“Little fish, little fish, come now to me,
Your tail in the water, your head out of sea!”
The fish came.
“Well, what is it?” asked the fish.
“My wife,” said the man, “is in a very bad temper, and has sent me to
ask you to build us a new cottage. She says she cannot live any longer
in our present one.”
“Oh, do not be troubled about that,” said the fish. “Go home. You shall
have what you want.”
The old man went back again, and in the place of his miserable hovel he
found a new hut built of oak and nicely ornamented. The old man was
delighted, but as soon as he went in his wife set on him, saying—
“What an idiot you are! You do not know how to take good fortune when it
is offered to you. You think you have done a great thing just because
you have got a new hut. Be off again to the golden fish, and tell it I
will not be a mere peasant’s wife any longer. I will be an Archduchess,
with plenty of servants, and set the fashion.”
The old man went to the golden fish.
“What is it?” asked the fish.
“My wife will not let me rest,” replied the man; “she wants now to be an
Archduchess, and is not content with being my wife.”
“Well, it shall be as she wishes. Go home again,” said the fish.
Away went the man. How astonished was he, when, on coming to where his
house had stood, he now found a fine mansion, three stories high.
Servants crowded the hall, and cooks were busy in the kitchens. On a
seat in a fine room sat the man’s wife, dressed in robes shining with
gold and silver, and giving orders.
“Good day, wife!” said the man.
“Who are you, man?” said his wife. “What have you to do with me, a fine
lady? Take the clown away,” said she to her servants. “Take him to the
stable, and whip some of the impudence out of him.”
The servants seized the old man, took him off to the stable, and when
they had him there beat him so that he hardly knew whether he was alive
or not. After that the wife made him the door-keeper of the house. She
gave him a besom, and put him to keep the yard in order. As for his
meals, he got them in the kitchen. He had a hard life of it. If the yard
was not swept clean, he had to look out.
“Who would have thought she had been such a hag?” said the old man to
himself. “Here she has all such good fortune, and will not even own me
for her husband!”
After a time the wife got tired of being merely an Archduchess, so she
said to her husband—
“Go off to the golden fish, and tell it I will be a Czarina.”