And when the wind moved them softly, the emperor would sit and
listen to them all the day long.

The stepmother knew what it all meant, and her mind never ceased from
trying to invent some way of destroying the trees. It was not an easy
thing, but a woman's will can press milk out of a stone, and her cunning
will overcome heroes. What craft will not do soft words may attain, and
if these do not succeed there still remains the resource of tears.

One morning the empress sat on the edge of her husband's bed, and began
to coax him with all sorts of pretty ways.

It was some time before the bait took, but at length--even emperors are
only men!

'Well, well,' he said at last, 'have your way and cut down the trees;
but out of one they shall make a bed for me, and out of the other, one
for you!'

And with this the empress was forced to be content. The aspens were cut
down next morning, and before night the new bed had been placed in the
emperor's room.

Now when the emperor lay down in it he seemed as if he had grown a
hundred times heavier than usual, yet he felt a kind of calm that was
quite new to him. But the empress felt as if she was lying on thorns and
nettles, and could not close her eyes.

When the emperor was fast asleep, the bed began to crack loudly, and to
the empress each crack had a meaning. She felt as if she were listening
to a language which no one but herself could understand.

'Is it too heavy for you, little brother?' asked one of the beds.

'Oh, no, it is not heavy at all,' answered the bed in which the emperor
was sleeping. 'I feel nothing but joy now that my beloved father rests
over me.'

'It is very heavy for me!' said the other bed, 'for on me lies an evil
soul.'

And so they talked on till the morning, the empress listening all the
while.

By daybreak the empress had determined how to get rid of the beds. She
would have two others made exactly like them, and when the emperor had
gone hunting they should be placed in his room. This was done and the
aspen beds were burnt in a large fire, till only a little heap of ashes
was left.

Yet while they were burning the empress seemed to hear the same words,
which she alone could understand.

Then she stooped and gathered up the ashes, and scattered them to the
four winds, so that they might blow over fresh lands and fresh seas, and
nothing remain of them.

But she had not seen that where the fire burnt brightest two sparks flew
up, and,