The Old House: A Novel

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...

It was evening. Winter hung white over the earth. Great snowflakes crept over the snow towards the coach. They moved ghostlike over the silent, treeless plain. Mountains rose be...

Things and events in which Christopher had had a hand passed slowly, painfully into oblivion. Hope was exhausted and the old house awaited no more the home-coming of the last Ul...

The old house was in flower. Never before had so many roses blossomed in the garden. Anne wanted it so. She carried the flowers into the house and went, faintly smiling, from ro...

In a city night is never fully asleep. Somehow, it is forever awake. Here and there it opens its eye in a window and winks. A door opens with a gaping mouth. Steps are about. Th...

Days passed by. The bombardment ceased. Frightened shapes emerged from the cellars. Shrinking against the walls, they stared at the conflagration and when they had to cross a st...

Winter came many times. Summer came many times. The children did not count them. Meanwhile an iron chain bridge had grown together from the two banks of the Danube. Even when th...

Silence reigned in the deserted old nursery. Since Christopher’s departure Anne had been very lonely. She would often rise from the work table during the afternoon and go quietl...

The old man and the little girl walked slowly down to the banks of the river. The little squares of the windows and the two figures under the porch gazed for a long time after t...

The Inner Town was preparing to celebrate the centenary of the chemist’s shop at the sign of the Holy Trinity. The invitations were extended to distinguished members of neighbou...

The house was empty and silence nestled between its walls. It was a memorable event for the corridor to hear the sound of steps. The ticking of the marble clock resounded throug...

Strange steps walked through the house, indifferent, careless steps. They passed along the corridor and went up even to the attics. Down in the courtyard bleak business voices b...

An open gas flame whistled in the narrow anteroom. The neglected doors were shabby and the dark rooms only remembered people who had not cared for them and were for ever moving on.

Anne had no presentiment that she went to meet her own summer when one day she walked on the bank of the Danube towards the island. Christopher, who accompanied her, had, as usu...

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...

Ulwing the builder was carried out of the old house and the pillar-men looked into the hearse. Following behind, the mitred abbot, lighted wax candles, singing priests; the Mayo...

Anne leaned her forehead against the window pane. A sound came from outside as if a drum were being beaten underground. The heavy steps of the new national guard rang rhythmical...

“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...

“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 stuc...