Читать книгу Russian Folk-Tales онлайн

45 страница из 102

Then the invited guests arrived, and they entered into the lofty palace: there were tables standing, and the table-cloths were of silk, and the chairs painted with many colours. They sat down at the tables: there were all sorts of dishes and of foreign drinks. There were no bottles, no mere pints—entire rivers flowed! Prince Vladímir and the Princess drank nothing, tasted nothing, only looked on. When would the Swan, the fair maiden, come out? And they sat long at the table, waited for her long, until it was time to go home. Danílo the Unfortunate called her once, and twice, and a third time, but she would not come and see her guests.

Alyósha Popóvich, the Mocker of Women, then said, “If this had been my wife I should have taught her to obey!”

Then the Swan-bird, the fair maiden, came out and stood at the window, and she said these words: “This is how we teach our husbands!” And so she flapped her wings, moved her little head, and flew about: and there the guests sat on mounds in the bog.