These words were terrible to listen to, in themselves, but still they were bearable because they were spoken with a smiling face and because Tom went on to add:
"Hope it'll prove an exception in your case, woodman's wife. I'll just examine you now."
First of all, of course, he felt her pulse:
"It hops," he muttered, "it hops."
Then, with his broad fingers, he pushed her eyebrows apart and looked into the whites—and said nothing. Next, she had to bare her neck and he put his ear to it—and said nothing. Furthermore, he attentively studied the lines of her hand, then asked after the sick woman's actual state of health and went on to examine the arteries and the respiration, so that I at once conceived a high opinion of the man's conscientiousness.
And, when he had finished his examination, he sat down on a chair opposite my mother, who was slowly wrapping herself up again in her clothes, spread out his legs, sank his chin into his body and, with his arms crossed over his chest, said:
"Yes, my dear woodman's wife, you've got to die."
My mother gave a light start, I sprang to my feet. Steve, however, remained sitting quite calmly in his seat, looked hard at Tom of the Footpath for a while and then said, suddenly:
"And you haven't, I suppose? No, you old camel, your day's coming too, God damn it all!"
It was now high time to go. We hurriedly packed up and drove off homeward.