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‘As for me,’ said the eldest, ‘I must go and order the work of the farm my father left me, and that will take seven days.’

‘And for me,’ said the younger, ‘I must see to the estate which is my part of the inheritance, and that also will take seven days.’

‘Then,’ replied Ivan, ‘if I perform the duty for seven days, you will each do your share afterwards?’

His brothers agreed still more readily than before. Then they went their ways, Ivan full of thoughts of his father, and the other two to train their jumping horses, the one on his farm and the other on his estate. And both laughed to themselves, for neither knew the purpose of the other.

How they curled their hair and cleaned their teeth, and practised ‘prunes and prisms’ with their mouths close to the looking-glass!–so that when, at one bound of their magnificent steeds, they reached the level of the Princess’s lips, to aim the kiss that was to win the prize, they would make a brave show, and a conquering one. As for their little brother, they each thought he could go on praying over their father’s grave as long as he liked,–it would be the best thing he could do, and it would not interfere with their secret plans, so carefully concealed from each other and from him.

So, for seven days, in their separate districts, they raced about on their horses by day and dreamed of the greatest leaping feats by night. And at the end of the seven days the youngest brother summoned them to keep their agreement, and asked which of them would read the prayers, morning and evening, for the second seven days.

‘I have done my part,’ he said; ‘now it is for you to arrange between you which one shall continue the sacred duty.’

The two elder brothers looked at each other and then at Ivan.

‘As for me,’ said one, ‘I care little who does it, so long as I am free to get on with my business, which is more important.’

‘And as for me,’ said the other, ‘I am in no mind to watch each blade of grass growing on the grave. I cannot really afford the time, I am so busy. You, Ivan,–you are different: you are not a man of affairs; how could you spend your time better than reading prayers over our father’s grave?’

‘So be it,’ replied Ivan. ‘You get back to your work and I will attend to the sacred duty for another seven days.’

The two elder brothers went their separate ways, and for seven more days devoted their entire attention to training their horses for the flying leap at the Princess’s lips. How they tore like mad about the fields! How they jumped the hedges and ditches! How they curled their hair and dyed their moustaches and practised their lips, not only to ‘prunes and prisms,’ but to ‘peaches of passion’ and ‘pomegranates,’ and ‘peripatetic perambulation’ and everything they could think of! In fact, they paid so much attention to the lips which were to meet those of the Princess at the top of the flying leap, that they began to neglect their own and their horses’ meals. In other words, they were beginning to show signs of over-training.

At the end of the second seven days Ivan again summoned them to a family council, and asked them if either of them could now take up the sacred duty. But no; thinking heavily on horses and lips, and high jumps and kisses, they spoke lightly of fields to be tilled, seed to be sown, and all such things that must be done at once. Their view was–and they got quite friendly over it–that Ivan should be more than delighted to bear this pleasurable burden of reading prayers over his father’s grave. Indeed, nothing but the stern call of immediate duty would prevail upon them to relinquish a task so pleasant.