THE SERPENT-TSAREVICH AND HIS WIVES. 199

money for it I will not take, but let me pass one
more night in my own husband’s room!”—And the
Empress took the apple, and let her sleep there. But
first the Empress caressed and kissed her husband
into a good humour, and then she made him drunk.
And the faithful wife came again, and watched and
wept over him and wetted him with her tears, and
with the dawn she departed.

And now she had only one apple left, but that
was the diamond apple, the most precious apple in
the world. And she said to the Empress: ‘‘ Let me
watch by him for this apple but one night more,
and Pll never ask again!” And she let her. Now
this night also her husband was asleep. And his
first wife came and immediately began to kiss him
on the head, but he said nothing. Then she kissed
him again, and at last he awoke and started up, and
said: “ Who's that?”—‘It is I, thy first wife.”
—‘ How hast thou found thy way hither ?”—“ Oh,
T have been here and there and everywhere. I have
lodged with the Mother of the Winds, and the
Mother of the Moon, and the Mother of the Sun,
and they gave me three apples, and I gave these
apples to thy Empress-wife, and she let me watch
over thee, and this is the third night that I have
watched by thy side.”

Then he came to his right mind, and cried aloud