The crevice grew alarmingly in the yellow wall. By and by the whole front became one crevice. One could look into the rooms. From the street people stared in and this affected Anne as if impertinent, inquisitive strangers spied into the past of her private life.
Here and there the green wallpaper clung tenaciously to the ruins. A round black hole glared in a corner from which the stove pipes had been torn remorselessly: the tunnel of Christopher’s stove-fairies. In some places the torn up floor boards hung in the air and the dark passages of the demolished chimneys looked as if a sooty giant finger had been drawn along the wall.
On the further side, the row of semi-circular windows in the corridor became visible. The trees of the back garden stretched their heads and looked out into the street. Then one day they stood there no longer. When the heavy waggon drove jerkily with them through the gaping door, Anne recognized each, one by one. On the top lay a crippled trunk and the boards of the cracked, round seat spread from it in splinters.
Everything went quickly now; even the two pillar-men lay on their backs on the pavement of the street. When evening came and the labourers had gone, Anne snatched a shawl and ran down the stairs. She wanted to take leave of the pillar-men. She bent down and looked into their faces. The light of the street lamp which used to shine into the green room, lit up the two stone figures. They looked as if they had died.
Steps approached from the street corner. Anne withdrew into the former entrance. Two men came down the street. The elder stopped; his voice sounded clear:
“Once this was the house of Ulwing the builder.”
The younger, indifferent, stepped over the head of one of the stone figures.
“Ulwing the builder?” Suddenly he looked interestedly at the mutilated walls.
“Ulwing? ... any relation of the clockmaker of Buda?”
“His brother.”