People began to understand the grim realities of war; what was happening now roused their understanding. They thronged in front of the money-changers’ shops. Soldiers’ swords rattled on the pavement. Everybody hurried as if he had some urgent business to settle before nightfall.
Anne was at her music lesson when a huge black and yellow flag was hoisted on a flagstaff on the bastions of Buda. In those times, flags changed frequently.
“Freedom is dead,” said Sztaviarsky and cursed in Polish.
“Freedom!” Anne thought of the two feverish eyes. So it was for freedom’s sake that there was a war? She now looked angrily on the Croatian soldiers whom the Imperial officers had quartered on them. The red-faced sergeant was eating a raw onion in the middle of the courtyard. The soldiers, like clumsy big children, were throwing snowballs. They trod on the shrubs, made havoc of everything. They made a snow-man in front of the pump and covered the head with a red cap like the one worn by Hungarian soldiers; then they riddled it with bullets....
The snow-man had melted away. Slowly the lilac bushes in the garden began to sprout. The Croatians were washing their dirty linen near the pump. They stood half-naked near the troughs. The wind blew soapsuds against their hairy chests.
All of a sudden an unusual bugle call was heard; it sounded like a cry of distress. Anne ran to the window. Soldiers were running in front of the house. In the courtyard the Croatians were snatching their shirts from the trough and putting them on, all soaking. They rode off after the rest and did not come back again.
A few days later, Anne dreamed at night that there was a thunderstorm. Towards morning there was a sound in the room as if peas by the handful were being thrown against the window panes—many, many peas. Later, as if some invisible bodies were precipitated through the air, every window of the house was set a-rattling.
“Put up the wooden shutters!” shouted the builder from the porch.
Christopher came breathlessly up the stairs. “School is closed!” His pocket bulged with barley sugar and he was stuffing it into his mouth, two pieces at a time.
John Hubert, who had run to school for Christopher, arrived behind him. His lovely, well-groomed hair was hanging over his forehead and the correct necktie had slipped to one side of his collar. Gasping he called Florian and had the big gate locked behind him.