Away went the man. How astonished was he, when, on coming to where his house had stood, he now found a fine mansion, three stories high. Servants crowded the hall, and cooks were busy in the kitchens. On a seat in a fine room sat the man’s wife, dressed in robes shining with gold and silver, and giving orders.
“Good day, wife!” said the man.
“Who are you, man?” said his wife. “What have you to do with me, a fine lady? Take the clown away,” said she to her servants. “Take him to the stable, and whip some of the impudence out of him.”
The servants seized the old man, took him off to the stable, and when they had him there beat him so that he hardly knew whether he was alive or not. After that the wife made him the door-keeper of the house. She gave him a besom, and put him to keep the yard in order. As for his meals, he got them in the kitchen. He had a hard life of it. If the yard was not swept clean, he had to look out.
“Who would have thought she had been such a hag?” said the old man to himself. “Here she has all such good fortune, and will not even own me for her husband!”
After a time the wife got tired of being merely an Archduchess, so she said to her husband—
“Go off to the golden fish, and tell it I will be a Czarina.”
The old man went down to the shore. He cried—
“Little fish, little fish, come now to me,
Your tail in the water, your head out of sea!”