Note 14 — “I SAY NOTHING”
Bernard Guilbert Guerney translation
The reference here is to a famous folk-tale,—best known in Pushkin’s version, The Little Gold Fish. A fisherman, having caught a little gold fish, is promised the fulfillment of all his wishes for its release. All his demands, instigated by his wife, are granted, beginning with a substitution of a new trough for a broken one, and up to the attainment of rank and wealth; but finally the wife insists upon the fulfillment of a wish so insolent that, upon his return from interviewing his benefactress, the fisherman finds his wife sitting at the same old broken trough, before his former humble hut. Trans.