In the same way another story shows us in Russian garb our old friend the widower who, when looking for his drowned wife--a woman of a very antagonistic disposition--went up the river instead of down, saying to his astonished companions, "She always did everything contrary-wise, so now, no doubt, she's gone against the stream."[49] A common story again is that of the husband who, having confided a secret to his wife which he justly fears she will reveal, throws discredit on her evidence about things in general by making her believe various absurd stories which she hastens to repeat.[49] The final paragraph of one of the variants of this time-honored jest is quaint, concluding as it does, by way of sting, with a highly popular Russian saw. The wife has gone to the seigneur of the village and accused her husband of having found a treasure and kept it for his own use. The charge is true, but the wife is induced to talk such nonsense, and the husband complains so bitterly of her, that "the seigneur pitied the moujik for being so unfortunate, so he set him at liberty; and he had him divorced from his wife and married to another, a young and good-looking one. Then the moujik immediately dug up his treasure and began living in the best manner possible." Sure enough the proverb doesn't say without reason: "Women have long hair and short wits."[50] There is another story of this class which is worthy of being mentioned, as it illustrates a custom in which the Russians differ from some other peoples. A certain man had married a wife who was so capricious that there was no living with her. After trying all sorts of devices her dejected husband at last asked her how she had been brought up, and learnt that she had received an education almost entirely German and French, with scarcely any Russian in it; she had not even been wrapped in swaddling-clothes when a baby, nor swung in a _liulka_.[51] Thereupon her husband determined to remedy the short-comings of her early education, and "whenever she showed herself capricious, or took to squalling, he immediately had her swaddled and placed in a _liulka_, and began swinging her to and fro." By the end of a half year she became "quite silky"--all her caprices had been swung out of her. But instead of giving mere extracts from any more of the numerous stories to which the fruitful subject of woman's caprice has given rise, we will quote a couple of such tales at length. The first is the Russian variant of a story which has a long family tree, with ramifications extending over a great part of the world. Dr. Benfey has devoted to it no less than sixteen pages of his introduction to the Panchatantra,[52] tracing it from its original Indian home, and its subsequent abode in Persia, into almost every European land. THE BAD WIFE.[53]