Christopher looked after her for a long time.
The side whiskers of the chemist floated in the breeze from the river. Mrs. Ferdinand Müller was holding forth on the prospects of the camomile crops. Little hunchback Gál, the mercenary wine-merchant, complained that less wine was consumed now in Pest than of old.
“I want drunkards!” he shouted, and laughed at his sally.
Behind them two shop assistants carried a basket. Long-necked bottles protruded from it.
Anne looked at Thomas Illey. She was struck by his height and proportions. His face seemed elegant in its narrowness. She felt drawn towards him.
“Let us go after them,” she said in a whisper, as if to appease her conscience.
“Later on....” Christopher laughed and went in the opposite direction. He began to talk of Art. He said he would like to be a painter. He would paint a landscape, a wood. A fire would burn under the trees and in the flames small, red-bodied fairies would sway. He would also paint a high, white castle. On the top of a mountain, a high, solitary mountain. On the bastion a white woman with shaded eyes would stand, her hair alone would be black and float in the wind like a standard. He changed his subject suddenly. He spoke of music: of Bach and Mozart. Cleverly he managed to remain in his depth; then he started whistling the tune of a valse, gently, sweetly. He casually mentioned that it was his own composition.
He also spoke of travels, though he had never made a journey, of architecture, of books he had never read, laughing in between with childish boisterous laughter.
Anne looked upon him as if he were a conjurer. How amiable he could be when he wanted to, and for the moment she saw in him the Christopher of old, with his fair hair shining like silver, and his pale face.
Then again Thomas Illey alone was near Anne. At the upper point of the island it felt like standing on an anchored ship. In front of them a narrow pebbly strip of land, cutting the stream in two. The river split. It ran down gurgling on both sides. Suddenly the water stopped and the island began to move. The island had weighed anchor ... the ship started carrying them towards the shoreless Infinite.