For days Sebastian Ulwing had not emerged from his shop. He spoke to no one, knew of nothing. He lived on bread and read Demokritos. Occasionally the gleam of torches came through the cracks in his door. Their rigid beam made the round of the shop and then ran out again. The heavy steps of soldiers resounded in the street. Sometimes the guns spoke and the house shook.
On that evening everything was in expectant silence. It was about ten o’clock. All of a sudden it seemed to Sebastian Ulwing that there had been a knock at his door.
What happened? His heart began to beat anxiously and he thought of the Ulwing’s house. He could not endure the doubt, took his hat, but turned back at the threshold and, as he had done every evening, he walked again all over the shop. He wound up all the clocks, looking at them as if he were giving them food. Then, with his shaky helpless steps, he crawled out into the street.
May was all over the deserted castle. The clockmaker began to hurry. He raised his hat when he passed the church of Our Lady. He turned towards the Fisherman’s bastion.
Beyond the wall, down below, the shore of Pest was black.
Sebastian Ulwing forced his eyes to find the direction of the Ulwing’s house. He exclaimed softly. In the long row on the dark shore one window was lit.... He knew it was for him. His old heart warmed with gratitude.
Thoughtlessly, he leaned down and swept the rubbish together that lay about his feet. He piled it up on the wall of the bastion; then tenderly, with great care, he tore the title page from his “Demokritos, or a Laughing Philosopher.” He took a match. He wanted to thank Anne for the signal. The paper flared up, the rubbish caught fire and the flame jumped up with a shining light.
Just then, the clockmaker felt himself kicked on the back. He heard a shot and fell on his knees near the bastion. He grazed his chin against the wall. Annoyed, he put his hand up to it. He felt sick. It occurred then to him to look behind. Nobody was near. The window of one house rattled. Under the church a light Austrian uniform disappeared in the dark.
When nothing more was audible, Sebastian Ulwing held on to the stones and got up. In front of the church he raised his hat again. Somehow, he could not put it back on his head: it dropped out of his hand. He looked sadly after it but did not bend down for it. For an instant he leaned against the monument of the Holy Trinity. As if it were a nail which had pegged down the square in the middle, only the monument remained steady; the rest turned round him slowly, heaving all the time.
“I am giddy,” he thought and spat in disgust. He wanted to hurry, because he had already taken many steps and was still in the square. He felt like a man in a dream who wants to hurry on and remains painfully on the same spot.