He got into the way of dreaming stories. If, while day-dreaming, somebody addressed him unexpectedly, it made him jump and blush, as though caught in the act of doing wrong. Then he would run to his school books and try hard to do some work. He learned with ease; once read, his lesson was learnt, but he could not fix his attention for any time. Instead of that, he drew fantastic castles, girls and long-eared cats on the margins of his copy book. While he was thus engaged, his conscience was painfully active and reminded him incessantly that he was expected to study the reign of King Béla III or the course of the tributaries of the Danube. Perspiration appeared upon his brow. In his terror he could not do his work. Every boy up to the letter U had already been called up in school and he was sure that his turn would come next day.
As he had expected, he was questioned and knew nothing. A fly buzzed in the air. He felt as though it buzzed within his head. The boys laughed. Gabriel Hosszu prompted aloud, Adam Walter held his book in front of him, the master scolded. But, when the year came to an end, nobody dared to plough the grandson of Ulwing the builder. Christopher began to perceive that some invisible power protected him everywhere. The master told him the questions of the coming examination. For a few coloured marbles Gabriel Hosszu prompted him in Latin. For a half penny little Gál, the hunchback, did his arithmetic homework.
“Things end by coming all right,” thought Christopher, when the terrifying thought of school intruded while he drew cats or modelled clay men in the garden instead of doing his homework.
“That boy can do anything he likes,” said old Ulwing, delighted with Christopher’s drawings, and locked them carefully away in one of the many drawers of his writing-table.
This frightened Christopher. What did the grown-up people want to do with him? He lost his pleasure in drawing and gave up modelling clay men in the courtyard. He became envious of Anne. She had little to learn and nobody expected great things from her.
About this time Anne began to feel lonely. Her bewildered eyes seemed in search of explanations. She grew fast and her silvery fair hair became darker as if something had cast a shadow over it.
Mrs. Füger pushed her spectacles up into the starched frills of her bonnet and looked at her attentively.
“Just now you held your head exactly as your mother used to. Dear good Mrs. Christina!”
Hearing this, Anne, who stood in the middle of the back garden, leaned her head still more sideways. However, it puzzled her that a person who was still a child could possibly resemble somebody who was so very old as to have gone to heaven. Mrs. Füger smiled strangely. In her old mind, Anne’s mother, who had died young, could not age and remained for ever so; while this young girl, who had no memory of her mother, thought of her as incredibly old.
“Mrs. Christina was sixteen years old when young Mr. Ulwing asked Ulrich Jörg for her hand. Sixteen years old. When she came here she brought dolls with her too. She would have liked to play battledore and shuttlecock with her husband in the garden. Every evening she would slip in here and ask me to tell her stories.”