—Poor husband. He's lost his head completely. You ought to see him. He's a sight. At first he was glad his wife was pregnant and said he wanted a boy. He thinks his son will be a cabinet minister or a general. Now he doesn't want anything, neither a boy nor a girl. He just goes about grieving and crying.
—Every time she is seized with pain he begins to labor, too, and gets red in the face.
—He was sent to the chemist's shop for medicine, and he hung about there for two hours without being able to remember what he was sent for. He returned without it.
[The Old Women titter. The cries grow louder and die away. Silence.
—What's the matter with her? Maybe she has died already.
—No. If she had, we'd hear crying, and the doctor would come running and begin to talk nonsense. They'd bring her husband out in a faint, and we'd have to work over him. No, she's not dead.
—Then what are we sitting here for?
—Ask Him. What do we know?
—He won't tell.
—He won't tell. He never tells anything.