nervous, and you need not look into my eyes or feel my pulse. I have
known these four years that I am to die at the time I mentioned,
although I am sure, when I tell you how I came to know it, you will call
me superstitious. For you fellows of the present day are so sceptical
and matter-of-fact that you refuse to believe in anything that cannot be
proved by optical inspection or by evidence. It was, as I said, just
four years ago, on my ninety-third birthday, when St. John the Nepomuc
appeared to me in a dream, and said--'Dionysius, my good fellow, make
the best of your time! There are only five more years for you in store,
and then you must die! no help for it!' Since that time he comes to me
every year regularly on the night of my birthday, and repeats his
warning, each time giving me one year less. Last week was my birthday,
and he gave me the last warning. Next time he comes I shall have to go.
So--"

"But, my dear uncle," I said, rather vexed, "if you are so much
convinced of the certainty of your death, then it was not at all
necessary for me to come. You want the priest, and not the physician. I
can cure bodily diseases, and release you from the clutches of cholera,
or sometimes even of death; but if the saints have got hold of you, and
such a tight hold, too, then you had better go to your confessor, for it
is his business to be in close connection with all of them. I give you
up. Good-bye! I have patients in Vienna, and cannot afford to waste my
time on a pleasure trip."

"Good God! what a hot-tempered fellow, and what admirable rudeness!
Stay, you unmannerly specimen of honesty, who don't think it worth your
while to cajole an old fool for the sake of his money! What do you think
that I summoned you for? But none of your impudence, if you please!"