Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Through the open door Frau Permaneder could be seen praying in the chamber of death. She knelt there alone, at a chair near the bed, with her mourning garments flowing about her on the floor. While she prayed, her hands folded before her on the seat of the chair, she could hear her brother and sister-in-law in the breakfast-room, where they stood and waited for the prayer to come to an end. But she did not hurry on that account. She finished, coughed her usual little dry cough, gathered her gown about her, and rose from the chair, then moved toward her relatives with a perfectly dignified bearing in which there was no trace of confusion.

"Thomas," she said, with a note of asperity in her voice, "it strikes me, that as far as Severin is concerned, our blessed mother was cherishing a viper in her bosom."