"to all eternity, my friend," said the peasant, "my wife is ill, and i have been to-day to hear the parson’s sermon, and he preached that if any one had in his house a sick child, a sick husband, a sick wife, a sick father, a sick mother, a sick sister, brother or any one else, and made a pilgrimage to the göckerli hill in italy, where a peck of laurel-leaves costs a kreuzer, the sick child, the sick husband, the sick wife, the sick father, the sick mother, the sick sister, brother or whosoever else it was, would be cured immediately, and so i have got the bag for the laurel-leaves and the kreuzer from the parson, and now i am beginning my pilgrimage." "but listen, gossip," said the egg-merchant to the peasant, "are you, then, stupid enough to believe such a thing as that? don’t you know what it means? the parson wants to spend a whole day alone with your wife in peace, so he has given you this job to do to get you out of the way."