Irinel sprang from the carriage and came up to me. She was happy. We kissed each other, but, believe me, she seemed to kiss in the air.
“What’s the matter, Iorgu? You are very pale. You are thinner, or does it only seem so to me?”
Before I could answer her my uncle hastened, hastened to say:
“I don’t know what’s the matter with Iorgu. It seems to me he is ill, but he will not say so.”
Oh! Oh! You don’t know what is the matter with me, uncle? You don’t know what is the matter? It seems to you I am ill? I do not want to tell you? Do you say what is the matter with you? You are a good man, but what a hypocrite——
He thinks I do not understand him.
To Irinel I say gently:
“There is nothing the matter, Irinel. But you, are you well?”
And so it went on—nearly a whole year of depression.
Why should I tell you that I grew thinner and paler, that I often shivered, and with secret pleasure, exaggerated a little cough when I walked in the garden with Irinel? You have seen so many thin and pale men, and you have read so many novels in which consumptive lovers either shoot themselves or throw themselves into the sea, so that if I told you that I grew thinner, that I took to playing billiards, that I began to drink, and that once I drank three half bottles in succession, you would only yawn.