THE QUARRELSOME WIFE
"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!"
He only meant to joke, but she sprang up, pulled his whiskers and said, "Go to the stream and wash the shirts, take the broom and sweep the house, then go and sit by the cradle and rock the child, cook the supper and grill and bake the cakes."
The man wanted to answer, "What are you talking about, woman? That is not a man's work." Then he looked at her, and he froze cold and his tongue clave to his throat.
So he got the washing together, baked the cakes, swept the cottage, and was no good for anything.
One year went by, and a second, and the good youth got rather weary of the yoke. But what on earth was he to do? He had married and he had tied himself for
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