“Weep, Anne, it will do you good and forgive me if you can. I did not understand you, that is what made your life so heavy at my side.” He shut his eyes and remained a long time without moving; only his face was now and again convulsed as if something sobbed within him. Then he drew Anne’s head to his heart.
“Here ... close, quite close.... This was yours, yours alone.... Anne.... Anne....” repeated his voice further and further away, “Anne....”
That was the last word, as if of all the words of life it were the only one he wanted to take with him on the long, lone road.
Before night came Thomas Illey was no more.
That night Anne kept vigil between two dead. Her husband ... and the old house.
When day broke somebody came into the room and flung his arms around her. Her son. Thomas’s son.
Leaning on his arm Anne left the strange house behind Thomas’s coffin. And the younger boy, fair and blue-eyed held her hand close and clung to her.
Thomas was borne away. It was his wish to be buried in Ille. Anne and the two boys went in a carriage through the town to the station.
It was a warm summer night. The gas lamps were already alight. Here and there electric globes hung like glowing silver-blue drops from their wires. Illuminated shops, show windows, large coffee houses with glaring windows. Servites’ Place, Grenadier’s Street ... and on what had once been the Grassalkovich corner an electric clock marked the time.
The carriage turned a corner, the pavements on both sides swarmed with pushing crowds. ’Buses, carriages, the hum of voices, glaring posters, people. Many people, everywhere.