“Whoever eats this duck will be a Czar.”
He did not say anything to Fetinia about what he had seen, but asked her to roast the duck for him. Fetinia said she could not kill the duck, for all their fortune depended on it, but the clerk begged her so earnestly that she at last consented and killed it, and put it in the oven. The clerk then went off saying he would return soon, and Fetinia also went out in the town. While they were gone in came little Ivan. He felt very hungry, and, looking about him for something to eat, he chanced to see the roast duck in the oven, so he took it out and ate all of it but the bones. Then he went off again to the shop.
In a little while the clerk came back, and, having called Fetinia, asked her to bring out the duck. The woman went to the oven, but when she saw that the duck was not there, she was terribly put out, and told the clerk that the duck had disappeared. At that the clerk flew into a great rage, and said—
“You have eaten the duck yourself, of course,” and he got up and walked out of the house.
In the evening Abrosim and his son, Little Ivan, came home. When Abrosim did not see the duck, he asked his wife where it was, and she told him that she did not know. Then Little Ivan said to his father—
“My dear father, when I came home, in the middle of the day, for dinner, my mother was not in, so I looked in the oven, and there found a roast duck. I took it out and ate it all but the bones, but I do not know whether it was our duck or a strange one.”
Then old Abrosim was in such a rage that he thrashed his wife till she was half dead, and he turned Little Ivan out of doors.
Little Ivan began his journey. Where should he go? He determined to follow his nose. For ten days and nights he went on. Then he came to a town, and as he stepped to the gate he saw a great many people assembled together. Now these folk had been taking council, their Czar being dead, as to who should succeed him. In the end they agreed that the first person who came in at the city gate should be made Czar. Just then in came Little Ivan through the gate, so all the people cried out together—
“Here is our Czar!”
The chief folk took Little Ivan by the arms, conducted him to the royal apartments, put on him the Czar’s robes, seated him on the throne, made obeisance to him as to their Czar, and waited for his commands. Then Little Ivan thought he must surely be asleep and dreaming all this; but at last he knew that he must be really Czar. He was heartily pleased, began to rule over the people, and to appoint his officers. A short time after he called one of them, named Luga, to him, and said—