Now the Lead Friend was terribly sorry; ragged, with torn hair, he entered the white chamber weeping; he wept a long time; pushed the princess, who waked not; spoke to her, she heard not; at last he found this to say: “Wake up, my heart’s beautiful love; all thy desires will be accomplished, only stop the gilding.”
“I’ll stop the gilding, but tell where thy strength lies.”
“Oh, my heart’s beautiful love, I would rather part with my life than tell that.”
Next day at sunrise the Lead Friend took Kiss Miklos to the furnace, lest while he was gone himself Miklos might go in secret and gather another man’s hay. The bride was alone again, and wanted nothing better. Again she took the lamp and went straight to the cellar, where she opened her beautiful silk apron and filled it with gold,—took so much that the apron almost tore under it. She came seven times, and each time carried so much gold that her nose almost cut the earth, like the coulter of a plough. Then she called a goldsmith, and gilded to a hand’s thickness the thresholds of seven rooms.
When the Lead Friend came home in the evening, he saw that not three but seven thresholds had a hand’s thickness of gold on them. Then he fell into such a rage that he tore his leaden beard and hair, and trampled them as he would tow; but what good did that do him?—for he was trampling his own. Then he roared till the lead house rattled, and in his fury he asked: “A thousand million demons, who did this?”
“I did it,” answered the princess all bravely.
“How didst thou dare to do this without my knowledge or command?”
With that he went in fury to the Green Daughter of the Green King, wound round his hand the golden hair which reached to her heels. Twelve times did he drag her over the leaden floor, twelve times did he dash her against it, twelve times did he raise her aloft,—and that was not enough; but he took out the lead flail, and began to thrash and beat the princess as if she were a bundle of wheat, so that she was swimming in blood. Kiss Miklos took her from his hands and placed her on the silken bed, where she lay, neither dead nor alive, still as a lifeless block.
Now the Lead Friend grew terribly sorry, and making himself squalid looking, he entered the white chamber, rushed to the princess, wept without ceasing, touched her but she woke not, spoke to her but she heard him not. At last he found this to say: “Wake up, my heart’s beautiful love. I will tell where my strength lies. In the silken meadow under the seventh bush is a hare, under the tail of the hare an egg, in the egg a hornet, and in the hornet is hidden my strength, so that I live as long as the hornet lives; if the hornet dies, I die too.”
The Green Daughter of the Green King heard all these words clearly, but acted as if she were neither dead nor alive,—lay there like a soulless block.