When the groom saw that neither the bride, nor the mother, nor the father came back, he said, “Now I will go and see what the matter is that no one returns.”  He went into the cellar and saw all the wine running over the cellar.  He hastened and stopped the cask, and then asked, “What is the matter that you are all weeping, and have let the wine run all over the cellar?” Then the bride said, “I was thinking that if I had a son and called him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!” Then the groom said, “You stupid fools!  Are you weeping at this and letting all the wine run into the cellar?  Have you nothing else to think of?  It shall never be said that I remained with you.  I will roam about the world, and until I find three fools greater than you, I will not return home.”

He had a bread-cake made, took a bottle of wine, a sausage, and some linen, and made a bundle, which he put on a stick and carried over his shoulder.  He journeyed and journeyed, but found no fool.  At last he said, worn out, “I must turn back, for I see I cannot find a greater fool than my wife.”  He did not know what to do, whether to go on or turn back.  “Oh,” said he, “it is better to try and go a little farther.”  So he went on, and shortly saw a man in his shirt-sleeves at a well, all wet with perspiration, and water.  “What are you doing, sir, that you are so covered with water and in such a sweat?” “Oh, let me alone,” the man answered; “for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill this pail, and I cannot fill it.”  “What are you drawing the water in?” he asked him.  “In this sieve,” he said.  “What are you thinking about, to draw water in that sieve?  Just wait!” He went to a house near by and borrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the pail.  “Thank you, good man.  God knows how long I should have had to remain here!”—­“Here,” thought he, “is one who is a greater fool than my wife.”

He continued his journey, and after a time he saw at a distance a man in his shirt, who was jumping down from a tree.  He drew near, and saw a woman under the same tree, holding a pair of breeches.  He asked them what they were doing, and they said that they had been there a long time, and that the man was trying on those breeches and did not know how to get into them.  “I have jumped and jumped,” said the man, “until I am tired out, and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches.”  “Oh,” said the traveller, “you might stay here as long as you wished, for you would never get into them this way.  Come down and lean against the tree.”  Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he had put them on, he said, “Is that right?” “Very good; bless you; for if it had not been for you, God knows how long I should have had to jump.”  Then the traveller said to himself, “I have seen two greater fools than my wife.”