“You have given me my life,” says the golden fish.  “Now ask anything you wish from me, and you shall have it.”

The old fisherman stood there on the shore, combing his beard with his old fingers, and thinking.  Think as he would, he could not call to mind a single thing he wanted.

“No, fish,” he said at last; “I think I have everything I need,”

“Well, if ever you do want anything, come and ask for it,” says the fish, and turns over, flashing gold, and goes down into the blue sea.

The old fisherman went back to his hut, where his wife was waiting for him.

“What!” she screamed out; “you haven’t caught so much as one little fish for our supper?”

“I caught one fish, mother,” says the old man:  “a golden fish it was, and it spoke to me; and I let it go, and it told me to ask for anything I wanted.”

“And what did you ask for?  Show me.”

“I couldn’t think of anything to ask for; so I did not ask for anything at all.”

“Fool,” says his wife, “and dolt, and us with no food to put in our mouths.  Go back at once, and ask for some bread.”

Well, the poor old fisherman got down his net, and tramped back to the seashore.  And he stood on the shore of the wide blue sea, and he called out,—­

    “Head in air and tail in sea,
    Fish, fish, listen to me.”

And in a moment there was the golden fish with his head out of the water, flapping his tail below him in the water, and looking at the fisherman with his wise eyes.

“What is it?” said the fish.

“Be so kind,” says the fisherman; “be so kind.  We have no bread in the house.”

“Go home,” says the fish, and turned over and went down into the sea.

“God be good to me,” says the old fisherman; “but what shall I say to my wife, going home like this without the bread?” And he went home very wretchedly, and slower than he came.

As soon as he came within sight of his hut he saw his wife, and she was waving her arms and shouting.

“Stir your old bones,” she screamed out.  “It’s as fine a loaf as ever I’ve seen.”

And he hurried along, and found his old wife cutting up a huge loaf of white bread, mind you, not black—­a huge loaf of white bread, nearly as big as Maroosia.

“You did not do so badly after all,” said his old wife as they sat there with the samovar on the table between them, dipping their bread in the hot tea.

But that night, as they lay sleeping on the stove, the old woman poked the old man in the ribs with her bony elbow.  He groaned and woke up.

“I’ve been thinking,” says his wife, “your fish might have given us a trough to keep the bread in while he was about it.  There is a lot left over, and without a trough it will go bad, and not be fit for anything.  And our old trough is broken; besides, it’s too small.  First thing in the morning off you go, and ask your fish to give us a new trough to put the bread in.”