“Father, I should like to marry! Mother, I should like to marry, I should really,” said the youth.
“Well then, my child—marry.”
So he married, and chose a lanky, black, squinting wife. She would have pleased Satan more than the clear-eyed hawk, and it was no good frothing at anybody: he was the only person in the wrong. So he lived with her and wrung his tears out with his fist.
One day he went out where audiences were being given, stood there, and came home.
“Wherever have you been sauntering?” asked his squint-eyed wife. “What have you seen?”
“Oh, they say that a new Tsar has come on the throne and has issued a new úkaz that wives are to command their husbands!”