Now they were shouting it in the street, persistently, sharply. Carts were thundering towards the Danube.
John Hubert rushed to the door. At the threshold it looked as if he were going to fall. He staggered and turned back. He began to calculate, perspiring with fear. His brain added and multiplied confusedly, intensely. The loss was gigantic. The quantity of timber and building material was enormous. The firm might be shaken by it. Helplessly he stared at his father. But in the armchair there sat but the ghost of an old man, smiling like a mask into the light of the conflagration. Nothing more could be expected from him. His knees began to shake.
Anne was worn out and looked wearily towards the window. She did not dare to move her head. Something was giving way behind her brow.
Black figures were starting up on the walls of the yard. They pumped water on the fire. People were standing on the roofs of the opposite houses too.
Sooty horrors staggered in the air near the tar boiler. A suffocating smell of burning poured through the windows. The conflagration spread with awful speed. It raced towards the wall of the back garden.
A burning pile collapsed in the timber yard.
In the ominous light of the rooms Tini and the maidservants were gesticulating madly before the open cupboards.
Anne leaned against the wall. “They want to abandon the house, they want to flee.”
“Save it, save it!” she shrieked with a bloodless face.
Augustus Füger dropped panting into the room. He brought news. Now he was gone. Now he was back again.