and full of
chivalrous respect toward her. This at least comforted her to a
certain extent. She had endowed him with all the virtues that she
knew; among these she had not forgotten truthfulness, the first of
them all to her. Therefore she knew that he would not compel himself
to show respect to her if he did not feel it. He made merry sometimes,
especially when he saw her eyes fixed anxiously upon his pale face,
but she noticed that her society did not make him healthier or more
cheerful. She would have liked to ask him what was the matter. When he
stood before her she did not dare. When she was alone she asked him.
Many nights through she thought of ways to entice the confession from
him and talked with him. Surely if he had heard her weep, had heard
how sweetly and tenderly she cajoled and pleaded, had heard the dear
names she gave him, he would have told her what ailed him. Her whole
life was between heart and mouth; and when her heart whispered in her
ear what she had said, she flushed rosily and hid her blushes deep
beneath the covers from herself and the listening night.

She confided her fears to the old inspector. "Is it a wonder?" he
asked, "when a person sits all day long for a year and a half over his
business and all night long over books and letters? And then all the
anxiety he had about his--God forgive him, he is dead and one should
not speak ill of the dead--about his brother; and then the fright,
which made me ill for three days, over--and when his widow is there
too--I never did like him much, least of all toward the end. But youth
is so! I warned him a hundred times, the brave fellow! And now the
confounded quarry! Such conscientiousness! He is one who would never
consider his own health." The councilman gave the young widow a long
lecture which was not in the least meant for her. Then they agreed
that Apollonius ought to have a doctor whether he wanted him or not;
and the councilman immediately went to the best physician in town. The
physician promised to do all that was possible. He called on
Apollonius, who put up with him because those whom he loved desired
it. The doctor felt his pulse, came again and again, prescribed and
re-prescribed; Apollonius became ever paler and gloomier. At last the
good man declared that here was a malady against which all art was
useless. So deep-seated was the trouble that no remedy of his could
reach it.

Apollonius knew that no physician could cure his illness.