Page:RussianFolkTales Afanasev 368pgs.djvu/320

304 Sorrow will rend my brother's body asunder, so that he cannot then brag of his riches in front of me."

So he left his wife behind and drove into the field, to the big stone. He whirled it off to the side and bowed down to see what was under the stone. And he had hardly bowed down, when Sorrow sprang up and sat on his shoulders. "O!" Sorrow cried. "You wanted to leave me here under the earth. Now I shall never depart from you."

"Listen, Sorrow: I was not the person who locked you up here!"

"Who was it, then, if it was not you?"

"My brother. I came in order to set you free."

"No, you are lying and deceiving me again. This time it shall not come off."

So Sorrow sat fast on the wretched merchant's shoulders. He brought Sorrow with him home, and his household went from bad to worse. Sorrow began early in the morning enticing the merchant into the beer-house day after day, and much property was drunk away.

"This life is absolutely unbearable!" thought the merchant. "I have done Sorrow too good a service. I must now set myself free from him. How shall I?" So he thought and he thought it out. He went into his courtyard, cut two oak wedges, took a new wheel, and knocked one wedge from one end into the axle. He went up to Sorrow. "Now, Sorrow, must you lie about like that?"

"What should I be doing? What else is there to do?"

"Come into the courtyard; let us play hide-and-seek."

This suited Sorrow down to the ground, and at first the merchant hid and Sorrow found him at once.

Then Sorrow had to hide. "You will not find me so easily: I can hide myself in any crack."