“Oh, I’ve slept so long, brother! I barely, barely remember.”
He took the shoes, wrapped them up, and ran to the palace.
Yelena the Beautiful saw the shoes and knew what had happened. “Surely,” she thought, “the spirits made these for Ivan Tsarevich.—How didst thou make these?” asked she of the shoemaker.
“Oh! I know how to do everything.”
“If that is the case, make me a wedding robe embroidered with gold, ornamented with diamonds and precious stones; let it be ready to-morrow morning: if not, off with thy head!”
The shoemaker went home again gloomy, and his friends were long waiting for him. “Well, what is it?”
“Nothing but cursedness. The destroyer of Christian people has come; she commanded me to make her a robe with gold and precious stones by to-morrow morning: and what sort of a tailor am I? They will take my head surely to-morrow.”
“Ah! brother, the morning is wiser than the evening; let us go and frolic.”
They went to the inn, they drank and frolicked; the shoemaker got tipsy again, brought home a whole keg of spirits, and said to Ivan Tsarevich: “Now, young fellow, when thou wilt rouse me in the morning I’ll toss off three gallons; let them cut the head off me drunk. I couldn’t make such a robe in a lifetime.” The shoemaker lay down to sleep and snored.
Ivan Tsarevich blew on the whistle, and Lame and Crooked appeared. “What is thy pleasure, Tsarevich?”