Then terror smote the Jurgen who had faced sorcerers and gods and devils intrepidly. "For I forgot about the butter!"
But immediately afterward he recollected that, now, not even what Lisa had said to him in the cave was real. Neither he nor Lisa, now, had ever been in the cave, and probably there was no longer any such place, and now there never had been any such place. It was rather confusing.
"Ah, but I must remember carefully," said Jurgen, "that I have not seen Lisa since breakfast, this morning. Nothing whatever has happened. There has been no requirement laid upon me, after all, to do the manly thing. So I retain my wife, such as she is, poor dear! I retain my home. I retain my shop and a fair line of business. Yes, Koshchei—if it was really Koshchei—has dealt with me very justly. And probably his methods are everything they should be; certainly I cannot go so far as to say that they are wrong: but still, at the same time—!"
Then Jurgen sighed, and entered his snug home. Thus it was in the old days.
EXPLICIT