So the merchant’s son went up to his attic, and his stepmother came and said to him, “Would you not like to have a steam bath? The bath is now ready.”

“Very well,” said Iván, and he went into the bath, and very soon after the boy brought him a shirt. As soon as ever the merchant’s son put it on the boy he that very instant closed his eyes and fell on the floor, as though he were dead. And when he took the shirt off him and cast it into the stove, the boy revived, but the stove was split into small pieces.

The stepmother saw that she was doing no good, so she again went to the old soothsayer and asked and besought her how she should destroy her stepson. The old woman answered, “As long as the horse is alive nothing can be brought about. But you pretend to be ill, and when your husband comes back tell him, ‘I saw in my sleep that the throat of our foal must be cut and the liver extracted, and I must be rubbed with the liver; then my disease will pass away.’ ”

Some time after the merchant came back, and the son went out to meet him.