Cécile Tormay

“ CHAPTER VI 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Christopher looked at her in amazement. He had never heard his sober, serious sister sing like that. All looked at Anne. Not one of them understood what had happened, yet they felt a strange warm light thrill through them.
“How beautiful she looks when she is singing!” thought Thomas Illey.
People do not see each other always, only now and then for a moment. Thomas Illey saw Anne in this moment. He turned a little pale and felt as if a hot caressing hand fanned the air near his face. He lost control over his eyes and passionately they took possession of the girl. ”

“ The bricks under the whitewash, the beams, the arches, all were creations of one single force and she felt herself one with them as if she had grown from between the walls, as if she were just a chip of them, a chip privileged to move and say aloud what they had to suffer in silence.
She thought of the finished lives, continued in her who had survived everybody. Mysterious memories of events she had never witnessed invaded her mind. Grafts from memories treasured up by the house of the Ulwings.
Since the clock had stopped, time ceased to exist for Anne. ”

“ A half-opened drawer, an empty cupboard, could stop Anne for hours. In her poor tortured brain memories alone had room. Everything spoke of the past. Even in the attics she only met with memories.
Uncle Sebastian’s shaky winged armchair; the grimy engravings of Fischer von Erlach and Mansard; the out of date coloured map of Pest-Buda.... She took the map to the light of the attic window. For a long time she contemplated the lines of the short crooked streets, the Danube painted blue, the small vessels of the boat-bridge, the small churches, the many empty building plots. ”

“ That is not an explanatory imitation of nature, it is man’s only artistic achievement which lives in him, and comes out of his very own self.”
“I think so too,” said Anne gently. “Every art represents what exists, music alone creates what has never existed.”
“How they agree,” thought Thomas, vexed. Then, rather disdainfully:
“Do not the musicians learn from the reeds, the thunder, the wind, the birds?”
“Nature only knows harmony and discord,” answered Adam Walter, “melody has been created by man. Nature knows no melody.” ”

“ A family survives only if it is rooted in the soil. It is hopeless for a tree to cast its seeds on the pavements of cities; lasting life is impossible there. The families of city folk are like their houses and last but three generations. Country people are like the earth. The earth outlives a house.... If only I could go home, everything would be different.”
Astonishment disappeared from Anne’s face and an indescribable terror appeared in its stead.
“And the house! We shall have to leave here!”
“Don’t be frightened,” said Thomas icily. ”

“ Adam Walter shook his head.
“I am afraid we don’t understand each other.”
“It seems impossible,” said Illey. “You are one of those who like the painted landscape more than the real, live country. I don’t want to smell the violet in the scent bottle, but at the edge of the woods.”
Walter looked suddenly at Anne and then, as if comparing her with Thomas.
“Mr. Illey, you seem to me like the music of the Tsigans.”
“Tsigan music,” repeated Anne thoughtfully, “and I, what am I?” ”

“ First she only saw the setting: the small clockmaker’s shop, her grandfather in front of a large, semi-circular window, the old hand of Uncle Sebastian, the violet-coloured tail coat, the buckled shoes. She heard his voice again. Broken, unconnected words came to her mind, reached her heart ... and then, suddenly, there was light.
“No, people don’t know what their neighbour’s real face is like.... Everybody wears a mask, nobody has the courage to take it off, nobody dares to be the first because he cannot know whether the others will follow his example, or stone him.” ”

“ Anne and Adam Warner looked at each other.
They felt an irresistible desire to laugh and in this sympathy they became friends over the heads of the crowd.
Sztaviarsky played his march at an ever-increasing speed. The crinolines began to whirl round. Wheels of airy, frilly tarlatan, pink, yellow, blue. Dancing had begun round the piano.
For a brief moment Sophie found herself pressed against the wall near John Hubert. She raised her big, soft eyes to his, as if to ask him a question. But she found something cold, final, in John Hubert’s looks. The girl turned away. Her eyes fell on Christopher. ”

“ Christopher Ulwing drew out his snuff box. It was his father’s work and his only inheritance. He tapped it lightly with two fingers. As it sank back into his pocket, he bent towards the window.
His house now became distinctly visible; the steep double roof, the compact storied front, the mullioned windows in the yellow wall, the door of solid oak with its semi-circular top like a pair of frowning eyebrows. Two urns stood above the ends of the cornice and two caryatid pillars flanked the door. Every recess, every protruding wall of the house appeared soft and white. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oil lamps burnt in the streets at nightfall and the Ulwing house no longer stood alone on the shore. The value of the ground owned by the great carpenter had soared. Walls grew up from the sand. Streets started on the waste land, stopped, went on again. Work, life, houses, brick-built houses, everywhere.
Everything changed; only Ulwing the builder remained the same. His clever eyes remained sharp and clear. He walked erect on the scaffoldings, in the office, in the timber yard. He was a head taller than anybody else. They feared him at the Town Hall and the contractors hated him. ”

“ She blushed faintly and recovered herself. She remembered that whenever she was seeking pure tenderness, Thomas gave her something else. Men never understand women when they ask them for something for their soul.
Anne stood a moment longer near her husband and then, as if overflowing with feelings she could not express, she moved irresistibly towards the piano.
“You want to sing?” asked Thomas, out of humour now. “Has not Adam Walter promised to come? You will be able to have plenty of music then.” ”

“ Adam Walter wrinkled his low brow. He smiled with mocking forbearance.
Anne looked at him as if making a request that he should not continue the subject. It was always painful to her when her husband talked of these things. She found him on these occasions hopelessly inconsequent, obstinately perverse. She did not like to see him like that.
“I know you are angry if I say so,” Thomas continued lightheartedly, “but my Hungarian breed can see nothing in Art but an explanatory imitation of Nature. We have no need of artists to stand between us and living nature. ”

“ Christopher laughed and went in the opposite direction. He began to talk of Art. He said he would like to be a painter. He would paint a landscape, a wood. A fire would burn under the trees and in the flames small, red-bodied fairies would sway. He would also paint a high, white castle. On the top of a mountain, a high, solitary mountain. On the bastion a white woman with shaded eyes would stand, her hair alone would be black and float in the wind like a standard. ”

“ Now it seemed to her that Thomas Illey gave words to the voice and that she began to understand events of her childhood.
John Hubert too followed Illey’s word attentively and thought of his father, Ulwing the builder. What he had done and felt for the town, Illey felt for the country and would like to do for the whole country. How was that possible?
He smiled soberly. “They are all the same, the Hungarian gentry. Every one of them wants to save the whole country, yet if each of them grappled with a small part of it, they would achieve more.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ A motionless figure stood at the street corner under a lamp peering into the windows of the passing carriages. Suddenly he looked no longer towards the carriages. His dark sad eyes rested on Anne. He held his hat low in his hand and snow fell on his thin face.
[Pg 188]
They clasped each other’s hands and the peace of their mind was like the languid moment, still incredible, when a bodily pain has abruptly ceased to torture.
The sound of rolling carriages spread in all directions. Occasional laughter flared up among the human voices, dying away at a distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Theirs was the winged pump of the well, theirs the circular seat round the apple tree. Their kingdom.... In winter the garden seemed small, but in summer when the trees were covered with leaves and the lilac-bushes hid the secret places, it became enormous. Through its high wall a gate led to the world’s end; a grilled gate which grown-ups alone were privileged to open.
Sometimes Anne and Christopher would peep longingly for hours through its rails. They could see the roof of the tool-shed, the tar boiler and a motley of pieces of timber, beams, floorings, piles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He stared into space.
“He exaggerates,” thought Anne, and repressed what came to her lips. She thought of her grandfather who had built so much. And this young man?... His words demolished whatever they touched.
[Pg 112]
“You exaggerate,” she said aloud. “I was taught that old age and those who were before us ought to be respected.”
“That is not true,” said Adam Walter with warmth. “I hate every former age because it stands in the way of my own. The past is a millstone round our necks. The future is a wing. I want to fly!”
Anne followed his words bewildered. ”