198 COSSACK FAIRY TALES.

“No money do I want for it. Oh, sovereign lady,
all that I require in exchange therefor is that I
may pass the night near my husband.”—Then the
Empress took the apple, and allowed her to come
into the bedchamber of the Tsarevich to pass the
night there; but first of all she made the Tsarevich so
tipsy that he knew nothing, and could speak not a
word to her, nor could he even recognize what manner
of person his true wife was. Then only did the
Empress let her come into the room where her
husband lay drunk. And she watched over him, she
watched over him the live-long night, and with the
dawn she departed.

The next morning he awoke out of his drunken
sleep, and said to himself: “ Why, what is this? It
is just as if my first wife has been weeping over me
here, and wetted me with her tears!” But he told
nobody what he thought, nor did he say a word
about it to his second wife. “Wait a bit!” thought
he, “ to-morrow night I'll not go to sleep. I'll watch
and watch till I watch the thing out.”

The next day the faithful wife spread out her little
cloth again, and laid upon it her golden apple. The
Empress again came that way, went up to her, and
said: “Sell me that apple of thine, and I’ll give thee
for it as many pence as thou canst hold in thy
lap!"—But she replied: “ Nay, my sovereign lady!