The memories of her young life came slowly, dimly at first, then they raced in vivid crowds.
Sunday afternoons. Stories and Uncle Sebastian. The scent of newly-hewn oak logs and her grandfather. Music, dreams, her mother’s portrait. That was all. Years ... years of childhood.
She sat down on the seat round the apple tree and leaned her head against the tree’s trunk.
The sky was green between the leaves. The apple tree was in blossom. Her grandfather Jörg’s shop came to her mind. And a voice and a song. How confused all this was. She thought suddenly of two feverish eyes, but somehow saw them in Adam Walter’s face. Then Mrs. Walter.... The voice of Bertha Bajmoczy and railings around men. Small iron railings even in the cemetery. They ceased on a hill-side. A glen between the trees. She might turn her face towards it. And from the foot-path why should she not turn back, just simply look behind her without any cause, when there was nobody left in the glen....
She looked up. She felt eyes resting on her: Otto Füger was standing in the bushes. From her childhood she had known this shifty, obstinate look. It was everywhere, over her father’s writing-table, in the porch, sometimes even at night, outside, under the window.
The expression of the short-sighted eyes became at once persistent and obsequious. Anne would have liked to cast it from her. She nodded and went into the house.
In the evening, she sat up late for Christopher. He did not come. This night seemed longer to her than any others, it whispered to her anxious, fearful premonitions.
Next day, Christopher confessed to his sister that he had gambled and lost. And Anne also learned that she would never see her grandfather’s snuff-box again.
CHAPTER XII
It was still spring, but summer had already touched the Danube and in the middle of the river the Palatine Island sprang into bloom like a floating forest.