"Nevertheless," said Koshchei, "now that you have inspected the flower of womanhood, I cannot soberly believe you prefer your termagant of a wife." "Frankly, Prince, I also am, as usual, undecided. You may be right in all you have urged; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say you are wrong; but still, at the same time--! Come now, could you not let me see my first wife for just a moment?" This was no sooner asked than granted; for there, sure enough, was Dame Lisa. She was no longer restricted to quiet speech by any stupendous necromancy: and uncommonly plain she looked, after the passing of those lovely ladies. "Aha, you rascal!" begins Dame Lisa, addressing Jurgen; "and so you thought to be rid of me! Oh, a precious lot you are! and a deal of thanks I get for my scrimping and slaving!" And she began scolding away. But she began, somewhat to Jurgen's astonishment, by stating that he was even worse than the Countess Dorothy. Then he recollected that, by not the most disastrous piece of luck conceivable, Dame Lisa's latest news from the outside world had been rendered by her sister, the notary's wife, a twelvemonth back. And rather unaccountably Jurgen fell to thinking of how unsubstantial seemed these curious months devoted to other women, as set against the commonplace years which he and Lisa had fretted through together; of the fine and merry girl that Lisa had been before she married him; of how well she knew his tastes in cookery and all his little preferences, and of how cleverly she humored them on those rare days when nothing had occurred to vex her; of all the buttons she had replaced, and all the socks she had darned, and of what tempests had been loosed when anyone else had had the audacity to criticize Jurgen; and of how much more unpleasant--everything considered--life was without her than with her. She was so unattractive looking, too, poor dear, that you could not but be sorry for her. And Jurgen's mood was half yearning and half penitence. "I think I will take her back, Prince," says Jurgen, very subdued,--"now that I am forty-and-something. For I do not know but it is as hard on her as on me." "My friend, do you forget the poet that you might be, even yet? No rational person would dispute that the society and amiable chat of Dame Lisa must naturally be a desideratum--" But Dame Lisa was always resentful of long words. "Be silent, you black scoffer, and do not allude to such disgraceful things in the presence of respectable people! For I am a decent Christian woman, I would have you understand. But everybody knows your reputation! and a very fit companion you are for that scamp yonder! and volumes could not say more!" Thus casually, and with comparative lenience, did Dame Lisa dispose of Koshchei, who made things as they are, for she believed him to be merely Satan. And to her husband Dame Lisa now addressed herself more particularly.