Branhardt and Markus Mandelstein first became acquainted through female monkeys. Some results Markus Mandelstein had achieved with his six monkeys were of direct scientific interest to Branhardt and led to several discussions. Only once had a medical case brought the two together — a very sad one involving a lawyer's family in whose home Markus was also a frequent guest. The wife, no longer young, was facing her first confinement under dangerous conditions that appeared to confront those involved with the necessity of giving up the child to save the mother. At any rate, so it seemed to the non-specialist Markus. But Branhardt believed they did not have to give up hope of the mother’s survival if she carried the child — desired for years and surely her last — to term.

If there were anything at all in the world for which Markus might have envied Branhardt, it was the confident resolve with which he spoke of the case — not only to the anxious woman and her worried husband, but even to himself — and in that way instilled so much faith. Markus took great pains not to lack this tone, even though as a physician he had practiced it for some time, and with his exceptional self-control he often succeeded with a sufficiently virtuosic performance. Yet, in response to this situation, he forced himself to come up with such masterfully subtle nuances of the assuring tone as eluded even Branhardt.

The outcome proved Branhardt right. But a few days later, quite unforeseen complications arose from something else entirely, and, after a true masterpiece of surgical intervention on Branhardt's part, incomparable treatment marked by the greatest medical devotion, the suffering new mother died a gentle and painless death. That day, Markus saw tears in Branhardt's eyes, which were surely not given to shedding them — he saw him sharing the pain of the others with a tenderness that came upon those poor people like the most human form of consolation — and made Markus appear wooden and lifeless in comparison, unable to give expression to the empathy that crippled and inhibited him. When, in his helplessness, he came to the funeral with an almost artlessly beautiful wreath, he envied Branhardt again and more profoundly than before.