“I remain here,” was the determined answer, and he picked the axe up from the sand.
The clerk watched him carefully and nodded approvingly. A few minutes later, the bags slid speedily down the improvised slide, and the barge, like a greedy monster, gulped them up into its maw.
The boat and brother Sebastian left the shore. They were already in the middle of the Danube. The stream and the oars, chance and will, carried his life into the opposite town. Christopher Ulwing remained in Pest. Next day, he worked in the office of the ship-broker. Then he went into the timber yard. Then further. Advancing. Rising. And the town grew with him as if their fate had been one.
Vainly did Anne ask a thousand little questions; her grandfather did not answer. He walked far behind his present self.
They reached the boat-bridge. Here too the men saluted. The collector asked for no toll. At the bridge-head, the sentry presented arms.
“Why?” Anne had asked this question every time she had crossed the bridge in her short life.
“They know me,” the builder answered simply.
What need was there for the children to know that he owned the bridge, had contracted for the right of way over the river; that the many rafts floating down the Danube were his as well as the land above them on the banks.
The bridge trembled rhythmically. The stream rocked the boats. It foamed, splashed, as if thirsty giant animals were lapping at the hulls of the many chained little boats. Lamps stood near the pillars. In the middle, a coloured spot above the water: the guardian saint of the river, the carved image of St. John Nepomuk. Beneath it, people passed to and fro, raising their hats.
Anne pointed to the saint: “People salute him too, even more than Grandpa.” And she was a little envious.