacted their business, leaning against the balustrade. Men stood in small groups in the acid, stuffy air of the cloak-room. Subdued talk was heard here and there. An old fat man with his hat perched on the back of his head, passed wheat between his fingers from one hand to the other. Near the window a red-haired broker held some crushed maize in the palm of his hand. He lifted it up, now and then, and at intervals pushed his tongue out between his yellow teeth. Scattered grain crackled under people’s feet. Doors banged in the big hall of the Stock Exchange. The lesser fry was pushed back. There was a crush round the bankers’ boxes. Slowly the masters of the Exchange arrived. People saluted them respectfully, as if they were paid for it. The unimportant ones used to read their faces, the gestures of their hands. The great ones looked indifferent, though they were the men who held the secrets which mean money. Nervous heads swayed round a fat, owl-like face. Those behind pressed eagerly forward. [Pg 227] Near Christopher a red-eyed, seedy-looking man shrank to the wall. A worn out, long, silk purse was in his hand. He began to suck the ivory ring of the purse; people collided with him and the ring knocked against his teeth; but he went on sucking it. “I sell....” “I buy ...” cries came from all sides like the shrieks of hawks. Somebody’s hat fell on the floor ... it was trampled under foot. A freckled hand waved a bundle of papers. “I sell ...” it came denser and denser. The brokers of the big banks shouted themselves hoarse. The noise increased. The stocks fell. “Now ... now is the time to buy,” thought Christopher in deadly excitement. His shrieks joined the general pandemonium. “People’s Bank, ninety-two....” “Eighty ...” bellowed a brute voice. “Seventy-six....” Arms rose. Hands moved from their wrists, flabby, like rags. “Industrial Bank....” “Credit Institute....” “Forty-five ... forty-two.” Faces were aflame. The gamble became a wildfire, roasting people’s skins. Rumours spread through the hall. Nobody knew whence they came, they simply were suddenly there and then scattered all over the place. [Pg 228] A deafening uproar followed. People blindly believed anything. Prices fell. Somebody bought. Blind confidence returned. “I buy....” Unconfirmed news of disaster came again. The whole ’Change became a whirlpool, as if it had been stirred round. Nobody knew what was happening. Telegram forms flew over the place. Fists beat wildly on the air.... Everything was upside down. A man with sweaty face flew like an arrow into the crowd. “There is a Black Saturday in Vienna! News has just arrived. There is a slump all over Europe.” Quotations fell head over heel. A big broker tried to stem the tide. It swept him away. It was all over.... In a few seconds people, families, institutions, were ruined. Lost were the easily-won fortunes of the day before, never seen by those who owned them. Lost were the old fortunes amassed by the hard work of several generations.... Christopher leaned his snow-white face against the wall. Near him, the seedy-looking man continued mechanically to suck the ring of his purse. He could not take his eyes off him. He stared at him while he was ruined. The brokers came panting. No, it was now impossible to sell anything. What stood for money an hour ago had become a valueless scrap of paper. [Pg 229] The porter of the Stock Exchange rang the bell. The death-knell. Christopher could only mumble. Nobody listened to him, his own agents left him there. Only the weird man looked at him with funny, bloodshot eyes. Then strange faces passed quite near to his face. A sickening smell of perspiration moved with them in the air. Christopher’s eyes became rigid and glassy. Faces ... faces of a strange race. Some smiled pale smiles. These had won. Everything would be theirs, it was only a question of time. Theirs the gold, the town, the country. And the grandson of Ulwing the builder, ruined, tottered through the gates of the Stock Exchange among the new men. Life became confused and dreary. After Black Saturday, the Stock Exchange differences were enormous. No bright Sunday shone for Christopher. He had to pay, and, as he had never reckoned, he attacked Anne’s fortune too. This was a secret between Otto Füger and himself. He said nothing of it to Thomas. He clutched like a drowning man. He wanted to turn everything into money. To hide the truth, to keep up appearances as long as possible ... fighting, lying. Sometimes Otto Füger whispered into his ears and then he shrivelled up and looked horrified at the door. [Pg 230] “No, no, tell them to-morrow.... It cannot be done to-day!” From day to day, from hour to hour, he kept things going and the strings of his nerves tightened in his neck. To gain time, if only minutes ... even a minute is a long time for a man clinging to his life. Summer passed like this and then, in autumn, came the terrible wave of bankruptcy affecting the whole building trade. The firm of Münster became insolvent. Many of the new businesses went bankrupt. Christopher alone kept himself still going and one afternoon he carried his last hope to Paternoster Street. No one took any notice of him in the office. One inferior clerk to whom he told his name stared over his head. He had to wait a long time before he entered the manager’s office. The manager was reading a letter at his writing-table and seemed to take no notice of his presence. Christopher could not help remembering how different everything had been when he signed his first bill in this same office. The smoky low room had disappeared and the business occupied the whole building. It had become a bank. His eyes were arrested by the fat, owl-like head of the all-powerful manager. He recognised in him suddenly the little owl-faced clerk who in those old times cringed humbly before[Pg 231] him. The proportions of his face had doubled since, and so had his body; there was scarcely room enough for him in the armchair. The director came to the letter’s end. He lowered his head like a bull preparing to charge and his dull eyes looked suspiciously over his spectacles at Christopher. “I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Ulwing? Yes ... of course, of course, I know the firm. A connection dating from our youth.... Once I happened to have the good fortune of meeting a certain old Mr. Christopher Ulwing. Any relation of yours? A powerful man, a distinguished man.” “My grandfather....” The manager became at once very polite. He offered Christopher a seat. “Can I be of any service to you?” Christopher was startled by this question, though he had naturally expected it. He cast his eyes down, pale, suffering. He would have liked to defer the answer. Until it was given there was still one last hope. After that none might be left. Owl-face moved the side-pieces of his gold-rimmed spectacles which made an impression on his fleshy temples. “I am at your orders,” he said a little impatiently, looking at the clock on the wall. Christopher made an effort. [Pg 232] “I want a loan.” The manager at once became cold and haughty. “Everybody wants one nowadays. Black Saturday has ruined many people.” “I don’t deny that it has caused some temporary embarrassment to my firm too....” “I know,” said the manager drily. The whole face of Christopher was anxiously convulsed. “A short loan would help me considerably....” “What security do you offer? The name of Ulwing?” Owl-face smiled, “that I am afraid is no longer enough....” “My books are at your disposal, allow me ...” stuttered Christopher. He felt clearly that he was humiliating himself before a stranger, though he knew but dared not confess to himself that it was useless. He also knew that it was hopeless to argue and still he argued. The manager looked coldly into his eyes. “The Bank is carefully informed of everything.” Christopher drew his head between his shoulders as if expecting a blow. He twisted his mouth helplessly to one side. “You came too late to me, much too late,” continued Owl-face. “Is it not a fact that the house alone remains the property of the Ulwings?[Pg 233] It is true it could not be sold at present. Times are bad, but if I remember aright the grounds are exceptionally large, well situated in the middle of the town, and could bear a heavy mortgage.” Christopher hung his head in desperation. The manager looked at him over his spectacles expectantly. For an instant, kind, human pity appeared in his eyes, then he sighed and dropped his hand with a heavy movement on his knee. “I can lend you money on the house. That is the only way I can do it.” With a motion of his hand, Christopher waved the suggestion away. He was in the mire, but he had strength enough to escape drowning in it. He struggled no more with himself. He felt he could never touch the house. At least let that be preserved clear for Anne. The house, the dear old house.... The banker rose when he had shaken hands with Christopher and went with him to the door. “I was a great admirer of Mr. Ulwing the builder. I am sorry I cannot oblige his grandson. Perhaps another time,” he added in a murmur, as if he did not believe it himself. Christopher smiled convulsively, painfully. Even when he reached the street this smile remained on his face and tortured his features. He caught hold of the corner of his mouth and pulled it downwards, sideways. He did not know where he went. He ran[Pg 234] into people. An old gentleman shouted at him angrily: “Can’t you look out, young man?” Christopher looked at him wearily. He thought how this old man was younger than he, because he would live longer than he. When he reached home, he threw himself on his bed. Curiously, he fell asleep at once. The heavy dreams of exhaustion took possession of him. Sweat ran from his brow. When he woke, it was quite dark in the room. At first he knew not where he was, nor what had happened. Then, with a shock, he remembered. He moaned like a suffering animal that cannot tell its pains.... He could stand solitude no more. Already he was on the threshold. On the staircase he looked at his watch. Eleven o’clock. He knocked timidly at the door of the sunshine room. “Anne, are you asleep?” “Yes, a long time ago,” answered his sister inside. The door opened. Anne tried to look gay, but her eyes were sad. “Do you remember, Christopher, how often you asked that question in the old times from your little railed bed?” “And you answered then as you did now. Then too I was afraid.” Anne looked him straight in the eyes. “What do you mean?” Christopher laughed curiously. [Pg 235] “Can’t I make a joke when I am merry? And what are you doing so late?” He looked at the table. Under the shaded lamp lay account books and bills. “I have learnt about accounts,” said Anne wearily, “so many bills have accumulated lately. The tradesmen worry me and I receive no money from the office. I cannot understand why Otto Füger delays things like this.” She stopped suddenly, thinking of something else. “Did you hear?” and she began to run towards the nursery. Christopher dragged his steps behind her. On the chest of drawers a night-lamp was burning. In the deep recess of the earthenware stove water was warming in a jug. Anne leaned over one of the beds and her voice sounded softly in the silence of the room: “Here I am....” Christopher’s heart was touched by these three short words, which meant so much. He too had, once upon a time, slept in the very same little bed, he too had waked with a start, had been afraid, but no mother’s voice came to say: “Here I am.” He had never known a light cool hand caressing for caresses’ sake, two warm womanly arms embracing chastely, nor the clear smile that has no design. He did not know her who understands all and forgives all, and who says when one is miserable: “Here I am!” Yet just that might have been enough to alter his life. [Pg 236] “They are lucky,” muttered Christopher as he went back to the sunshine room. Anne, before shutting the door behind her, put a piece of paper between the two wings. She never forgot that. The loose old doors had glass panes and rattled if a carriage passed down below in the street; this frightened little Ladislaus. “This ought to be set right....” Christopher sat in silence in the corner of the sofa with the many flowers. He paid no attention. Under his motionless eyelids he looked wearily all round the room. He noticed suddenly that Anne said nothing. Why did she not speak? She would help him if she said something, anything, words, ordinary matter-of-fact everyday words, which had a sound, which lived and caught hold of his mind, which held him back if only for a minute at the brink of the abyss which threatened him and filled him with horror. “Anne, tell me a story.” She looked up from the little drawer into which she had locked her bills. “Tell you a story? What are you thinking about? How can I tell a story who am living within four walls?” she smiled and put her hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Well, little Chris, once upon a time there was an old house: in that house lived a woman who never could sleep her fill, because her two sons waked her up early every morning....” Christopher’s face twitched as he rose. [Pg 237] “You are right, let us go to sleep....” He bent down and kissed his sister’s hand. “Good night, Anne, and....” He wanted to say something more, but turned his head away with an effort and left the room. In the corridor he stopped near the loose stone slab and tried it. It was still loose. The ticking of the marble clock accompanied him once more down the stairs. In his deep, vaulted room a candle was burning, but the small flame could not cope with the big room and left cavelike dark corners. A big white spot attracted Christopher’s eyes. While he had been with Anne, the servant had made his bed and his clothes for the morrow were lying there ready on a chair. He could not bear this sight. To-morrow.... He choked. In that moment a delicate crackling reached his ear. He turned towards it. The fire was burning in the stove and shone through the old tiles. Christopher went up to it, leaned his hand on the stove and looked through the ventilators. Small flames flickered among the logs. He looked at them for some time with extraordinary interest, then raised himself with a sigh. Life had deprived him of everything. Whenever he inspected closely things he believed in, he always found them to be delusions, just like the stove fairies. He had been running after delusions too when he had fallen. He had[Pg 238] broken when he fell; it was useless to try to stand up again; he could do it no more. Even if he could, what good would it be? All the people he had come in contact with had broken a piece off his soul, taken it with them and cast it away. Where was he to seek the scattered pieces?... What was left to him was too little for life. A little honour, very little. A little pity for Anne ... nothing else. His hand slid from the stove. Why warm it now, it was no longer worth while.... He went to the writing-table. Then, as if disgusted, he pushed the papers away from himself. He turned back at the threshold. He threw a packet of letters into the fire. He put his watch and his empty purse on the table. No, he had nothing else on him. In the garden the autumnal leaves rustled gently, as if somebody’s teeth chattered in the dark. Christopher slunk with bent back out of the gate ... only the two pillar-men looked after him. “Just like a thief.” Somehow, he could not understand why, his grandfather’s funeral came to his mind. The mayor, the city councillors, the flags of the guilds. The priests sang and the bells tolled.... He leaned back, then he went on with his unsteady, heavy steps. The night was dense. In the mist the city looked like a reflection in grey, murky water. The light of the gas lamps faded away into the[Pg 239] air, the walls of the houses faded, the people’s faces faded. With a shudder Christopher turned up the collar of his coat. He reached the Danube. He sought his way between the barrels and bags of the docks. Then he sat down on the lowest step, put his arms around his shins and leaned his forehead on his knees. He only wanted to rest for an instant. Just for a short time. He opened his eyes. Why did he wait? All that was worth waiting for had gone. In the damp air, the Danube seemed to rise.... It approached him with a soft black movement. He shrank back instinctively, as if to escape, and his hands clung in horror to the stones. Suddenly this passed away. The great river became beautiful and calm. The lamps of the shore dipped swaying stairs of fire into the deep. The river ceased to be hostile to Christopher. It whispered to him and, as if recognising him, it called him, as it had called the Ulwings of old. The tired soul of Christopher responded to the appeal and his body followed his soul. After that he never came back again. <hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> [Pg 240] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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