Kallem asked if she had had any letter from Karl? None had been received here. No, she had had none either. Had she not written to him? No, Karl had confided a secret to her which she did not approve of. Often before there had been, so to speak, knots on the thread, which had only been explained to him later, and now, as she did not look up at her husband, he felt that he ought not to ask questions.
She was in bed several days. There was no getting rid of a nasty dry cough she had; otherwise there were no dangerous symptoms; none at all. The first day she was up he thought she had grown very thin; her face had a tired, delicate expression, and there were dark rings under her eyes. She longed for fresh air, but she refused, in the most determined way, to go for any walks outside the garden. At first she said it was so tiresome; when that excuse did not hold good, she hit upon a better one: she began to cry. He thought this was a strange symptom; was it possible that she was in the family way? He comforted himself with this hope and waited. She went for walks in the garden, and then told him about them with much pride; but she hid from him the fact that she always went out at dusk. Meanwhile she herself thought she was better, and he fancied so too.
Time went on; he was expecting that which he longed to hear, and thought he noticed other symptoms; but he was alarmed too sometimes, as she seemed to him to grow thinner and thinner; he could not get her to eat. One evening, when he was out, she had as usual gone into the garden and walked about at dusk, had felt a chill afterwards, and great oppression on the chest! She was asleep when Kallem went to bed, but he was awakened later by her coughing. He lit the light and saw that she pressed her hand to her chest.
"Have you a pain there?"
"Yes."
"Where is the pain?"
"Here!" and she pointed to the right collar bone.
"Does it hurt you there when you cough?"
"Yes." And at that moment she was seized with a violent fit of coughing. He got up, dressed himself, put fire in the stove, rang the bell for the servant to fetch him some medicine, and then sounded her chest, asking her many questions. She told him about the chill she had had that evening, and that she was in the habit of taking her walks at dusk.
"At dusk!" exclaimed he, and that was sufficient to make her hide her face. She must promise him now to be good and not do such things any more; she would have to stay in bed now for several days. She did not relish the mustard-plaster on her chest; but the cough lozenges were a success. He concealed his distress by joking and by petting her--and in a few days she did actually seem as well as he could expect. And now she had become so obedient; she kept in the house quite quietly for a fortnight. Her cough was less frequent; those violent fits of coughing had made her chest so sore; but, on the whole, she felt tolerably well, only very tired and breathless; feeling as if she had no wish to touch the piano.