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Updated: May 26, 2025
No; they smiled with their bright eyes at the young men who danced with them, and if they ever spoke to Sadko, it was just to tell him sharply to keep the music going or to play faster. So Sadko lived alone with his dulcimer, and made do with half a loaf when he could not get a whole, and with crust when he had no crumb.
We discussed the programme a new symphonic poem by Rimski-Korsakoff, Sadko, had been alternately hissed and cheered and I soon learned that my companion mourned a French mother and rejoiced in the loving presence of a very Celtic father.
Diamonds shone there like little bundles of sharp knives. "There can be no harm in taking these stones," says Sadko, "whether I dreamed or not." He took the coffer on his shoulder, and bent under the weight of it, strong though he was. He put it in a safe place. All night he sat and watched by the nets, and played and sang, and planned what he would do.
"O my little river!" says he; "there is no girl in all the world but thou as pretty as my little river." Well, they were married, and the Tzar of the Sea laughed at the wedding feast till the palace shook and the fish swam off in all directions. And after the feast Sadko and his bride went off together to her palace. And before they slept she kissed him very tenderly, and she said,
"Sadko of Novgorod, you have played and sung many days by the side of this lake and on the banks of the little river Volkhov. My daughters love your music, and it has pleased me too. Throw out a net into the water, and draw it in, and the waters will pay you for your singing. And if you are satisfied with the payment, you must come and play to us down in the green palace of the sea."
"Ah, Sadko," says the Tzar of the Sea, "you took what the sea gave you, but you have been a long time in coming to sing in the palaces of the sea. Twelve years I have lain here waiting for you." "Great Tzar, forgive," says Sadko. "Sing now," says the Tzar of the Sea, and his voice was like the beating of waves. And Sadko played on his dulcimer and sang.
And all the time he played cunningly on the dulcimer. The girls of Novgorod had never danced to so sweet a tune when in the old days Sadko played his dulcimer to earn kopecks and crusts of bread. Never had the Tzar of the Sea heard such music. "I would dance," said the Tzar of the Sea, and he stood up like a tall tree in the hall.
When work was done and the traders gone, Sadko would take his dulcimer and play and sing on the banks of the river. And still he said, "There is no girl in all Novgorod as pretty as my little river." Every time he came back from his long voyages for he was trading far and near, like the greatest of merchants he went at once to the banks of the river to see how his sweetheart fared.
He had blue eyes and curling hair, and he was strong, and would have been merry; but it is dull work playing for other folk to dance, and Sadko dared not dance with any young girl, for he had no money to marry on, and he did not want to be chased away as a beggar. And the young women of Novgorod, they never looked at the handsome Sadko.
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