Markus's illness prevents his trip to Germany

Markus’s illness prevents his trip to Germany, changing a family departure into a return to Argus. On the morning the family was due to leave, he became so ill that Delphine refused to let him travel. His fever kept him in the United States with Delphine and Fidelis, while his twin brothers continued on without him. The episode is both a practical crisis and a reversal: the illness that appears to derail the journey gives Markus a reprieve from leaving, and his parents turn back toward home.

The Planned Departure and Sudden Illness

The family was preparing to leave for Germany, with Tante and the twins set to travel and Markus expected to go with them. In the night before departure, Tante spoke in her sleep, repeating a line associated with the witch in the Hansel fairy tale. Delphine took the words as an alarming omen, but the decisive obstacle arrived with the morning: Markus woke with a high fever, glazed eyes, and a racing, unsteady pulse. His condition was serious enough that Fidelis went out before sunrise to find a pharmacy, asking Delphine to remain with the boy.

Delphine cared for Markus as the fever developed. When he became sick, she brought him a basin, cleaned it, and used cold water to wipe his face and limbs. Aspirin only made him rave. She feared that the illness might disappear as suddenly as it had begun, but it did not. When Tante considered selling Markus’s unused ticket rather than waste it, Delphine firmly said he could not leave; no one challenged her. His illness thus settled the immediate question of whether he could travel, while Delphine’s decision made clear that his safety took precedence over the ticket and the schedule.

The Twins Leave Without Him

The illness divided the family at the point of departure. Tante said goodbye to Markus from the doorway, while Delphine embraced the twins, held their coats and hands, and smoothed their foreheads. The boys were excited by the adventure ahead and left with Tante. Their departure meant that Markus remained with Delphine and Fidelis, separated from his twin brothers as well as from the journey to Germany.

Markus’s fever also altered the emotional meaning of the separation. What had been arranged as a family move became a departure that left him behind, and the twins’ bright anticipation stood in contrast to Delphine’s intimate farewell. The episode does not resolve what the brothers’ separation will mean for their future; it establishes the immediate fact that Markus will not accompany them.

The Return to Argus

Later that day, Fidelis carried the limp, feverish boy from the hotel to the car. Delphine followed with their luggage, and they laid blankets over Markus in the back seat. He repeatedly asked where they were going. Delphine answered that they were going back to Argus, going home. Markus looked at her with such joy that she briefly worried the fever had made him delirious, then checked him and thought the worst might have passed. His response makes the return more than a change of route: home is a reprieve he welcomes, even as his parents remain concerned about his health.

Fidelis drove north with Delphine directing him out of the city. They checked Markus’s fever several times and made sure he drank ginger beer. For much of the day, the adults kept to neutral conversation, noting how the fields resembled the Dakotas and then Minnesota, how large and well-kept the barns were, and whether threatening clouds would bring a storm. They took turns driving and rested in the passenger seat while Markus slept. As daylight faded, their effort to maintain safe conversation gave way to uncomfortable silence and suspense, leaving the return journey charged with what remained unresolved between them.

Significance and Later Echoes

The narrative describes Markus’s illness as a triumph he had not consciously willed. In later years, he wondered whether some hidden part of him had foreseen what might have happened had he boarded the train to New York and then the ship to Germany. The text presents this as his retrospective question, not as proof that the fever was deliberate. That uncertainty gives the episode its psychological force: an involuntary bodily crisis becomes, in memory, a possible means of avoiding a future he could not yet choose openly.

The decision to return also shapes Delphine’s place in the family. Much later, beside Eva’s grave, Delphine recalls that she kept running things and reflects on the loneliness left by losing her mother as a child. The novel places these reflections alongside the family’s choices and separations without claiming that Markus’s illness caused her later feelings. The episode’s significance lies more specifically in its reversal of the planned migration: Markus remains in America, the family journey turns back toward Argus, and the twins continue on without him.