“Hail, Vassilissa Kirbítyevna!” said Bulat the hero.
“Hail, Bulat the hero! Be well, Tsarevich! How did God bring you?”
“We came for thee, Vassilissa Kirbítyevna; thou wilt hide from us nowhere. We should find thee even on the bottom of the sea.”
She seated them at the table, gave them every sort of food and all kinds of wine.
Said Bulat the hero: “When Koshchéi comes home from hunting, ask him, Vassilissa Kirbítyevna, where his death is. And now it would not be amiss for us to hide.”
As soon as the guests had hidden, Koshchéi Without-Death was flying home from the hunt. “Tfu-tfu!” said he; “of old there wasn’t a sign of Russia to be heard with hearing or seen with sight; but now Russia runs into one’s eyes and mouth.”
Said Vassilissa: “Thou hast been flying through Russia thyself, and art full of its odor; so to thy thinking dost find it here.”
Koshchéi ate his dinner and lay down to rest. Vassilissa came to him, threw herself on his neck, fondled him, and kissed him, saying: “My dear love, hardly was I able to wait for thee. I did not expect to see thee alive; I feared that savage beasts had devoured thee.”
Koshchéi laughed aloud. “Simple woman! her hair is long, but her wit is short. Could savage beasts eat me?”
“But where is thy death, then?”