Saying one thing while intending another to be understood, often the opposite. The true meaning is left to whoever reads or listens.
In One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand
And let us hope, for heaven's sake, that no other close relative has died, for then you gentlemen would also see all those dear cypresses as a cemetery.
"Let us hope, for heaven's sake" feigns a wish for protection, but what is said is the opposite: the reader, too, will see the cypresses as a cemetery when death comes. The politeness of the request carries the threat.