.

There was once a great and mighty emperor, whose kingdom was so large
that no one knew where it began and where it ended. Some believed it
was boundless, others said that they dimly remembered having heard
from very old people that the emperor had formerly engaged in war with
his neighbors, some of whom had proved greater and more powerful,
others smaller and weaker than he. One piece of news about this
emperor went all through the wide world--that he always laughed with
his right eye and wept with the left. People vainly asked the reason
that the emperor's eyes could not agree, and even differed so
entirely. When great heroes went to the emperor to question him, he
smiled evasively and made no reply. So the enmity between the
monarch's eyes remained a profound mystery, whose cause nobody knew
except the emperor himself. Then the emperor's sons grew up. Ah, what
princes they were! Three princes in one country, like three morning
stars in the sky! Florea, the oldest, was a fathom tall, with
shoulders more than four span broad. Costan was very different, short,
strongly built, with a muscular arm and a stout fist. The third and
youngest prince was named Petru--a tall, slender fellow, more like a
girl than a boy. Petru did not talk much, he laughed and sang, sang
and laughed, from morning till night. Only he was often seen in a
graver mood, when he pushed back the curling locks from his forehead
and looked like one of the old wiseacres who belonged to the emperor's
council.

"Come, Florea, you are grown up, go to our father and ask him why one
of his eyes always weeps and the other always laughs," said Petru, one
fine morning to his brother Florea. But Florea would not go; he knew
by experience that the emperor was always vexed if any one asked him
that question.

Petru fared just the same when he went to his brother Costan.

"Very well, if nobody else dares, I'll venture it!" he said at last.
No sooner said than done, Petru instantly went and asked.

"May your mother blind you! What's that to you?" replied the emperor
wrathfully, giving him one cuff on the right ear and another on the
left. Petru went sadly away, and told his brothers how his father had
served him. Yet, after the young prince had asked what was the matter
with the eyes, it seemed as though the left one wept less and the
right one laughed more.

Petru plucked up his courage and went to the emperor again. A box on
the ear is a box on the ear, and