A NOVEL

The man will not awake until the woman gets up.

  ...all of this used to be, and all of this passed away, as if in one day and one night.

1

 Sitting astride, Yesieniei was watching his herds rolling up to him from far away in a flow, which seemed to be endless, from the crest of a high hill in Karshygaly. After summer pastures which had been fed down without remainder, now, in autumn, pristine grass powdered with snow lay beneath the horses’ hooves. There was probably no need to bother to find a better place to winter over...There are coombs in which you can always shelter your horses away from the fierce snowstorms of these parts. There is another secure protection against the rough weather – forests, which have not lost their foliage completely yet, are stretched their long shaggy manes. It even seems to him that he could hear a heart-comforting rustle of lush grass on the sound teeth of a horse from this place, from the hill.  It looks like there’s no need to tremble for the herds this winter. As the saying goes, one jute is enough to smite a rich man, and one bullet is enough to smite a batyr. And he is both – a rich man and a batyr. And he turned in the saddle to face his companions, as if expecting an acknowledgement of these thoughts of his and expecting the new land to be praised.

 Four more men were with him on the hill.

One of them was called, after the origin of a close ancestor, Musriep the Turkman, he was Yesieniei’s most intimate fellow. The name of the second one was Musriep, too, and “hunter” was usually added to it, he descended from the Aldai clan. The tight-lipped Biekientai-batyr was sitting in his saddle still. And the fourth companion among them was Kienzhetai – Trukman-Musriep’s younger brother, Yesieniei’s all-time ringleader.

They were very different, the two Musrieps. Musriep the Turkman Musriep the Turkman had a delicate ear, and sybyzgy, a steppe saltwort pipe, came to life when he set it to his lips. He had composed several kiujs of his own, which feasted people’s ears in many auls. There always was a fine horse under his saddle. Musriep the Turkman had a predilection for flaunting clothes and led a carefree life of a zhigit with no family anxieties, though a few – a few so far – gray hairs could be found in his well-groomed moustache and beard upon a close view.

What gave the best evidence of his namesake’s passion was his by-name – hunter. It was just impossible to imagine him otherwise – a glowering capped black by the name of Foxes’ Terror, a long-barreled bipodded Berdan rifle behind his back.  Having had enough of silence while hunting all alone, this Musriep was quite talkative but showed no great eloquence.

It was he who showed this place to Yesieniei, and now, having caught his glance, he attempted to remind him of his  service:

- Oh, agha-sultan! What did I tell you? You can see it yourself now... It was Allah himself who created these winter pastures for your horses! Karshygaly has no owner yet. You’ll winter over once, and it will be called agha-sultan’s land, and it will be inherited by your children and grandchildren!

^г A kiuj is a music piece without lyrics без слов. (Hereinafter translator’s notes).

Yesieniei looked at him silently. It is not only eloquence, but also quick wits and delicacy that Musriep the Hunter fails to show. His words were not so numerous, but he touched Yesieniei to the quick twice. The sonorous title, the high rank of an agha-sultan is just a dream so far, the one he has been striving for many years, and it is  obscure whether he will achieve it or not.  “Your children and grandchildren...” How is one whose two sons died on one and the same day and whose wife has not given birth a child since twenty years ago to take this... This would sound like an insult, a mockery from the lips of any other man!  But Musriep the Hunter is just such an unfortunate flatterer, eager to win favor by hook or by crook. 

Last winter, having met Yesieniei on a hunt, he presented him with two red foxes and three ferrets and has been somewhat frivolous since then. Since last Indian summer, he’s become absolutely inseparable from Yesieniei, priming his young Arab gun dogs. For some reason, Yesieniei has sometimes tolerated things he’d never tolerate with anyone else, so he only wound his head round, as if waving a troublesome fly aside. 

Musriep the Turkman, who always understood everything, decided to warn Yesieniei.

- You can see it as it is, - he said, - that the grass is rich here, the pastures have been cherished and kept still both in summer and in autumn...But where can one find noone’s land now? There is somebody who owns this all...

Musriep the Hunter interrupted petulantly:

-      What do you know?! This is the most noone’s of all noone’s lands! Is there a single nook to which I haven’t been here? I can tell the land from which a fox or a wolf comes by its neb, by its fur...And how many of them there is there... By God, there are three thousand wolves, five thousand foxes, twelve thousand ferrets, and seven thousand hares Karshygaly now!..

Musriep the Turkman said tauntingly:

-  Poor wolves, poor foxes... They’ll starve with so few hares... But maybe you’ll tell us, Musiekie, how many white partridges and how many black ones are there?

-     Indeed,- Yesieniei played along.- If there are so many hungry wolves here, they’ll gobble up all of my herds in winter, and I’ll be both horseless and hungry...

It was getting late; at first the sky, which was dark with heavy clouds, was sieving small snow pellets, and then heavy flakes started heaping down. 

Kienzhetai touched his brother upon the sleeve and beckoned him to the forest. Musriep the Turkman looked at it closely, too, and turned to Yesieniei:

-     It seems to me we’re not alone here... Fire smoke is trailing from the skirt ... And here come the riders!

Three men were approaching them from the forest. One was at the front, his horse was ambling. Having come very close, the zhigit  reined back his horse and exclaimed with no trace of embarrassment:

-     Assalaumalikem, honorable men! We were sent to deliver a request of three Kurlieut settler auls... We’ve kept the Karshygaly pastures still for the whole summer and autumn, hoping to find our salvation here in winter. Our auls cannot defend Karshygaly by force... We were send amid hopes that the request of the downtrodden will gain the ear of the strong but honest. 

Musriep the Hunter, who nearly believed himself to be the onwner of this land, interrupted the youth with a sharp bark: 

-     Stop this rambling, brat! Now listen... Tell your Kurlieuts not to dare dispute the land where the hooves of agha-sultan Yesieniei’s horses have stepped!

But the youth did not lose his nerve and did not fail to speak:

-     You may treat those who have no Yesieniei of their own like dirt... But we ask you to turn your herds back, anyway... They’ll devastate our land like a fire!

Musriep the Hunter got hot under the collar:

-     Who are you speaking to, rascal? If they couldn’t bring you up to respect elder people..; I’ll... Do you want me to give your bare ass a spanking?!

He even started his horse, but Yesieniei stopped him with an imperious gesture. The youth was waiting.

 The lad took Yesieniei’s fancy... The eyes of this zhigit, who had scarcely stepped over his twentieth spring, were glowing with courage and resoluteness. His sons, who were taken by black smallpox the same day, could be like that. In his own clan, the clan of the Sibans consisting of ten big auls, he watched young zhigits surreptitiously but closely and endeavored to support him if it was necessary and possible... Yesieniei gave Musriep the Turkman a furtive nod, encouraging him to smooth over the hunter’s rudeness.

Musriep the Turkman heard the lad calling his men Kurlieut settlers himself. These people are torn apart from their native heath... Then the auls that sent him can hardly keep body and soul together Perhaps they do not even have a silver-tongued powerful aksakal-bey to stand upon the rights of his clansmen in a dispute.

-     Listen here, son, a request like yours cannot be neglected, - he said mildly. – Say these very word to your aul... As for you, you’re not at all ill-mannered. One who has a beautiful face can have a beautiful soul, too. You may have got too worked up, but we can understand it, it was out of despair...

Yesieniei listened Musriep the Turkman’s speech approvingly, and the youth, who had not lost his courage at Musriep the Hunter’s threatening,  did not get embarrassed by the sweet words that he had just heard.

-My honorable men... The people who sent me didn’t ask me to get worked up or show my pride. If this happened, I’m the only one to blame. A right word hits the target like an arrow, and a wrong one hits the heart of the one who utters it. Here is my aip¹ for you. –

He jumped off his horse and threw the  rein to Kienzhetai negligently.

- If you’re a reinleader, you’ll lead it without this, too...

It all happened before they knew. The lad dismounted one of his companions, got onto his horse and said abruptly at parting:

-     Sorry if I said a wrong thing...

His fellows perched on one horse, and all of them made way back to the forest.

Yesieniei was still staring after them silently, but it seemed to Musriep the Turkman, who didn’t need words to understand him, that he was nearly ready to follow the young zhigit.

-     Why didn’t you let me?- said Musriep the Hunter in an injured voice,- We should have gave the cheeky lad’s bare ass a spanking! – He got angry again and, most probably, imagined hid whip flying up while punishing the lad.

Musriep the Turkman, agrin, looked at him and at Yesieniei.

-          I wonder whose daughter it can be, - he asked as if thinking to himself.

-          Daughter?..- Yesieniei just dropped his second remark so far.

-          Of course! Our Musriep the Hunter knows every fox here, but he failed to notice the most beautiful one. And you? When she said “Here’s my aip”, her glance was not only resolute, it was open... The glance she gave to Yesieniei was that of pure girlish curiosity. 

-          What a man this Turkman is, what a man...- Yesieniei laughed.- And he’s not so young! And no woman can escape your eyes. Maybe it is you whom we should call Musriep the Hunter?

And the hunter himself was absolutely dumbfounded.

- A girl?.. If this is true, God must have struck me over the head with a soil¹! My name is mud... Then it is Artykbai’s daughter, it is Ulpan! A month hasn’t passed since I stayed overnight in their house. How could I fail to recognize their black ambler? Ulpan spent the whole day hunting with me, and I gave her with fat geese...Oh, my dear. How can I look you into the eyes now?

-      Of course you won’t be able to do this when spanking,- Musriep the Turkman finished him off.

The hunter had nothing to reply with, he drooped his had completely,  and Yesieniei asked to dispel all doubts:

-           Are you sure? Is she really Artykbai’s daughter?

-           Oh, agha-sultan! There’s no other girl like this here... It is she, Ulpan. And the horse is hers... Here is Kienzhetai, holding a black ambler. Just look – he has similar white rings on his back legs, near the pasterns, and a star on his forehead.  When such a horse is ambling, a single drop of water will be spilt out of a bowl on its croup.

Each and every of them was wondering now – how could he fail to recognize a girl in the young zhigit... However, the day was gloomy, and it was approaching the evening, and large flakes were still descending from above... And who can send a girl on an important affair! It had been quite possible to fail to recognize her, and still Musriep the Hunter was sighing grievously, Yesieniei was squinting his eyes, Kienzhetai was casting glances of respect at his elder brother. And only Biekientai-batyr, imperturbable like many strong people, was waiting calmly for what was yet to come.

Ulpan was hastening her horse.

Her clansmen, the Kurlieuts,  had found out that Yesieniei’s herds were coming from summer steppe pastures. And they became alarmed. All the more so as the watchmen recognized Yesieniei himself among several riders.

Ulpan recognized him, riding a big bay horse with yellowish markings, too. She recognized him despite the head, which was covered with a thick black cloth hood. She recognized him, and her fear at seeing Yesieniei for the first time came back to her memory. How old was she back then? About five, not more.

Father decided to let her go and speak to the unexpected visitors, and Ulpan disguised and tried to behave in a way which would prevent them from understanding that it wasn’t a young zhigit with whom the negotiations were being held... 

Now it seemed to Ulpan that she had succeeded in it, and she was very pleased with herself.

After her sudden departure, Yesieniei’s companions as well as Yesieniei himself did not know what they were to do now. They took an aip from a girl! The black horse stood near Kienzhetai, digging snow with his hoof, as a living reproach for their impercipience.  Maybe the folksay came into Yesieniei’s mind that moment: “Sacrifice your cattle to save your life and sacrifice your life to save your honor”. Musriep the Turkman caught his glance: - We must be ashamed for breaking into Artykbai-batyr’s land alone – he said. – But our greatest shame is that we let his daughter leave us a horse for her seeming fault!

He kept looking into Yesieniei’s pock-fretted face pitted with far-off smallpox.

Yesieniei himself had never happened to pay an aip, not once in his long life. And since his becoming a bey¹, which was very long ago, he had always demanded severe punishment for those who broke the unwritten, not always fair, but firm steppe regulations... So now it was both ridiculous and awkward that he had become one at fault by an absurd chance. All the more so as  Artykbai, though they hadn’t seen each since long ago, had helped him out more than once, rescued him both from shame and from certain death.

That is why he was at loss, believing himself to have no right to decide how to act; Musriep the Turkman said:

-     I think the best thing to do is to return the horse to his owner... And another horse in addition.

Musriep the Hunter, who had a clear notion of how to harbor and run down an animal but no idea of what they could do to get out of the unpleasant situation, in which they found themselves not without his contribution, brightened up most of all.

-     Оh, namesake! Oh, my dear! – he exclaimed. – Agha-sultan has no better friend and advisor! Take my white horse to the poor Kurlieuts...

But the white horse was old, and Yesieniei gave Kienzhetai a nod to his bay one, called Muzbiel, which means – ice spine, an even light gray stripe went down from his head to his croup.  And when Kienzhetai, hardly managing to hold back the black horse, that was rushing home, started off, Yesieniei said after him:

-     Give my respects to Artiekie... Tell him I’ll come myself to make my to  him...

Kienzhetai with the horses in the rein disappeared in the veil of snow, and Yesieniei enounced his decision:

-     As for that hill... No horse can bring its hooves here... Except for Sadyr’s kos¹. Two koses must be driven down to Kusmurun, and the fourth one – to our pastures on Akkusakie, Karajemien, and Lake Yelaman. You, the two Musrieps, stay here with me, and you, Biekientai, go with the Kusmurun koses...

Biekientai nodded and set his horse going, and they never found out what his opinion on everything that had happened there on that hill was.

Yesieniei rode to the lake, which hadn’t got covered with ice yet, alone and at a leisurely pace. He ordered for yurts to be put up there in the morning.

«I must be getting old,- he was thinking.- And it was just a while ago that I was the first one to hear an arrow bolted by an enemy’s hand fly and managed to duck...  How could I offend Artykbai-batyr? It didn’t occur to me that, if those were the Kurlieuts’ auls, he was with them, too... Has my wit become slower? After all, I would always choose the place for my horses to winter over myself before. And here I put myself in the hunter’s hands, as if I didn’t know the worth of his blabbering... And it was not I who noticed that a girl was speaking to us but Musriep the Turkman...»

This accidental encounter brought Yesieniei to return to the past which was fifteen years old. He and Artykbai would hardly ever part back then, and akyns used to praise the gallant deeds of this batyr in all sharps and flats.   It was while fighting the Kieniesary-tore warriors, who conducted one raid after another on the north of the Kazakh steppe, that Artykbai demonstrated the power of his hand and his unbreakable spirit.

They would also come to the auls of the Kieriei and Uak tribes, which were closely akin.

For a start, messengers arrived with a demand for all aksakals and all karasakals to gather at an appointed place, where Kieniesary was to be elected khan of all Kazakhs. Three days and three nights were given for reflection – whether they would go or not, whether they would grasp at the edges of the white blanket on which he was to be lifted.

And Kieriei-Uaks had nothing to reflect on. Five of their districts bordered directly on Tobolsk, Baglan, Stap, and Kpitan – the latter two words are ones which came from the Russians and were then adopted by the Kazakhs, staff office and captain.  There were other Cossack stanitsas, too, there were also settlements and villages...

Markets started buzzing in Amankaragai district.Tea and sugar, spongy baked bread, chintz, velvet, silk, fine leather – this all more or less, depending on sufficiency, was part and parcel of the e everyday in yurts. 

Twenty years ago (“now it’s already thirty-five years ago, - Yesieniei thought, - more than half a life”) a khanate fell on the north of the Kazakh steppe, and internal confrontations, brushes, and battles became far less frequent...  People began getting used to the fact that they could sleep peacefully at night and setting watchmen wasn’t necessary.

Kieniesary wanted to bring it all to a top. A nation has its memory... As soon as any of the self-assured Chingizids was hailed khan, everybody started doing whatever occurred* to him in his patrimony, taking no principles into consideration, violating the clan law easily.  

That is why a day and a night, another day and another night, and three more days passed and the answer which Kieniesary was expecting didn’t come. Then his sarbazes appeared on the stage. The sarbazez repaved horses in herds, they also reaved girls and young women. What could not be reaved or loaded on a horse was burned. The auls that were unwilling to declare Kieniesary to be their khan had a rough time... But he could neither break them nor conquer.

The more Yesieniei thought then, the less he understood Kieniesary. It should seem he wasn’t stupid... But what does he reckon on then? Russian towns stand sure both in the east of the Kazakh land and in its West, and on Fga, too...Uralsk, Orenburg, Tobolsk, Tymen, Pietropavlovsk, Omsk...  Kazakh stanitsas are stretched between them. Where does Kieniesary hope to create his khanate? In the Bietpak-Dala? In the bare and foodless desert? What lot is he, insatiate in his lust for power, prepare for the tribes and clans that have taken his side? Nothing but aktaban-shubyryndy – great tribulations and woes! Some of those who followed him two years ago came to understand this and are fleeing from his landings... A Russian uriendyk¹ is sure to get his share in an aul, but there’s much use in neighboring with the Russians. But you won’t even get muddy froth from what gets into your khan’s pot...

Yesieniei knew the attitudes of his close relatives – the Sibans, he knew what the others thought, too, and started resisting Kieniesary stubbornly. The five district inhabited by the Kierieis and the Uaks supported his in this struggle desperate commitment.

2

Many people get wounded in Kazakh inner fights, but they rarely get killed. Archers mostly shoot from afar, that is why their arrows do not strike dead.  A sarbaz armed with a soil, a fighting club – a shokpar, can easily ward off the attack of spearmen and even break a spear or a pike with a backstroke if he possesses a certain degree of proficiency.    And if he does, his enemy becomes absolutely helpless and defenseless. Swords were hardly ever used. So during three years of battles between Yesienei and Kieniesary, less than three hundred men were killed. Nevertheless, there was a mutilated man in each family, and none of his dearest and nearest could rely on him as a breadwinner or a defender any more.

Yesieniei was informed that Kieniesary was drawing his horsemen to the bank of the Ishym River and thinking of  crossing it to get to them Kieriei-Uaks. But Yesieniei gathered those men who capable of handling weapons from all the five districts and allocated them all over lake banks, on dzhailiaus. He appointed well-tried batyrs and faithful aksakals heads of separate squadrons and set off, accompanied by forty horsemen, to see the head of Amankaragai district Chingis Valikhanov. 

Chingis, the son of the last local khan, appointed to be agha-sultan by the Russian authorities, was of kin to Kieniesary – he was also a Tore... He didn’t join the rebellion as he could have been expected to do, but he also took no measures to put a stop to the plunder. What, auls are taking Kieniesary’s side? Let them take it...Runaways come back from him? let them come back... And so it went on like this for three years...The agha-sultan was sheltering in his horde, as his headquarters was called by force of habit, and his greatest care was to get regular supply of forty fat horses for the winter slaughter – sogym – and forty milking mares and a hundred sheep for summer from the local dwellers, who were drained dry by the raids...Yesieniei was intending to finally find out what both his attitudes and his relationship with him were like.

The agha-sultan moved to a yurt for the summer, and Yesieniei entered it with his the unfailing companion of his, Musriep the Turkman, along with two batyrs – Artykbai and Sadyr.

Chingis stood up to greet the most powerful bey in his council. The agha-sultan always looked at Yesieniei, a swarthy-black, pock-fretted man, whose face acquired a fierce expression as soon as he had something to call unfair, with a certain admiration but also with an apprehension.

- Sit down. On your place. It is always yours,- he gestured to the place near himself.

Everyone who was present in the yurt   rose to his feet when Yesieniei came in. Kieniesary’s messenger, Tleumber-bey, stood up, too. Zhanai-batyr, who had arrived with him, also stood up.

Yesieniei took their respectful greetings for granted and sat down next to the agha-sultan on his side, pressing Tlieumbiet-bey out of this very place of honor.  Seating himself, Yesieniei brushed him with his knee, and Tlieumbiet-bey retorted with a wince of pain.

When everybody had taken a seat, Chingins went on:

-  Welcome, Yesiekie... I am pleased to see you, but you have arrived a month earlier than we appointed a gathering. This is the only reason why I want to ask you – is everything in order?

Yesieniei gave an angry wheeze:

-   My God!.. If everything was in order, would I have taken to the road? Can this wild clansman of yours leave the folks who are subject to you in peace? Another day, another raid! This is why I’ve come, because there’s  no living!

Yesieniei spoke of what everyone knew on purpose, he spoke sharply to  hurt Tlieumbiet, and each word of his struck like an elaborate lash.

Chingis tried to soften the conversation:

-            And the life here, in the horde, is peaceful, owing to you... We hope that, as long as Yesieniei himself is among our friends, noone will dare attack the Kieriei-Uaks...

-            It has been three years, nearly three years since the Kieriei-Uaks started sleeping in their saddles, -Yesieniei retorted, looking the agha-sultan in the eyes.

-            Оh, it appears that our Yesiekie has come in anger... And when Yesiekie is in anger, I do not dare utter a word...-Chingis smiled, and this smile could be taken as an attempt to laugh it off, but it could be taken as one meant to remind Yesieniei that he was, actually, in the agha-sultan’s headquarters and that he had better bear it in mind. – And now, too, I cannot even venture to appeal to his patience to avoid bringing the matter to an uncovered controversy.

Having noticed that no knots could be tied in their conversation, Tlieumbiet-bey started speaking.  Solemnly as ever, larding his speech with overtones, in a slightly singing voice, as if he was reciting poems:

- Since the Kazakhs became Kazakhs,

since that time                           

they have had their country

and they have found their land...

To lose the khanate now                                                 

is to lose everything!

Misfortune will come to their auls,

and they will cease to exist as a nation!

This sounded like an incantation, and then Tlieumbiet proceeded to premonition:

-A black saba,

in which a colt could swim without restraint,

a giant Bukhara pot, in which there is enough space for a two-year-old’s carcass,

-            everything will thin out, everything will be ownerless.  And one

who wants to have some bread,

which is baked in large ovens,

and one,

who will blame his khan,

-let him be a bey or a slave,-

will not escape penance!

Tlieumbiet was already sincerely choking with rage and finished with an obscure menace:

- I have never happened to see

such people prosper!

If it had been the first time they listened to him and the circumstances were different, it could have made an impression. But Yesieniei knew him, Yesieniei did not consider it necessary to reply to Tlieumbiet himself and sidled glance at Musriep.

The latter started thoughtfully:

- Otagasy!.. It might be due to my young age, due to my folly and flippancy that I failed to understand our dear Tlieumbiet-bey. Of what khanate, of what khan, oh what time did he speak? It has been twenty years since Valikhan, the father of our agha-sultan, who is present among us, departed from this life. I haven’t heard since that very time that the Kazakhs of six districts within Siberian Governorate General have a khan of their own! And if a despicable band of castoffs and vagrants called Kieniesary their khan – let them do this! What is all that to us? Who, being a sensible person, can accept him as a khan? What for? To plunder and kill those who refuse to acknowledge Kieniesary? You, Tleukie, came to us twice – and twice you repeated one and the same learned chant... And what did the Kierieis and the Uaks, who make five districts, reply to you back then? What? Don’t you remember?

Closing his eyes tightly, Tlieumbiet-bey froze with his headdown. It wasn’t only to see Musriep that he hated, he didn’t want to heat any of his words. What an awful offence - Yesieniei, a district bey, this Russian placeman, devoted to bread baked in large ovens, preferred not to respond to Kieniesary’s messenger personally and entrusted it to a Turkman, whom he’s always pulling around with him...

But Musriep hadn’t finished yet.

- Do you remember your first visit to us?- he went on,- It all was smoother over in quite a decent way... And the second time?- He made a short pause and, paying no attention to Yesieniei’s wince of disapproval,  finished: - You even came back home without your horse!

To come back without a horse, especially for not a common person, for a Bey – the Kazakhs cannot think of greater disgrace. And all the people present in the agha-sultan’s house had a clear notion of what Musriep meant and knew that is was the very truth.

Then Kieniesary send Tlieumbiet-bey for the second time – to persuade the Kieriei-Uaks to resign themselves to him. Kieniesary knew whom he should send... It was not without reason when, praising the glorious bey’s eloquence, people called him double throat and  brazen palate... He enchanted the gathering with an abundance of proverbs and sayings used on suitable occasions, with that passionate melodiousness of his speech... He stirred the pulses of the representatives of those five Kieriei-Uak districts, and they were nodding their heads approvingly, exclaiming “Oh, diegien-ai,  what a saying!..”, captivated rather by the way in which he was speaking than  by the meaning of his words. «Oh, diegien-ai...Only Yedioge, the folk’s protector, could utter such words!» -they started praising the bey.

“I need no praise, the only thing I need is for my words to reach my tribesmen’s minds”,- Tlieumbiet answered modestly and lay back on a downy pillow complacently.

What was happening seemed to meet his expectations completely.

But suddenly an elderly man, with almost absolutely gray hair, stepped forward out of the crowd and stopped in front of Yesieniei.

“Yesieniei,- he spoke to him,- The occasion may be inappropriate... But I’ve got a complaint for you as for a Bey... Ask this holy silver-tongued orator, ask Tlieumbiet-bey: whom does the yellowish-piebald ambler he rode to see you belong to?

“Most probably to him...- Yesieniei replied.- Do you think Tlieumbiet-bey is the man to ride someone else’s horse? “

The downy pillow surely seemed a sharp-edged stone to Tlieumbiet-bey. He exclaimed, jumping over:

“So you’ve set a trap for me here?!”

Yesieniei didn’t respond, he waited for the unexpected visitor’s further words.

“I don’t know if he is the man or not,- the latter went on.-But the yellowish-piebald ambler, renowned for all races, is mine. Two weeks ago... God-damn robbers – and this man, your guest, was their leader,-drove away a yellowish-piebald herd of mine. They didn’t even bother to leave me one horse, to save the breed! So I hived off  and wandered up to the outskirts of Kpitan yesterday...”

The people who had been listening to Tlieumbiet with great devotion started making a noise of disapproval, but Yesieniei stopped them with a gesture:

“And who may you be?”

“It’s through his horse that glory finds one man and through his dogs that it finds another man...” Sautbiek of the Atygai-Karauls was renowned for his yellowish-piebald dogs, and I, one of the worthless old men of Koily-Atygai, am renowned for my yellowish-piebald ambler that I do not have now.”

“In that case, you must be Zhamanbala?”

“Supposedly...”

Yesieniei was silent. It always takes him a long time to utter the final word.  And now he chose to turn to Tlieumbiet:

“Honorable bey... I ask you to pass the sentence yourself...”

“Forty lashes!”- he replied  hastily.

 “For whom?”

“Of course for the one who dared complain  about a bey!”

After a period of reflection, which was very short this time,   Yesieniei turned to  Zhamanbala: “The horse is yours...”

 This is how it was during the second visit of Kieniesary’s messenger to the Kieriei-Uaks.

Tlieumbiet-bey did not move yet, sitting still like a balbal, which are plenty in the steppe, standing there from ancient times, he didn’t utter a word and didn’t open his eyes.

Then Yesieniei, still paying no attention to him, turned to Chingis:

- Agha-sultan, you said that I have come here in anger...But are there no reasons for it? And what a turgid speech I’ve heard! A black saba, in which a colt could swim in kumis like in our lake Yelaman...  A pot, in which a two-year-old can be boiled as a whole carcass... This is all froth! There’s no believing them! And to slur bread is to have a deadly sin on one’s conscience. значит Bread has become the same as meat for a Kazakh. So when did the khans, who had the black saba and the Bukhara pot, feed the common people?.. I have already told you... Well, Kieniesary was has been lifted on a whit blanket. Well, he has become the khan. Where will his khanate be? In the Bietpak-Dala? Maybe that’s why the aksakals who were the first to bawl and squall for him two or three years ago are now going back to their homeland with their men. In secret... And if the happen to get  captured by Kieniesary’s sarbazes, the first ones to get the lashes are there aksakals... I was not born yesterday and haven’t lost my mind yet! But remember what I tell  you – Kieniesary will never be the khan of six districts. Little time will pass, and he will flee to the steppe of Saryarkin, as there’s no coming back home, to his motherland, for him.

Yesieniei had said everything he had intended to so far and stopped speaking.

The beys, aksakals, and batyrs, who had gathered there, were silent, too, waiting for what agha-sultan would say. But Chingis was silent, too.

He realized that Yesieniei was right but didn’t say it aloud. What is Kieniesary... Nobody dares to rebel against the Russian arms, which have suppressed the pride of the West, in Europe. Kieniesary is bringing his people to a disaster, and there is no good ending for his rebellion.

But, on the second thought...what if the district administrators and powerful beys of all the three zhuzes elect   Kieniesary their khan. Will the Tsar’s government probably accept him, too? And he gets the control over the steppe...Actually, this can happen, too. Though it is dubious. The power of a khan is not a power of great vitality nowadays. People are exhausted with incessant raids, desperate...They are already willing to disclaim Kieniesary, but they keep reciting someone’s bitter words for the time being:  “Kieniesary cannot live to be more than a hundred years, and then, God willing, he’ll croak”.

The freckled black giant, intelligent as he is, has a clear understanding of all this and distinctly confronts the agha-sultan, a Chingizid by origin, with a dilemma: either he takes the lead in this people’s struggle against  Kieniesary as an agha-sultan or takes the kinsman’s side frankly. It was with the purpose of raising such a demand that Yesieniei came to the headquarters before the appointed time came.

The agha-sultan was still hesitating. Of course, a man appointed for his position, especially the one who hold the rank of a major, should have been the first one to rise against the rebellious Kieniesary. But how could he have the heart?.. А Tlieumbiet-bey, also occupying a very honorable position, insists, his oily whisper is crawling into his ears: you are of the Tores, of the khan’s clan, your place is next to Kieniesary... But how could he go this length?

Yesieniei found it necessary to add: - Your kinsman Kieniesary has driven thousands of sarbazes to the land of the Kieriei-Uaks. He’s intending to launch an attack some of these days. I’m not afraid to say that we are not letting the grass grow under our feet, either, and two can play at that game. One thing is clear – this time one of the sides will beg for mercy. I’ve come to tell you this for you to know.

The agha-sultan gave no reply again, and Tlieumbiet-bey concluded that , so much for keeping silent, time had come for him to say a few words of his own. He turned to his main opponent:

- A rumor reached us, and we didn’t know whether we should rejoice or mourn... The chief bey of Amankaragai District,    the glorious Yesieniei has allegedly become  a Russian khorzhun... Well, we don’t mind as long as you’re happy!

A khoryzun is a saddle-bag, and  that's how Tlieumbiet twisted the Russian “khorunzhy” (ensign). Yesieniei was given thin rank for  his struggle against Kieniesary’s horsemen.

Having have Tlieumbiet a hearing rather calmly, he replied: - Well... I can be grateful to my shabby khorzhun. It had  enough space for two hundred sarbazes of Kieniesary... But I feel odd listening to you... You used to be an honorable bey of the Atygai and Karaul clans, and now you’ve turned into a dexterous poshtabai¹ of  Kieniesary, rushing at a breakneck pace wherever he tells you, at a nod of his. I can congratulate you on your new position, too.

There was no need to explain to those who were present where the sting of their words was. Yesieniei had got the rank of an ensign, indeed, and he had also taken about two hundred prisoners in the battlefield and delivered them to Stap in about two or three years. And Tlieumbiet lost his bey’s title during the previous election and was attached to Kieniesary, running errands for him.

Chingis was cursing both Yesieniei and Tlieumbiet inwardly... Of all things, how could they happen to meet in his house! The best thing to do was to beat about the bush just like he had been doing successfully. But if he doesn’t say yes to this pully giant now, the latter will complain to the Siberian Governor General about  a good half of a big district constantly undergoing the rebels’ raids.  He’s sure to empty the bag there, in Omsk. And he has someone to lodge the complaint to; Turlybiek, a councilor in charge of all the six Kazakh districts, is Yesieniei’s maternal cousin. It’s quite clear that the complain will start with words like this: “I made personal visits to the agha-sultan more than once I talked to him, warned him of the danger, but he would not take the warning...”

Chingis at that moment was also mostly thinking of ways to break the conversation, which was going to end in an uncovered quarrel, without saying “yes” or “no” to the opposing parties.

Quite unaware of this, major Bergsen, whom the Kazakhs dubbed Bersen, which means given, assigned, came to his aid... A German or a Swede by blood...

-    Agha-sultan, everything is ready for the к horse-riding sport games,- he reported clearly.- The archers are ready, too. Shall we begin?

Chingis brightened up greatly at seeing him:

-    Wait a moment...- And he turned to his council: -Honorable beys... When many words are poured, the truth will drown in them. We do know where the smoke trails from the fires made by  both sides. The last word is yet to be said, and now I invite you to feast your eyes on the military art of our men...

So he put it, infected with Tlieumbiet’s vain eloquence, and rose to his feet.

The guests stood up, too, and followed him outside. Bersen – the assigned one, acquired the name not by accident.  The Siberian Governor General had sent agha-sultanу Chingis twenty armed Cossacks. As safeguards. But, of course, for  untiring surveillance, too.

The Cossacks started with fancy riding, and they proved to be utterly proficient. They were jumping into their saddles at full speed, changing from one stirrup to the other under a horses’ barrel. And how perfectly schooled the horses were! It was just a moment before that they were frisking – and here they were, shuddering to a halt, and all of them fell on one side easily on command and lay without moving a muscle.

Yesieniei thought with envy that Kazakh horses would get confused in such situation, would start rushing about, scaring each other, notobeying the rider...

It was not for nothing that Chingis took out his guests, his councilors, to watch the games...

After the fancy riding, the Cossacks appeared battle-equipped.  Vine-slashing followed, and the sun could hardly drop a flash onto the cold blade, and there was no seeing much of the blade itself, so swiftly the sword rose and fell. There was shooting, too – horseback, into a dummy. There was a sham fight, with pikes, and, though the Cossacks were attacking each other furiously, nobody got a slightest scratch.

Musriep, who was standing nearby, noticed significance, with which Chingis cast a glance at Tlieumbiet every once in a while. Giving him an object-lesson, for him to pass it over to Kieniesary. Most probably, the agha-sultan hopes that Tlieumbiet will cease to insist after such a sight... Who of them can cope with such well-schooled and excellently-armored warriors?

But the pupil turned out to be slow-witted. At first he pretended to be merely watching as everyone else, but then he couldn’t resist it, and his sarcastic voice reached Musriep:

-     Are we going to watch  them having their horses lie down and then get up agape if we chance to meet them in a different place?

No, nothing can help... There’s no persuading Tlieumbiet, there’s no persuading Kieniesary. They, as well as the other beys and aksakals, can neither guide the opposition nor turn back from the perilous way.

The Cossacks froze all of a sudden, returned their swords, and paced away, giving place to the following competition, which was held to celebrate Tlieumbiet-bey’s arrival.

Coins were handing down on threads from a bar between two poles – two shiny brazen fivers, large and ancient, two silver roubles, and two golden five rouble coins were sparkling in the sun. Bersen announced the rules: the one who hits a brown will be awarded with fox fur, the one who hits a rouble – with wolf, and the one who hits the golden coin will get a sable skin.

It was evident, judging by kinness of vision and by skill, that from between Yesieniei’s people Artykbai-batyr would come out with a bow in his hands, and from Tlieumbiet’s side – Zhanai batyr.   And they did stand at a previously measured distance of fifty steps and, as is right and proper, an exchange of polite greetings took place.

-         The best archer among the Kierieis must not make way for anyone, you shoot, - Zhanai suggested.

-          No,- Artykbai objected.- Argyn, your ancestor, was our arch-father’s first-born, let your arrow fly first.

-         I yield in your favor...

-         And I cannot agree...

-         The best archer of the Kierieis, do shoot!

-          You are of older age than I am, you are my elder brother... After three-stage offers and refusals, Zhanai put an arrow into his bow and nearly started taking his aim, but he had to brush aside a midge from his eyelashes, and he rubbed his right eye.

-        You shouldn’t have done this,- Artykbai said sympathetically.

Zhanai knocked with great force and bolted the arrow abruptly. The arrow flew by without brushing against the thread or  hitting the coin. Of course, Zhanai had aimed at a gold coin.

And Artykbai’s arrow, bolted immediately after it, fairly cut the thread, and the gold coin fell onto the ground with a dull glisten. The arbiter appointed to watch the archers was already approaching Yesieniei’s batyr with a sable skin...

Zhanai attacked his opponent like a vulture:

-          Why did you start that palaver as soon as I started taking sights?

-          I wanted to give you a friendly warning...If you rub your eyes before shooting, the arrow will hit anything but the aim.  Didn’t it turn out to be true?

-          What are my eyes to you? Is it because you are asking for a compensation for your father, whom I killed?

Artykbai was on the verge of flying into passion, too:

-     Artykbai-batyr would never forgive anyone for a lousy goat, not only his father!

-     Villain!

-     You old gelding smelling at a lustful mare, am I more villainous than  you are?

They had known each other for a long time and knew much about each other... Kieniesary’s sister named Bopai was said to be an insatiable woman. A Chingizid by blood, she could not marry a common Kazakh, but it was not in her nature to miss a batyr or another marked man she happened to took a fancy to. The trail of her horse in the steppe, far behind the aul, could hardly ever be seen lonely. Zhanai happened to take a ride with her, too...

Zhanai started back, taking his bow up. But Artykbai has a bow in his hands too...

Chingis shouted: • - You stop it now!

The batyrs drifted apart looking as if they had made their minds to never drink water from the same lake, not to live both in one and the same world, and there glances were promises of another meeting, not here, in the agha-sultan’s headquarters, but somewhere in the battlefield, and as soon as possible...

Chingis realized that their competition were going to bring no peace and comfort and, having stopped it, went home.

There was nothing left for the batyr spearmen and archers of both sides but split up and go to their yurts.

After a considerable regale, Chingis, alone with Yesieniei, was trying to persuade him:

-      Yesiekie, it is good you’ve come to us...You’d better stay for several days. As nothing can be discussed and settled properly at one haul. Am I right?

But Yesieniei wouldn’t agree:

-      I can’t stay for a single day... What I said was not for the sake of saying. Kieniesary intends to hit my very heart... Я I’m waiting for your decision, agha-sultan. And then I’ll depart at once. I’ll have to visit Stap and Kpitan on my way.

Chingis knew why he was going there and what he would say there, and he tried to explain, though he knew it was useless:

-      You should put yourself in my place...- he began.- I’m between two fires, and each of them can burn me. So am I the person to blow the fire? Let the people decide what their will is... –occurred to Chingis- If I’m the  agha-sultan, you are one of the seven beys... We all serve the Tsar. And is Kieniesary just our enemy, an enemy of you and me? And the Tsar has given no army to fight him. I think the Tsar has no great confidence in us, either...You see, I’m sharing the innermost with you... You and I rule only one district. And I’ve heard Kieniesary’s henchmen to be negotiating in all three zhuzes to elect him khan. I’m not going to interfere. What must be, will be. As for the Tsar...- Chingis lowered his voice to a whisper though there were only two of them in the yurt. – It seems to me he won’t mind if we never stop extirpating each other... Yesieniei, with his straightforwardness of a Kazakh an a batyr, chose not to whisper:

- I get it... We should not expect any help to come from the head of the district. Right?

-         Your force overcome that of the enemy, I know it. And the leader is our Yesiekie! – Chingis cheered him up – What will I look like if I get mixed in this business? That’s enough to make a cat laugh!..- he tried to take the edge off his refusal with flattery and raillery.

About nightfall, Yesieniei set off for home together with his horsemen.

He told Musriep the Turkman briefly, reluctant to go into details of his conversation with the  agha-sultan, that the Kierieis and the Uaks would have to stand their ground on their own.  There was no one to rely on.

Yesieniei and his men left, and Tlieumbiet-bey kept pressing Chingis for several more days and also cut no ice. But at least he found out he wouldn’t fight on Yesieniei’s side. The agha-sultan remained true to himself.

3

It took Yesieniei and his companions a whole night to get from Amankaragai to the aul of Zhazhy-bey, who was spending the summer on the bank of Little Tiengiz, as the outfall of the Ubagan River was called.

That Zhazhy-bey of the Argyn clan used to participate in the preparation for land delimitation in Orenburg and Siberian Governorates, his words were heeded, and any word of his was against  Kieniesary. He hadn’t got his zhigits mounted and spread the battle-starting word “Attan!” yet, though, but in every business he remained Yesieniei’s  devoted supporter, adherent, and bosom friend. Zhazy had a short experience of going to a Russian school, he was a sober-minded person and was thought to be the most powerful bey in the Amankaragai district – after Yesieniei.

He received his friend honorably, but they did not manage to have a heart to heart talk as was required by the complicated situation. As soon as Yesieniei dismounted and went to the big white yurt, he saw two horsemen riding full speed to the aul at a distance.

-    These are mine,- he sad when the riders had come closer. They really turned put to be messengers of Yesieniei’s emissaries, which had been looking for him everywhere.

What was bound to happen did happen – Kieniesary’s troops crossed the Ishym River to this bank yesterday.

Yesieniei heard them out calmly. He was prepared for this news, though he had hoped to come back before their attack.

-      Zhazy...- he turned to his friend.- Give me forty horsed. If they are unharmed, I’ll give them back, and if they perish, I’ll pay their price back…

The guests had barely entered the yurt and stilled their thirst with kumis when the noise of horse tramping reached them from outside. Those were forty horses of Zhazy’s herd, which had already been driven there on his order.

-      There’s no scoring between you and me, - Zhazy said at his departure.- Don’t think about it, Yesiekie, and don’t return anything…

Having changed their horses, they set off again and didn't stop…

They asked those whom they encountered some brief questions… But it was clear without questioning: it was not just another raid of Kieniesary’s sarbazes. This was an attempt to put an end to the Kieriei-Uaks’ resistance with one final blow. Some auls, being too careless and supposing themselves to be out of harm’s way, far away, were minded not to leave dzhailiau and stayed on their old summer landings. ­

Horses were driven out of there. Girls and younger women were taken away. Blankets and carpets and all household stuff to the last bowl were taken out of yurts.

By the next sunrise, Yesieniei drew up to his men. Kieniesary’s sarbazes had a fray with the zhigits of the Kierieis and the Uaks. Horses that had lost their riders were rushing about, roaring. The battlefront was drifting between North and South, and both sides had their chasing and chased ones. At times the chasers turned back, and those who were chased by them a minute before rushed back, chasing them…

Yesieniei got the situation cleat immediately. One would reckon five times less horsemen on Kieniesary’s side, but those were sarbazes, for whom war had become the order of the day. And his zhigits would spend their time in peaceful labor just yesterday, and, though outnumbering their enemy, were now curling up confusedly, failing to understand that they had to attack in an open line, securing the flanks at the same time. In this total disarray, stiff battles burst out where the most reckless batyrs and spearmen, renowned for their strength and dexterity, appeared.

Yesieniei could not take the control over the battle, either...He was a strong, fearless person, but nobody would call him a commander. Nevertheless, he knew what to do. For a start, he rushed along from one end of the fight to the other, shouting the battle-cry of the Kierieis, their common uran, in a thunderous voice:

- Oshybai!.. Oshybai! Oshybai! Oshybai! He needs his zhigits to know it: Yesieniei is here, Yesieniei is with them, and this will give them strength and resolve. He encouraged each and every batyr he met on his way, and then he burst into the very scuffle, forcing the sarbazes back, remembering to observe the battlefield for where, by what grove or in what hollow his people were giving in, and raced to rescue them immediately. Five or six batyrs, following him in footsteps, were bearing the Kierieis and the Uaks along, and the enemy could not but retreat where they appeared.

The sun was high up, and the horses were tired on both sides. Arrows in their cockers were on the wane. About fifty men of Kieniesary found themselves in a tight circle and had to surrender during the dash headed Yesieniei.

When they had gone apart, it turned out that about three times more men of Yesieniei’s army were taken prisoners...One could still see them being lugged along with their hands tied behind their backs...  Those who tried to catch horses that had been left without their owners got caught most.

At this time, Yesieniei got wounded himself. Accidentally, foolishly! He rushed to catch up with his zhigits, who were escaping the battlefield, and to try to win the captives back together with them, but an arrow sank into his horse’s neck, and the horse hurled down. Yesieniei fell down, too, facedown, getting scrapes on his head. Wiping the blood away, he took a rein from Biekientai-batyr, who stood by the spare horses, and raised his foot to put it into the stirrup of a new horse, and then the enemy’s arrow reached him, hitting him between the shoulder-blades.   Yesieniei clutched at the mane, he could not move...

Musriep, Sadyr, And Artykbai, who had been fighting with him stirrup to stirrup, encircled him and started healing him in an old approved manner. First, they pulled out the arrow and then, dipping it into the blood which was flowing out of his wound, they went through the “ushyk-tau” ceremony to oust the illness.

An incantation could be heard:

-     Ushyk! Ushyk! Ushyk! Help heal him, Joseph the Prophet! Ushyk!.. Ushyk! Ushyk!.. Not we, but a black baksy from Aldai is healing! Ushyk! Ushyk! Ushyk!

Musriep ordered:

-     Now hurry up! To the doctor to Stap! Biekientai! Lead the bey’s horse!

Biekientai was ahead, and Musriep and Sadyr were supporting Yesieniei in the saddle from both sides. Artykbai-batyr was safeguarding them from the back.

-Oibai, go slow, pace, pace...- Yesieniei groaned, they had put the horses to  gallop from rest.

And to pace would mean to be taken captives themselves, Musriep shouted:

- Full speed, Biekientai! Don’t stop! Full speed!

The retreating sarbazes noticed Yesieniei leaving the battlefield with the batyrs who were the most dangerous ones for them and perked up, started encircling them, while another part was coming up from behind.

II was going to come to no good, but, fortunately, a Cossack sotnia came up from Stap. The Cossacks extended, some of them were holding pikes ready, the sunlight was melting their naked swords... The sarbazes, who had almost caught up with Yesieniei and his batyrs, began to slow down, which was quite wise, but several farewell more arrows hurtled by at the last moment. And one of them found Artykbai-batyr, who was still galloping at the rear, and struck him in the rump...

To stop, to go through the  ushyk-tau ceremony – it was surely out of the picture... He pulled out the arrow with his own hand a-going, threw it onto the ground – and kept on heating the horse, taking no notice of the pain.  He didn’t utter a word to let the others know he was wounded before they met the Cossacks.  He even greeted the sotnik in Russian, as if nothing had happened, - “Hello...” And only then, when Yesieniei and all they were safe,  he fell down from his saddle.

Yesieniei and Artykbai were taken to Stap in camel packsaddles and put in a military hospital. Yesieniei came back home after a month – astride. But Artykbai-batyr was kept there for six month and was taken home in a sledge. Both of his legs had become lifeless since then and forever – he couldn’t make even with exterior help. People said that is he hadn’t pulled out the arrow himself and thrown in into the steppe, if his comrades had perform the ceremony of pain elimination – uskyktau – he wouldn’t have lost his legs. As Yesieniei was wounded at first, too, but it turned out all right for him...

Yesieniei was lying still in hospital during that month, but he wasn’t folding his hands.  He had some secret schemes which seemed to be close to coming true now that he had finally forced Kieniesary to go away after refusing to accept him and struggling against him for such a long time. Kieniesary realized that Cossack sotnias would support the Kieriei-Uaks against him and did not press on the auls which had not submitted to him.  He migrated to the South, holding on for the foothill of Alatau.

Yesieniei made a merit of this all and was thinking of the best way to use his advantage... It was not for nothing that he went to the agha-sultan back then, knowing beforehand that Chingis would choose to take no measures against his clansman... Khans’ descendants cannot but dream of becoming khans. Chingis Valikhanov did not oppose Kieniesary, let him plunder the district for a long time, thereby allowing a rift among the Kazakh tribes to take place and betraying the Russian government...  If these thought could be engrafted in the Siberian governor’s mind, they would burn him like molten lead burns!..

Chingis had a good reason to fear – Yesieniei did have a person, whom the governor would always lend and ear. It was no stranger – that nagashy, brother, Turlybiek Koshen-uly, an eminent official, the governor’s council for all the six Kazakh districts.

To save time, Yesieniei, sent for Turlybiek, and the following came to Stap. Yesieniei’s wound wouldn’t heal up and was still rankling, and he faced his relative with irritation, tortured by pain:

- The question is, why are you hanging about in your Omsk? How much more are we going to put up with the Tore bastards leeching us off? Haven’t you all realized what Chingis is like? That he helped Kieniesary a great deal by refusing to help me, by not opposing him. Turlybiek replied politely:

- Yesiekie... This opinion is gaining more and more ground in the governor’s office...However...

-            However, they won’t dare to touch him, is this what you’re trying to tell me?- he interrupted.- I know it without you! Then at least give me a free hand. I’ll take him to you in Omsk in five days, pinned down, he won’t be able to move his hand!

Graduate of the Omsk seminary, tonwyish now not only in his clothes – a black three-piece suit, a heavily starched stand-up collar, - Turlybiek, unlike that  stubborn and proud steppe man, Yesieniei, was as deft as a good led horse...   He didn’t know himself what Chingis was worth, he wanted to help his cousin, to whom he owed, but there were things which remained beyond his strength.

He knew the situation in Omsk down to the last detail. He knew: since the khanate ceased to exist and districts helmed by agha-sultans were created, Kieniesary’s rebellion was the first real challenge for the governor. Turlybiek made no secret of his negative attitude to Kieniesary, and used to insist on decisive actions but was met with discouragement. Some of the high officials sincerely believed the common Kazakhs to be cunning savages not to rely on, so they didn’t venture to put an end to the privileges of the khan’s clan once and for all and to deprive the latter of all hopes for return of the past.

Turlybiek realized one more thing: Kieniesary was intending to take advantage of the discontent of the common Kazakhs, to make them declare him their khan. And Yesieniei, now lying helpless and pronate and telling him off,  hopes to use Chingis’s refusal to oppose  Kieniesary to get the title of the agha-sultan himself.

He knew more. To secure himself from his opponent, Chingis intends to remove Yesieniei during the coming elections, to elect a different bey, a more yielding and good-tempered one. A different one, despite Yesieniei’s victory over Kieniesary. Despite the fact that the arguments concerning Chingis’s guile and doubleness are indisputably fair. Chingis enjoys the governor’s unfailing respect. The latter quotes Shakespeare with a chuckle,  it’s Chingis as he is – he spends his night in drinking and then keeps to bed for the whole day... It looks like he doesn’t need a different agha-sultan!

Chingis’s assistant, major Bergsen, complained about him, too, he sent reports about  Kieniesary’s messengers visiting the agha-sultan in his headquarters, their long conversations at nightfall, exchanging expensive present as evidences of mutual respect and understanding. But doubt, discontent, even direct evidences – they all vanish into smoke, break up on the hard rocks.  And it is beyond Turlybiek to shake the rocks, far from destroying them. Chingis will probably take the upper hand eventually. And Yesieniei will be vanquished, he will lose the bey’s title. Not to speak of the fact that he will never be the agha-sultan,- a steppe man, ignorant, a man of a different circle...

But Turlybiek didn’t share it all with Yesieniei, believing it to be pointless. And the latter, still lying prone, resting his chin on a heavy hand, went on in a deep authoritative bass voice:

- Why on earth did I arrange the education for you?.. I could have found another orphan and sent him to Omsk! Show me that it wasn’t in vain! Chingis is on the verge of a disaster, we need to give him a slight push. I know, I know how to do this, but here I am, forced to slug in bed without even raising my head! Or else Chingis's shanyrak¹ would fall at one blow of mine!

Yesieniei could even go to such length in the heat of the moment. Anyway, the Stap Cossacks would help... They regard everything as “the horde”! “Bari bir”, - they say. Both Kieniesary and Chingis... And Turlybiek understood it clearly. He decided on trying to quiet down the fervor, to save both Yesieniei and Chingis. For if they have a frank quarrel, there will be no peace in the district; though it looks like Kieniesary doesn’t intend to come back.

Turlybiek said soberly:

-   Yesiekie, the time is favorable now, indeed.  They appreciate you much in Omsk. They believe you – you, not Chingis, to have kept Amankaragai District and prevented it from joining the rebellion. I saw the Governor General one these days to get a permission for this visit to you. He asked me to send his warmest regards to Yesieniei Yestiemiesov...He also said that he will never forget your merit and is thinking of ways to honor bey Yesieniei...  

Yesieniei cheered up considerably at this news and spoke in a calmer voice:

-    Leave a report on my behalf for the Boundary Commission. Describe my three year’s fighting with  Kieniesary in detail, be lavish with words. Emphasize it that I created a deadlock for him and he was forced to leave. I drove him away. He’ll have to winter over in the Bietpak-Dala, he’ll never muster enough strength to come back here! He’s like his father... Kasym was a hired bondman of khan Khiva and fought the Russians for ten years. This one is following his father’s way and will keep following it... - Yesieniei made a pause and, being sure that  Turlybiek owed much to him and would try to do his will precisely, continued:- I’ll say no more... You know yourself what is the best, the necessary thing to say to the governor. It will be enough for me, it will be the best compliment for me if you defeat Chingis this time!

Turlybiek said goodbye to him and was  already going to leave, but a zhuzbashy came to Yesieniei at that moment,  Cossack sotnik Kotsukh, along with Tliemis, a lad who lived in Stap and acted as an interpreter on occasions.

-         Aman, Yesieniei-bey Yestiemiesovich.. – greeted him Kotsukh in the Kazakh language, but calling Yesieniei by his patronymic and adding “bey” to his name, which he had heard to sound very respectfully among the Turks.

-         Aman, Yefim-tore Kottsuk, aman.,.- Yesieniei replied.  He either was really unable to pronounce the “ts” sound in the sotnik’s surname or was doing it on purpose, but the sotnik either was unaware of the meaning of this word, which  insulted his manhood greatly, or pretended to be unaware.

-         Well, Yesieniei-bey, can the damn Kieniesary’s matter be considered settled?

-         You think he won’t return?

-         No! How on earth! How can he return if Yesieniei himself has started and Kotsukh has finished!

They were somehow alike – maybe it was their boldness, so they liked each other, shared their secrets and intentions, and when one lacked Russian words and the other – Kazakh ones, Tliemis was there to help them.

-    So we won’t come any more?- Yesieniei wanted to talk about  Kieniesary’s defeat again and again. He hadn’t had time to delight in his victory yet,- It’s a pity I was wounded... I’d have lugged him to you in a noose!

The sotnik heard Tliemis out, nodding, and bowed down to Yesieniei:

-    You will if he dares to come.  But he won’t choose to taste our Cossack swords! It’s a pity we came a little bit too late... My Cossack boys even gave up their haymaking, they drew the swords sway and went...And went! Tliemis searched everywhere with them after this – they kept going for four day and came last night. There’s not a single man left on this bank of the Ishym, everyone’s run away.

My men crossed the river two days ago, it made about forty miles. Not a single person. Old cripples, their old women keep saying Kieniesary left for the south...

-         But you said there wasn’t a person at first...

-         I meant there was noone to hold weapons, Yesieniei-bey...

The conversation went on, but Yesieniei gave curt answers, it was not the sotnik he was thinking about but Tliemis.

Once, when Tliemis was only ten, Yesieniei ordered to  give a leathering to his father – the latter had arranged it for himself to pasture hogs in the stanitsa. The boy was standing still, and when his mother threw herself to Yesieniei’s feet, wiping, to btg him, he forced her to rise to her feet and took her to the house. And Yesieniei was flattered by the fact that a beautiful woman had thrwon herself to his feet, the boy’s firmness and self-possession also made an impression on him – and he release five lashes... The host of this house was very plain, but his wife was drawing the eyes of men. «Heh,- Yesieniei thought.- This bone-head is not the boy’s father. The father is the hawk-nosed Circassian jeweller, he cmes to their auls often... She must have failed to resist the shining pins and the chiming rings...”

Many years have passed, and Tliemis – an absolutely mature zhigit now – does look like the Caucasian, there is no hiding it. He lives in Stap and seems to speak Russian not worse than Kazakh. Yesieniei could see it from his face – Tliemis hadn’t forgotten the leathering he had imposed on his father

-            Are your parents safe and sound?- Yesieniei asked friendly.

-            Father is dead, and Mother is alive,- Tliemis answered immovably. Yesieniei went on:

-            A fair takes place in irbit soon... And I, as you can see, cannot get up. Will you stay in my aul as a guest and go to this fair? I’ve got nobody to send there... – he sighedt6.

-            Lwt it be, Yesiekie,- Тлемис agrred, though showing no great pleasure or gratitude. – When shall I do this?

-         It would be great of you came to us not later than in two days. You’ll take care of the cattle selected for sale yourself.

-         Right, Yesiekie...

-         Come to see me before your departure. Tliemis nodded.

But the sotnik hadn’t finished his conversation yet:

-     Yesieniei-bey Yestiemiesovich... I’ll go to the agha-sultan’s headquarters tomorrow. I need to get the Cossacks guarding him back. Against whom can he be protected now? And those Cossack women won’t leave me in peace, those go absolutely wild without their men... Anyways, our governor’s a strange man! He orders to fight against one sultan and to guard another. Can you understand a thing? As they both...Sending messengers to each other, always exchanging civilities... Oh,the agha-sultan will get a nice and hot little pepper into some part of his for this trip!

Yesieniei shook with laughter, groaning with pain at the same time. His black head, the size of a good pot, was shaking, pillow down was flying about.  

-    And give him another pepper for me,- he asked. In a month, Chingis left the headquarters and got settled in his aul. He didn’t care much that the district was left ungoverned for this period. And people in the district didn’t care much about the agha-sultanе, and they wouldn’t mind his never returning.  

This is how it was fifteen years ago...

4

And now this all came to Yesieniei’s mind, scattered, incoherent, but clear. He even hastened his horse as if he, wounded, was shaking off a chaser, again... The lumpy scar between his shoulder-blades started to ache...Yes, his glory was firm and steady back then, and he was hot, sharp, confident about his decisions, and it was more than once that blood ozzed from the end of his lash.  And now he’s about sixties... The time of reflection, regret, and bonifying, when he’s not supposed to allow any violence or injustice...And what came out? He set his eyes on a rich land, where his first friend, who used to protect him against the enemy’s arrows with his own body, had settled for the winter. Is the bay horse that Kienzhetai took to the batyr a sufficient compensation for the insult? Is this a sufficient compensation? Anyway, it will be clear tomorrow. He’ll go to Artykbai himself tomorrow. It’s unpleasant to offer excuses and father everything on Musriep the Hunter, to say that he believed his words that the land belonged to noone...

He was riding towards the new landing by a lake. A forest of birches and asps was edging the lake from the west and from the south.  A tangle of purple willow and brooms bristled in the north and in the east, descending to the steppe through a hollow. The brims of the lake were overgrown with thich reeds, and ice hadn’t covered the clear surface yet – it lookes like it had goosebumps in apprehension of the forecoming winter

And that would be a nice place to winter over! The forest is rife with animals. The water in this lake is sweet and not brackish. There’s some firewood within reach, too, dry branches in any quantities. There’s a place to hide the cattle, too. He won’t ask for anything himself. It would be nice if Artykbai-batyr it dawned upon Artykbai-batyr to offer to place at least one kos out of four here.

Not far from the bank, two white and three darks yurts stood, covered from the wind with the trees. A sledge with wooden,not covered with metal, runners held the shafts raised, harnessings and saddles were kept in a separate shed. Two kennels for Arab dogs, the ones trained by Musriep the Hunter, stood by one of the bigger of the white yurts, where Yesieniei himself lived.

The dogs didn’t bark when he came up and didn’t fawn on their owner. They only came out, stretched themselves and looked at him as if waiting for what was yet to come.

Yesieniei didn’t concern himself with them and went straight inside. Leaning against a pillow, he strained his ears to hear Kienzhetai approaching? Why should he delay? Give the horse – and there you are!

Kienzhetai returned before dawn.

-          How was it?- Yesieniei asked without showing his impatience.

-          I tethered Muzbiel by the batyr’s yurt. The batyr’s very pleased.

-          And what did he say?

-          He said – I don’t know who’s to blame and for what yet... Ulpanzhan... As she was growing up, nobody ever contradicted her, she did what she wanted. Who knows what she told you. If Yesieniei has sent his horse, it may be not as an admittance of his fault, but also out of his generosity, for our old friendship... He also said – Allah bless him...

-          And how’s he himself? He must bedridden?

-          Yes, he is... People say he sometimes asks to open the door and shoot at an old poplar like he is, without getting out of his bed. Frop a hundred steps. I didn’t say anything, it was his decision to invite you to visit him tomorrow. He said you must have forgotten the taste of the baursaks cooked by your zhenieshe¹ Niesibieli.

Yesieniei said nothing. With all the business matters, struggle, and merriment, his horse has never left his hoofmark by Artykbai-batyr’s threshold in thirteen years...

-     What else did Artiekie say?..

Kienzhetai didn’t feel much like retelling the conversation which would remind Yesieniei of his fault once again, but, knowing that Yesieniei would go there himself, he couldn’t conceal it... Artykbai had been asking his daughter about what had happened between her and Yesieniei and why she left her ambler to him as an admittance of her fault – what kind of fault? Why did Yesieniei not only return him but also send another horse?

Ulpan explained to him: “I told him that our Karshygaly land is enough for the cattle of ten Siban aults to winter over, but it’s too little for Yesieniei’s koses! Then they accused me of being too impudent. I didn’t argue, threw the rein down and left.  And if Yesieniei returned the horse and sent one of his own in addition, it means that he’s taken the blame on!»

Yesieniei asked, if Artykbai’s family was poor and seemed to be pleased at the fact that it wasn’t.  There’s no great abundance, but their house lacks nothing necessary. And inside the yurt, spears are attached to a grate – both long and short, bows and cockers with arrows in them hang there, a sword in its sheath, the weapon that used to be Artykbai-batyr’s glory...

Yesieniei didn’t find out everything he wanted to but, anyway, he considered it to be enough for the first time. – That’ll do, - he said. – It’s time for namaz... Kienzhetai was not only Yesieniei’s ringleader, but also his imam, that is to say his prompter. He intoned prayers, аnd Yesieniei repeated them to himself, только moving only his lips. Never in his long life could he learn them by heart. Perhaps he didn’t take the trouble – to remember four different ways to pronounce letter  “а” , three – to pronounce letter “s”, two kinds of “h”, the “g” letters, which sounded in two different ways in two different situations... That’s why Kienzhetai was there, articulating each words, though, even repeating these words after him, Yesieniei turned them into god knows what...

Maybe Yesieniei performed namaz so diligently, as is right and proper for a devout Muslim,  five times a day, because the sins on his head were not few.

One of them brooded him more than the rest, as his life had started to go downhill in spite of all his strength, power, and wealth, after that... Once he took the land and sent a peaceful modest aul of Nuraly, which had found its place near the Russian settlements, to the distant desert steppe. The aksakals of this aul put a terrible curse on him, and both sons of Yesieniei died of black smallpox on one day.

Having buried them, Yesieniei noticed on his coming home that his body was itching and covering with incrustation, too. It was the end of summer, but the days were hot. Not wasting a single hour, Yesieniei jumped onto his horse and galloped to Lake Auliie-kol – the holy lake; being salty, it was known for its healing properties. He left his clothes on the bank and sank into the water up to his neck. He ordered his man to get a yurt and kumis here and spent much time sitting in the lake. He showed unthinkable patience – he didn’t touch the crusts, didn’t scracth himself, and the itching of black smallpox can drive a man mad! He wouldn’t see any healers and didn’t ask mullahs to take care of his health.

It was hard to tell whether the water of the holy lake had any healing properties or not, but Yesieniei recovered. Large, the size of a five-kopeck coin, spots remained on his bosy as a token of this ordeal.

The curse of the hostile aul didn’t cease to plague. That year his wife stopped giving birth to children. Yesieniei resigned himself to his fate, accepted the fact that he would have no heirs, and bowed his proud head over the namaz mat, hoping that God could still hear his prayers. And now, in the evening, he recalled the flattering words of the unwise Musrep the Hunter again: “You’ll winter over once, and it will be called agha-sultan’s land, and it will be inherited by your children and grandchildren.”

Yesieniei failed to concentrate on praying, the melodic Arabic words wouldn’t come to his mind. So he stood up without finishing his namaz – his thoughts are pure, and God will forgive him.

Though he went to sleep late yesterday and got up before dawn today, Yesieniei couldn’t fall asleep.

A dim, unclear even to him anxiety crawled into the yurt like a snake. At first he was persuading himself that it was lingering regret for the unmeant offence he had given to Artykbai. But a second Yesieniei,

which sometimes watched the first one closely adn told him things which no other person, even

Musriep the Turkman, would dare tell him, interrupted him: «Don’t deceive yourself, Yesieniei... It’ll be allright with Atrykbai tomorrow...»

So what?.. A precipitation of some changes, though it was obscure either they were heartwarming or miserable. Enough! If only he could drive this precipitation several horse-marches away! It even seemed to him that he has succeeded, and he turned to the other side with relief, closed his eyes and called God for help... But – not yet. Now he imagined the eyes of aone-year-old little camel, covered from the sun with long eyelashes... Then an impetuous snow-white mare appeared from behind the forset on a green meadow and, slanting merrily with her black eye, wouldn’t let him come close to her...

Yesieniei was hot and, to distract himself from the haunting dreams, he started thinking in a businesslike way about where, to what lands his herds could be sent, counted the gun dogs and the racehorses he needed for his winter hunting... But there was nothing to relieve his mind.

He recalled his only visit to Artykbai-batyr. Right, it was thirteen years ago. Yesieniei, greeting the host with loud exclamations, entered his yurt, and a girl of five years, not more, rushed towards him, started... The poor child probably didn’t know that such huge people existed in the world, and his voice must have seemed to be a thunderblast to her.

She couldn’t venture to appear near her father’s bed for three days, she only peeped into the eyehole and disappeared as soon as she was called. This time Yesieniei was returning from the Irbit fair and didn’t come to his friend empty-handed. He presented him with a good horse, two mares with colts, a hybrid camel packed with sacks of tea, sugar, dried apricots, raisins, dresses, and household articles.

The raisins and apricots, the colorful beads did their part.  Ulpart began to get used to Yesieniei. He still seemed big to her, but not so scary anymore. In his pocket there always are sweets... And he never spares them, ask for as many as you wish... His face is sooty black, and all pitted by the evil smallpox, but when he looks at her, this face is kind.  

Ulpan got to be friends with him.

He wouldn’t leave him in peace even during namaz! She’d climb him from behind – from his heels to the shoulders – and start giving orders: “I’ll ride a camel, far as the eye can see... And you stay at home!” She enjoyed it a lot – she was all quivering like when riding a camel, indeed, for the one who prays squats dows during namaz, bowing down to the ground and then throwing his head back. “Up now, and now sit down, and bow down again”. She liked it that the “camel” was following her commands readily, and she shouted with merry laughter.

Yesieniei hasn’t heard a child’s laughter for so long... It turned out he had already forgotten that children of such age are inexhaustible inventors, they speak they own funny language, they can get angry for a most inconsiderable reason and find unrestrainable happiness in a trifiling with no transition stage.

Ulpan woke up late – having had enough running during the day, she slept like a log. And when she had got up and had her meal, she turned to Yesieniei, and he could hear her voice in his ears again: “Ata¹ ... Say namaz...” And he would spread his mat docilely in spite of his having already said the morning prayers. “First sit down...” And he feels her thin arms embracing his neck from behind. “And now up.”

Once Ulpan, sitting in his lap and fawning on him, asked:

“Ata, who scratched your face?”

49

“A black wolf used to claw me when I was a child... I was disobedient and ran away from the aul, and he caught me. And you won’t play far from home, will you?”

“I will, I will... And you’re back and big, like our ox in the drove”. She was raised in the aul and didn’t know that there were lions and elephants in the world, if she did, she would compare him with them.

“No, I’m not an ox. I have no horns. And I don’t horn children if they bother me”.

“Aha!.. I know who you are! You’re a black bura¹, that’s who you are. But I’m not afraid of you. You’re a kind bura, aren’t you?”

“I am...”

And once during namaz Ulpan started whining: “Oibai-ai, ata! Someone’s biting me! On my back! It must be an ant!”

She jumped off him, and Yesieniei, having caught her with one hand, pulled up her dress with the other, pulled down her velvet pants and threw off an ant, which had bitten into her body, right near a velvet-black birthmark somewhat her lower back, with his nail.

The girl whom Yesieniei encountered on the hill was that very Ulpan...Thirteen years have passed! The saucy girl with her childish pranks, with her gentle birthmark has grown up. This hunter was going to give her a spanking! And what if... what if... The black birthmark couldn’t have dissapeared...

“Oh Lord, what is wrong with me? Lia khauli elda-belda, galy bin kazym... – recalled he the soothing words of the prayer without Kienzhetai’s help, - I have to sleep, I’ll try to fall asleep...”

She called him a black bura and said that she wasn’t afraid of him. It seemed that she wasn’t today towards the evening, either...  She looked straight, without averting her eyes. Threw the truth into his face and left undefeated. As a child, she used to be plump, well-fed by her mother, and how slim she has become after stretching up...

Once again Yesieniei attempted to stop the flow of his disturbing thoughts, and once again he failed. Damned bura, old black bura!.. Tomorrow he’ll have to mae a bow to Artiekie, to comfort the batyr, to say that his serds will be driven to other wintering lands, to make an apology... Most probably, it’s Ulpan who’ll be pouring out their tea, who else can it be. What pleasure she used to take in doing this as a child, when her mother allowed her to take the place near the samovar. Her lips were scarlet and as ripe as wild strawberries, here eyes were radiant. Fortunately, the smallpox didn’t affect her face. God save her...

It’s impossible for such a girl to have remained unremarked up to now. Somebody must have already proposed to her, the scoundrel must have paid the bridewealth in advance.  Ah, what a dog! Such a dog – and born under such a lucky star! That’s a silly tradition of the Kazakhs – to propose to a child while she’s still in her cradle. The impoverished batyr, out of court now, has long since eaten away the bridewealth he got for his daudther!

Her mother, Niesibieli, was so beautiful in her youth that one couldn’t want a better one.  Ulpan took after her in terms of appearance, and her character seems to be similar that of her mother’s – generous, cheerful, and straightforward. And how a saukielie,which a young woman who gets married wears on her head for the first time, would suit her! With what dignity, with what elegance she would sit, stirring kumis in a carved bowl! Light would come to the big white yurt at once.

He thought of his wife, who – it’s already been seven years – lived separate from him. There is no gainsaying it, his Kanikiei was a beautiful woman, though rather cold and shar-tongued. After Yesieniei was elected bey, she started interfereting into matters which were of no concern to her without aksing for his advice, giving orders, causing people’s discontent, sowing dissension between different auls... She believed it to be proper, for she was no common aul woman, she came from the family of a prominent bai... And tried to do everything to contradict Yesieniei, argued with him, mocked at him. After their sons died, she came to believe in the power of the curse, to believe that Yesieniei had provoked God’s wrath and that God would never forgive him.  And she took to cursing her husband herself. He got tired eventually, living together became impossible, and portioned her, settled her in the  land of Kirkoiliek and has been taking a detour of many miles pass it for seven years now.  

He hasn’t taken a woman to his bosom since then. He’s been spending his occupied with his household, his cattle, hunting, holding trials. And he never got another family. The black bura seemed to have found his peace! And here he was, the seducing devil, torturing him throughout the night, and if  the Most Merciful Allah won’t come to rescue him, won’t bring him to reason, all kinds of things can happen...

5

Yesieniei spent the whole next day sending off his herds, and towards the evening he turned his horse in the direction of Artykbai-batyrs yurt. Musriep the Turkman, Sadyr, and Kienzhetai accompanied him. He didn’t take Musriep the Hunter along.

-    Do you remember what you promised to Artykbai's dauther? But it was me who paid an aip for your threatening. As soon as there is enough snow, catch two or three foxes with that erne of yours, give them to Artiekie as a present and give your apologies. But there’s nothing for you to do at his dastar-khan¹ today. Stay here...

Artykbai-batyr became absolutely radiant with joy and seeing his dear friends, his dear guests.

-    So you’ve found the wasy to your borther’s house! he exclaimed – My lion... My friend... Come up to me! I can’t stand up to welcome you myself, you know! So you did remember me... Greetings and reproaches got all mixed up. He held Yesieniei’s hand for a long time and dropped it after pressing it to his cheek.  

His eyes were glittering with unrelieved tears when he turned to Musriep.

" A dastar-khan is  a tabltecloth, a laid table.

-      So you’re hear, too, my Turkman... The one who know no fear! He held Musriep’s hand in his for a long time, too, as if he was afraid that the latter would leave if he dropped it.  – People say that I hid Yesieniei from death. And you saved my life, my guardian angel...

Almost all of them had gathered there, indeed, like it was on the day of the crucial battle against the sarbazes of Kieniesary. Yesieniei, Artykbai, Musriep, and Sadyr... Only Biekientai was missing. The old batyr recalled that he had spent a tedious half of a yesr in hospital in Stap. Musriep’s aul was not far away, and he would send him home-made food and kumis every week. Finally the military doctor said with a sigh that medicine was powerless from then on. Musriep came by sledge and took Artykbai to his home  through the severe frost.

It took Artykbai much time to greet Sadyr, too. They both cried and laughed and patted each other on their backs. Artykbai reproached him merrily, too:

-And you, my batyr, renowned spearman! Has the day come for me to see you again at last? You old goat! Why haven’t you tethered your horse near my shabby yurt in fifteen years?   I was thinking if you were dead.

Sadyr dropped on his knees near Artykbai’s bed and kep standing like that while the latter was greeting the onther guests and then told his old friend:

-      When could we see each other? Damn it all! The time when batyrs and their spears were valued has passed. Your Sadyr changed his pike for a kuruk and became a horse wrangler long ago.  

Artykbai gave a sigh. He knew it better than anyone that boldness in the battlefield and wealth cannot always be found side by side in peaceful life. And Sadyr, just like many other men, fell into a position of year-long dependence on Yesieniei.  

The the guests shook hands with Artykbai’s wife in turns and gave Ulpan but a cursory glance.

¹A kuruk is   a long thin pole with a rope loop on its end for catching horses.

She was standing beside her mother. One brief glance, it’s unseemly to keep staring at a girl.  And she returned each greeting with the corner of her eye and started fluttering about the house, went out with a polished copper samovar.

The time came for Yesieniei to smooth over the embarrassment caused by the unexpected appearance of his herds in Karshygaly.

- Artiekie, - he said.- We are guilty, but believe me, we didn’t know that you had got settled in these parts. For your previous landing was somewhat higher.  

-     Yes, almost a hundred versts. Aksuat... And then we moved here. I’ll tell you with due time. You know this saying? When a koulan falls into a well, toads get into his ears.Something of the kind happened to me.  

- But, as soon as I found out that you were here, that the land were occupied by you, I sent most of the herds toward Kusmurun, and the rest – to other pastures.

- You shouldn’t have done it. If there’s peace and conciliation between people, the water in the lake is enough for everybody...

  - No, Artiekie, no! I wouldn’t like to be called an ungrateful person! I wouldn’t like people to say that Yesieniei deprived his life saver of his land.

-     Is it any better if they say that Yesieniei wanted to winter over once, and the old cripple wouldn’t let him to his hearth...

-     I won’t let anybody talk down on you, Artiekie!

-     Listen... You’ll be near this winter, so you should take your younger brother into your sledge, go to the steppe and show him how you hunt wolves. It’s been fifteen years since I turned into a dog on the leashed, so I want at least you...  Order for your yurts to be set near mine.                                                     

Here they came to a settlement. Yesieniei made sure that one kos could winter over in Karshygaly, Artykbai­-batyr understood that he’d have no trouble in winter if   Yesieniei was there. Yesieniei brought the conversation aroun to hunting:

-            Of course we’ll go to the steppe! Get your bow and spear prepared. People told me about your shooting through an open door – aiming at an old poplar tree, from a hundred stepts.  I hope your arrown will find a wolf in the steppe, too.

-            We’ll see... As for my shooting at that poplar... What other entertainment is left for me? To make the time pass, I sharpen spear pikes and make arrows. If there’s noone at my side, I shoot at the target.  Sometimes I hit it accurately, sometimesy the arrow goes miles away...

When they came up to Artykbai’s yurt, they tethered their horses hastily, and Kienzhetai came out to take them to a quiet place. They won’t leave soon. Ulpan ca,e out of the neigboring yurt, carrying the samovar.

Kienzhetai called her:

-     Dear... Leave the samovar, I’ll carry it... She put the samovar down.

-     Listen, zhigit... Dont’ call me dear! I have a name - Ulpan. And now, after tea, you’ll saddle the bay horse you brought here yesterday for me. He’s grazing over there, under the trees. Noosed. And here’s the saddle. That’s it...And now carry the samovar... – Her words  sounded in a way that made disobedience impossible, and Kienzhetai laid his hands on the ears.

He entered the yurt first, Ulpan followed him.

Yesieniei made a mental note of their occurence together. Kienzhetai likes fancy clothes, just like his brother, he’s a stately lad, and young, too... What if Ulpan... Yesieniei was looking suspiciously at both him and her. No, nothing seemed to be wrong... Kienzhetai didn’t join the datsarkhan he went straight to the door with an explanation:

-     I need to take the horses to a quiet place...

Artykbai tried to savor the modest treat with a joke:

-        Yesieniei-myrza, our mares have ceased to milk, now we have a red mare called “samovar” in our house. Thanks God, this mare allows to milk her anytime. Ка-а-ty-yn²!- he called his wife in a loud, imperious voice.- Give the red mare a thorough milking!

It nearly fell from Yesieniei’s lips: «Wait a little, Artiekie, just wait a little, I’ll be giving you kumis to drink throughout the winter». But what he did say was different:

-     We’ve all got addicted to tea, blast it! Miss it in the morning and you’ll get a headache for the whole day. We’d ask for some tea ourselves if you hadn’t fired up the samovar. And what about baursaks?.. It’s been long since I last got baursaks made by our dear zhenieshe’s hands...

At tea Yesieniei resisted looking in the direction of the girl as long as he could, but his eyes found her, anyway. A crimson velvet cap with black caracul, a light ferret paw coat covered with the same crimson velvet, crimson velvet bloomers. High-heeled box calf boots on her feet and leather galoshes over him, they are called “oblique kavush” in these parts. All of her clother were a little creasy, it was clear that they were taken out of the chest on special occasions.

She was pouring out tea without raising lifting her eyes to see the guests. Only her hands and face could be seen...She seems to be one of those modest girls who do not blazon their beauty... Or is it because she understands that hidden beauty is even more striking for zhigites? The white of her neck was showing from under her tight braid, as wide as a fist. And those hands of hers were – firm, deft, showing a habit of working.

Yesieniei gave a sigh, he turned away but looked at her once again. She’s grown up... She won’t ask him to get away the ant now, there’s an ant biting... He was restraining homself for the whole night: “Don’t you go wild, black bura, don’t go wild...” He was repeating these words to himself now, too, like an incantation, but they somehow failed to work. Ulpan was there before him, even better than is his endless nigh dreaming, and Yesieniei twice left some questions asked by Artykbai without answer.

The first to notice his state was the girl’s mother, Niesibieli, and her heart sank. It failed to escape Musriep, too. Something is going to happen... And only Ulpan’s face was free of any anxiety.

When they had finished their tea, Ulpan put the samovar by the wall and left the yurt.

And the yurt became empty now, as if there was nobody left. Yesieniei grew sick at heart. What a poor luck, facile and effortless words won’t come to ease the embarrassing silence! He could tell a humorous story of her coming to the hill dressed up as a zhigit, of the pride with which he threw the ambler’s rein to Kienzhetai. And of her disappearing on a different horse before they knew where they were... That would make them all laugh. Perhaps Ulpan would smile, too,  or add something, of how she spent the previous day thinking about whether she had succeeded in deceiving Yesieniei and his companions with her appearance.  And maybe she’d say nothing, and only her eyes would sparkle... How could Yesieniei-bey have failed to start this subject in time?  And the reason for his slow wit is his age... After all, it was nearly sixty!

Ulpan didn’t appear for a long time. Yesieniei was bothering his head to find something which would make her come bac to her guests. Thanks Allah that at least Kienzhetai is here, together with them, and not hanging around outside as if to take the horses to a quiet place...

Yesieniei looked at him:

-         Kienzhetai, will you sing for the batyr?..

-         Е-еh, barekielde¹- the host acceded to the request. The family of Musriep the Turkman knew the art of songs, were capable of drawing beautiful sounds from sybyzgy, making a dombra jubilate, meditate, and shed tears... – But there turned out to be no dombra in Artykbai’s yurt, and Kienzhetai folded a lash into two, so that his hands, stringing an inaudible melody, could help the song. He was singing “Slushash”:

A young girl in a sable hat,

the zhigit won’t lose his way in a fog,

he won’t lose his way -

he’ll find the one to his sweetheart.

The watchmen won’t see them –

placed by Kantain

who cannot even count his horses

in the free land of Golden Turgai!

But the dearest of all is

Slushash -

his daugther, whose beauty

will obscure the sun

and obscure the moon...

Kienzhetai’s voice was soulful, but it was not only his voice – it gave each word an exciting meaning, for a moment, a brave zhigit in love who had no fear of danger, and Kantain, arrogant in his abundance, and a girl in the fog which has covered her father’s aul appeared in the yurt... Slushash never knew what hunger is, what it is like when an old dress is torn and there is no new one. But she never knew what happiness was like... As a young child, she was engaged, and her father got a bridewealth for her – much cattle. And her groom turned out to be plain and sickly, and Shulshash never felt anything but disgust towards him.  The hot glances which zhigit named Altai cast at her did not left her untouched. No bai’s son, not rich – he was the only one with him Slushash could be happy... The only one...

Maybe the song affected the audience so much because the lovers’ grief became Kienzhetai’s grief, he hoped together with them and suffered because his hopes were not to come true, 

Geese are flying away towards autumn – Slushash would fly away with them. Shushash has an unloved groom, a groom she loathes... And the one she loves

will never be her groom! Her grief is so heavy that a black camel cannot heave it... And her father is merry - by selling his dauther, he has got more flocks and herds.

Artykbai heaved a deep sigh and said as if sharing his own misfortune:

-     Eh, bridewealth... It can do all kinds of things to people...

And he fell silent. The others were silent, too, mourning the girl’s lot. Kienzhetai had performed the song in such a manner that nobody could remain indifferent.

There was a stamping of hooves outside – horses were galloping full speed. The stamping sound was coming closer. It sounded like the horsemen were numerous. Dogs started barking. Coarse men’s hollos could be heard.

Kienzhetai tore a pike off the wall and rushed out.  пику One could hardly expect Sadur-batyr, an elderly, portly man, the swiftness with which he grasped at a pike and – to the exit, but he had to delay – some people were heading here, into the yurt.

Ulpan was the first to rush in, only a flap of her crimson coat flashed. She stood at the head of her father, panting, and leaned against the wall. Three men came running.  A man wearing a fox malakhai hat came first, his moustache were bristling in a cat-like manner. The wind threw the heath fire all but to the shanyrak.

The cat’s moustache ordered:

-      Drag her out! She thought she’d escape us.

But then Sadyr roared at the top pf his voice: - You bullhead! Whom are you going to frag out? Yo – And the pike nearly digged into his chin. There was a gurgling sound in the zhigit’s throat, as if he had choked with water.

- Sit down!

And while he was sitting down by the healt obediently, Sadyr pried up the fox malakhai hat with his pike and threw it into the fire.  The other two zhigits, who had already stretched their hands to Ulpan, froze before they touched the girl, too. Hadling his pike deftly, Sadyr gor them seated next to the first one.

Musriep the Turkman didn’t interfere. To interfere would be to hurt batyr’s dignity of Sadyr, who believed himself to be capable of coping with it  without any help.  He had two more join them. They must have hurried to help their fellows on hearing the noise.

Self-satisfied – it was too long ago that he had last chanced to put his strength and skill into practice – Sadyr, his pike atilt, without taking his eyes off the captives, asked Niesibieli, who was standing near Ulpan, holding her daughter’s hand like that of a child:  

-      Get  a kogen¹, give it to me...

People who are not very prosperous usually keep all their treasures at hand – Niesibieli gave the rope to Sadyr.

She threw off the hats with his pike and put loops around their heads in turn. He felt greatest pleasure at doing this to the one who had came in first and had been acting like their leader. They didn’t resist, only his cat-like moustache was trembling.

-      Go home and think yourself a hero there, you insolent kite,- Sadyr kept saying.- Let me just thump forty lashes on you – you won’t be able to mount your horse for half a year... And you, why are you fidgeting? Shall I tickle you with my pike? And your head I’ll burn in the fire, God being my helper...

¹ A kogen is  a long rope with numerous loops along it for tethering lambs.

Sadyr was calling them names on purpose. It’s always necessary to call the enemy every name in the book while fighting, him and all his family, to make hackles rise, then he’ll lose his temper, break down – and game, set and match to you!

Sadyr looped all the five men and fastened the ends of the rope on two opposite sides of the yurt, he stepped back a little and, resting against his pike, admired his job.

-       Here you are, my lambs... Not sit still for a while. And hear the decision of wise bey Yesieniei!

They were sitting with their heads down even before this. To find yourself in such a loop when taken prisoner in a war or caught in the act of stealing was seen as the worst disgrace.  Not less than returning to your aul without a horse... Such a zhigit lost his kinsmen’s respect forever. Truth be told, this punishment already was quite rare in that time, but Sadyr was just too furious.  And now that they knew it was Yesieniei in fron of them, the captives collapsed completely.

Yesieniei turned to Artykbai’s bed:

-  Who on earth are they, Artiekie? Do you know them?

Artykbai waved his hand:

-            I can’t but know them.  My matchmakers. It was they who matched our Slushash...- He cast a glance at his daughter.- Heh, poverty... I thought of intermarrying with a tradester named Tulien, his aul’s near Baglan, you know, where the Protection fairs gather... I hoped that at least Ulpan would live in abundance! And his son turned out to be sickly and plain, just like  Kienzhetai sang... He’s got ill bones and creeps around. Must be consumption..; Ulpanzhan refused flatly to marry him. Then they – you saw it – broke into my yurt to get her away from me her. Happy that I can’t defend her against them.  

-            Enough, Artiekie, what you’ve said will do,- Yesieniei stopped him.- I think we’ve seen what followed. Sadyr, take the matchmakers to your land, they’ll stay there for the night...

And Sadyr was still delighting in his victory. His pile had shone for the first time in fifteen years after Kieniesary’s rebellion. Well played, Musriep, you didn’t interfere and let his show his strength!  Yesieniei made a wise decision, too. The night is long. He’ll have enough time to take these cheeky things out of the yurt, into which he’ll kick them, and give them some hot and strong lashes. His hand won’t fail him. Let the bey decide whatever he likes in the morning!

Sadyr took the loops off them and ordered to take horses, two men each. There were five of them in the yurt, and two had stayed out to watch the horses, and they dared not resist, either. Six men on three horses, and the seventh gor the rein, and he got them going in front of him.

Tulipe’s son, Murzash, for whom Ulpan was matched, came two years before, in the ambrosial spring of the steppe. Ulpan had already put up with this and came to believe it to be her fate and God’s will, she had ceased to decant upon love and hate in a girl’s life to herself. She even wanted to see her intended one.

She went behind the blue curtain. Lifted her eyes – and nearly cringed. Her intended one smelt musty and had furtove eyes. And when women tried to put their hands together by an ancient custom, something wet and slippery, like mildew, touched upong Ulpan’s palm. Like it couldn’t be cleaned with soap, which hew mother brought from the shop... Since then she had been shuddering with disgust and feeling like getting the kugman as soon as possible and washing her hands as soon as she recalled the touch.

The relationship between Artykbai and Tulien began to show signs of strain since that day, like the wind breaks ice on a lake and drives ice floats farther and farther from each other.   The impudent haggler threatened the old man, who had no sons. He demanded five mares with their colts, which had once been received on account of the bridewealth, to be returned.  Artykbai believed it to be fair,- I returned them. Then Tulien demanded the offsprings which had appeared in the whole ten years of their  deal. And this was more horses than Artykbai could dream of! Insults, reproaches, and threatening wouldn’t end. At last Artykbai left his Aksaut and moved here out of harm’s way. But he didn’t secure himself, the zhigit sent by Tulien to take the bride away by force foud him.

And Yesieniei was glad deep down that it had happened like this and that he had chanced to be at Artykbai’s.  Things went off all right, and Ulpan is free! He’ll pass his sentence next morning – a severe, but also a fair one, whic noone will dare grieve! He’ll impose heavy fines on the groom’s parents and sent them away from the aul for them to never appear here! Moreover, he’ll send one of his koses to winter over on the land of this Tulien, who infriged his possible happiness.  

Sadyr had already taken away his captives, and Ulpan kept standing at the head of her father’s bad as she stood before. She couldn’t make a step. She couldn’t take off the camel-hair chekmien which she was wearing over her coat. And Nesibieli was afraid of leaving her.

Ulpan felt ashamed now for he great fear, she believed herself to be strong, courageous, she was proud of being capable of substituting a son for he father and mother...

In the evening, when Ulpan ordered to Kienzhetai to saddle the bay horse, she had to drive a little herd of her horses from the pasture to shed on the meadow near their yurt.

She was gathering then, and, all of a sudden, two horsemen rushed out of the forest.

-          Whose horses are these?- one of them asked.

-          Whose?.. Ours...

She though they were horse-stealers and hurried up, sending the horses to the aul with a loud cry.

-     It’s she! She herself!- someone shouted form behind a tree.

-Catch her! Get her!..

She could hear them shouting behind her back, coming closer. Leaving her herd, Ulpan set the bay horse to a gallop, reached her house at a full speed, a bowshot ahead of her chasers. But whe wouldn’t have been secure at hime, either, but for the guests... She suddenly felt so plaintive for her ill fate, for her helplessness, that Ulpan, unable to restrain herself any more, dropped onto a blanket near her father’s bed and burst out crying. 

The gusts saved her, but the guests also witnessed her humiliation. She was used to never being contradicted and always being obeyed, and she turned out to be no more than one of the girls who can be exchanged for cattle or kidnapped... Now she’d be being carrie across the saddle, with her arms pinned to her sides. Ans thrown right into the arms of that rotten Murzash...She shuddered again, she wanted to stop crying cut couldn’t.  She also fet ashamed because such honorable guests found themselves in an embarrassing situation through her fault.

Yesieniei was eager to comfort her, to tell her there was nothing to be afraid of...But he didn’t know whether he’d find the right words not to reveal his thoughts of the previous night, and he glanced at Musriep.

And Musriep understood it, too, that it was time they interfered, but he had been thinking  Yesieniei himself would do it, so now, after his nod, he started speaking:

- Ulpanzhan... There’s no need to cry, it’s all over. You can see now that it was Allah himself who sent our horses to your home. We wish this health well and we came up just in timeNobody will dare chase you any more and rush into your father’s yurt. We’ll be guarding you. Who’s dearer to us than Artiekie and our zhenieshe’s daugther? Whatever you wish, we’ll do it...And ahead of you there’s only happiness, stop crying.

Her weepind had ceased, but her shoulders kept trembling,  and Artykbai said bitterly:

-         We are about forty Kurlieut families here... But we only gather to be an aul in summer, and in winter we wander off in all directions. We set yurts along the margins of the thick forest to hide from blizzards. It would be a black day for us... Если If you... Yesieniei, there’s enough space for us all in Karshygaly. Get settled nearby with your kos.

-         Artiekie, I’m guilty of not having visited you for thirteen years... I cannot refuse you, whatever you ask. I made another decision, too – to teach Tulien right, I’ll put one of my koses to winter over near his aul...

-         Oibai-au! You’ll drain him dry...

-         Let it be... You can attach your herd to Those of Sadyr, for Ulpan not to do it like a horse wrangler, during the night, in winter frost...

After supper, the guests started preparing to leave, and Ulpan gave a smile at their parting – the first smile during the evening.

6

In the morning, on their way to Yesieniei’s landing, Sadyr made his best to presuade the captives that one who takes the liberty of showing one’s strength to the helpless must not hope to get condescension from those who are stronger than ohe is... He had tied their hands together behind their backs, torn off their hats and shoved them in their bosoms. He was riding behind them, his pike atilt.  And on his side rose Kienzhetai, whom Yesieniei had sent for him.

-     Kieriei-uak kiekieku, Suir-batyr tietieku! – he shouted out this by-word, worrying that noone should be hostile to the Kieriei-Uaks, or else the glorious Suir-batyr, whose heroic deeds hasn’t tarnished in length of time and whose name still sounds as a battle-cry among his clansmen, the Sibans, would have revenge upon them, merrily.

Stumbling and nearly falling down, teh captives were brushing the snow, which had fallen out in the night, with the flappers of their long caftans. They were hungry. Suir-batyr didn’t stir much apprehension in them – he was long dead, but they had heard enough of Yesieniei’s firm implacability towards thefts and robbers.

And Sadyr kept describing the future waiting for them: - Ah, shaitan... I’ll have to drive you up to Stap, sparing no time. In Stap, the’ll do a little curing if what is left of your frozen ears. It’ll take about two months. And then each of you will get a burning on his forehead: “Stealer” with red-hot iron. I beg Allah for the burn to come to my hands! And then - farewell... A Russian uriendyk will frive you to the land where people ride dog sleds.

It was more like a warning, for the zhigits not to complain about the night lashes to Yesieniei.  

-     Kieriei-uak kiekieku, Suir-batyr tietieku!- he went on.- Two summers and two winters will pass before you get to the dog sleds. Hurry up! Why are you dragging your legs like hamsters! Yesieniei-bey’s waiting!

Yesieniei’s landing was close to that of Sadyr, and he hadn’t had enough time to predict their further future before they reached their destination.  Having stepped across the threshold, the zhigits fell prone in front of the severe bey, touching the ground with their foreheads as an evidence of submission. And crouched near the threshold humbly, bending one knee. 

-     You can go,- Yesieniei said to Sadyr – Drive your kos to Karshygaly, we’ve arranged it with Artykbai.

Sadyr went out. He was a horse wrangler again – a horse wrangler and not a batyr, as he was last evening, as he was this morning.

Yesieniei was studying the caprived.

-     Well...- he turned to them. The one with a cat-like moustache answered :

-           We’re your kinsmen, agha-sultan... We’re Kereis... We live near Baglan. We...

-           last night you were the first to rush into Artykbai-batyr’s house... You were giving orders... Who are you?

- I’m Tulien’s elder son, my name is Myrzakieldy. My younger brother has been ill since childhood. he got worse towards the winter. We though he could get better if we got the bride for him.

He invented this during the nigh to molify Yesieniei a little – his younger brother is ill, and he feels sorry for his younger brother, that’s why...

-     Who ever arranges it for an ill man to get married?- Yesieniei asked.

-     We were hoping that he’d lift his head with a new wife. And the bridewealth was paid, too, we thought that the kielin¹ belonged to us...

-         But Artykbai-batyr has returned you everything.

-         Not everything. He never returned the offsprings of the ten years.

-         Eeeh!..- Yesieniei got to the bottom.- It Ulpan became a widow, you’d get her?

-         Yes, taksyr²...- Myrzakieldy didn’t dare to contradict.

The Kazakhs usually have their cunning clipped like a hare’s tail! His brother’s at death’s door. As soon as the kielin is taken to their house, she’ll become a window, it will happen in no time, and the elder brother, under the law of levirate marriage, is the heir of the younger one.

-     Was it your father who invented this or you yourself?

-     We didn’t tell Father, either I or my brother... There was no need to continue the conversation, and Yesieniei said:

-     Go away. I won’t order for you to be driven to Stap to the uriendyk. Your father demands the rest of the bridewealth from Artykbai? He should come to see me himself. No...- решил he decided to utter his threat.- I’ll place one of my koses in your parts in the second half of the winter, and then I’ll see him, pass it over to your father like this. Kienzhetai, let their hands loose and let them go. But if you come across them here...

-      Never, taksyr!- Myrzakieldy exclaimed. The zhigits made a low bow to Yesieniei and went out.

None of them had eaten a thing since the previous day, and they had to drag their feet to Sadyr’s landing, where they horses had stood tethered since the previous night, too.  

Sadyr, who was going to move to Artykbai, gave him a lingering look. What a pity... Yesieniei has become kinder with years, didn’t even order to give them some lashes.  It’s a good thing that at least he did... Though he’s a horse wrangler and no bey!

The hungry zhigits rode their hungry horses that had been standing for too long and were shivering with cold, towards the forest.

Things got off well, Yesieniei didn’t choose to punish them severely, but Myrzakieldy took alarm in earnest. If the bey places one of his koses in their parts, such a disaster can be called equal to jute! Their pot will be poured away to the bottom without having filled! Why did they need that dog-poor girl, she’s worth no more than five mares! But there’s no one like her, and she would belong, belong to him, Myrzakieldy, if they had managed to get her and take her to their house yesterday.

They were going to a distant relative of theirs, in the same Karshygaly. He helped them secretely to kidnap Ulpanand they had been taking lots of unnecessary detours much to double on  before they came up to the solitary yurt on the margin of the forest.

The kinship to him was not very close, indeed, but still it was kinship. Rymbiek – it was his name – was the husband of Igambierda’s granddaughter, and he himself was a nephew of Kairgielda, Karabai’s son, and Karabai was born from Akbaipak, a younger sister of Tliepbai’s mother. And Tliepbai was the grandfather of that bery Tulien who arranged Ulpan to marry his younger son Murzash.  

Rymbiek was at home.

It was him who always informed Tulien’s family of where Artykbai’s yurt was set after the Kurlieuts, according to their tradition,had wandered apart for the winter. “It’s easier to kidnap Ulpan that to catch a “, - he claimed at the dastarkhan.

And yesterday in the evening Rymbiek showed the way to Myrzakieldy and his zhigits, helped him hide not far from the place where Artykbai’s herd  pastures.  He waited for Ulpan to appear with them. They started chasing the girl and he, believing the matter to be settled, hurried back home and didn’t show his nose out for the whole night.

From one yurt to another, the news of the night incident had traveled around all the Kurlieuts families dispersed around  Karshygaly lond before the dawn. And they own believed it to be their duty to visit Artykbai, expressing their joy at Ulpan’s having been relieved from danger...

Rymbiek went there, too, he couldn’t but go. He heard some words which made him feel chilly even by the heath.

-         If the honorable Yesieniei hadn’t been staying at your house, we’d have lost our Ulpan!

-         It’s right that zhenieshe decided to sacrifice a gray sheep! And its head should be served to Yesieniei himself...

Artykbai was warned:

- Aksakal, you shouldn’t have set your yurts far from us for the winter. Move closer to your neighbors...

-     Who could know it?- some were querying,- Who?.. It means there’s some doshonorable informer. We can’t rest unless we have found and punished him.

Rymbiek heard another thing, too – loops of shame had been put onto the kidnappers’ necks.  Yesieniei ordered to give each forty lashes, and there’s more – each will get a mark of shame burned on his forehead and sent to the parts where people ride dog sleds.  In this manner,through magpies’ babblement, through ravens' croaking, the details were spreading, somebody heard something and, as usually, added something of his own.

Eventually, Rymbiek couldn’t bear it any more and left, leaving his wife with Artykbai. As if it wasn’t enough, Myrzakieldy arrived with his zhigits.

Rymbiek rushed out of the yurt toward them.

-     Give us food!

-     Oibai-ai! Food?- Rymbiek snivelled.- Here’s a lamb, here’s the pot – take it... Just leave as soon as you can, for the sake of our merciful God! Or else I’m undone. They already want to find the man who told you everything...

-     Stop trembling like a dog’s tail!- Myrzakieldy interrupted him.

But both he and his people were not intending t linger, bearing in mind Yesieniei’s parting words – if somebody sees them here... He called Rymbiek all kinds of spiteful names at parting:

-     Let your swine-like eyes burst! Let... How could you fail to know that they, Artykbai, had gusests, Yesieniei?!

Rybiek implored:

-     I’ll be your slave...Go away!

He didn’t tell them about the lashes, that they were disgraced forever – they had been pinned down, and everydoby knew it. But there was one thing he found necessary to tell them -  Yesieniei decided to live Sadyr in Artykbai’s house for the whole winter, for him to guard the old man’s family.  

Myrzakieldy spat down on hearing Sadyr’s name and started his horse. And Rymbiek came back into his yurt. He was waiting for his wife and was afraid of her coming back. What else did she hear while staying there? Did the informer’s name, Allah forbid, get out?..

Sadyr gor settled in Artykbai’s wintering place. His landing consisted of four dark yurts, in which horse tamers, women who milked mares, and zhigits who took care of ernes, lived. About ten people.

And Yesieniei didn’t move. He stayed where his landing was.

He didn’t want to see Ulpan often. He was tortured by his sorrow for her. “I’ll be about seventy, - he thought, - and Ulpan wouldn’t have reached her thirty. What then?..” Ulpan is not the girl who resign herself to God’s will and that of her parents and bears all the severities in silence. No, she’s no the kind...”

This is what he thought, and thought quite sincerely, but all his laboured, forced truth moved to an unbeliavable distance as soon as Yesieniei set to namaz one morning.  Suddenly he felt Ulpan, a little girl, climbing his back...  He went hor and cold, and his thoughts became very distant from God, to which the prayer of a faithful man must be addressed.  

He thought with an unking feeling that both Turkmen brothers were sating at her, amdiring. One of them is a handsome, manful zhigit, but he is young and possessen none of the confident strength which Musriep has... Musriep has never married, but it must be shaitan who gave him a special power, and girls and young women feel it. And what if Musriep – he can’t be intending to live his whole life alone – will ask him: “Yesieniei, arrange it for me to marry this girl.”

The prayer was a failure. Having uttered the last words by halves, Yesieniei stood up and rolled his mat up. He couldn’t stand in the yurt, face to face with his thoughts...  

Musriep the Hunter hadn’t revcovered from his soreness for not having been invited to Artykbai-batyr yet, but when Yesieniei suggested that they should hunt for foxes, he brightened up:

- It turns out there’s God for Musriep the Hunter, too!-He told Sadyr.- It turns out Musriep the Hunter is still alive, not dead...

Two ernes and four wolfhounds belonged to Yesieniei,  Musriep the Turkman was the owner of two yellow-piebald ones.

Yesieniei got his dogs as presents from different people, and those dogs didn’t get on well with each other. And the two yellow-piebald ones were of the same brood, and Musriep the Turkman had no trouble with them. One of them was called Bars, the other one - Sadak, and he actually did bend and unbend like a tight-stringed bow when rushing off the scent. Both of the dogs had an excellent pedigree and did not need to be taught but rather taught their owner how to hunt. The dog who was the first to notice a wolf or a fox started in its pursuit, and the second one went around at a distance.

As soon as they set out, Yesieniei’s dogs started squaring their accounts, being on the loose. Four males, the height of one-year-old cows, their teeth sparkling like daggers, had a furious dust-up and then, as was an invariable tradition among dogs, attaked the dog who had been the first to fall in the common fray. He couldn’t get up any more and lay there without even licking his blood off.

The dogs of the two Musrieps didn’t get on wellm either, and Musriep the Turkman took a separate way together with Sadyr.

For Bars and Sadak, there was nothing to do near the aul, in the places downtrodden by the cattle. It was only at a certain distance that they began sniffing at the air, looking around, and lowering their heads to study the traces they found thoroughly. and только на удаленииони стали втягивать воздух, осматриваясь, and опускали головы, тщательно изучая попадавшиеся следы. In such cases, the hunter had to refrain from hurrying the dogs – they’d start getting anxious, showing impatience, and they’d be good for nothing.

Musriep the Turkman and and Sadyr were pacing behind. They had already lost every hope, but, in the afternoon, they chanced to see a wolf.

Bars was the first to notice him, and Bars rushed for him straight out. The wolf looked back fiercely, smelth the dogs, people with horses – and realized he had to escape.  He was about a verst ahead of them.

- Look!..- Sadyr exclaimed, excited.- He’s large,.. That’s a male arlan!

He followed Bars, and Musriep waited a little. He was keeping his eyes on Sadak – the latter had tooked a ply to the side, short curt, and didn’t hurry much. Musriep turned his horse.

After some time, Bars and Sadyr disappeared from view, and Sadak wasn’t going to make leeway.  He jumped high every once in a while, his head turned in the direction where the wolf had hidden.

Musriep knew what was going on... Sadak was taking the wolf in with his sense of smell, once coming closer and then getting farther – it’s noticeable, as the dog gets anxious and then  calms down again... He can feel it that the wolf has started getting tired – the smell of sweat is getting mixed in. He’s heavy... Has he eaten much or just grown fat during the summer of abundance? Sadak knows it that they’re going to face an arlan and not a female. No female wolf can be seen alone at the time, she’s habituating her grown cubs to hunting. And the male? He’s just killed a sheep – there’s a smell of  sheep’s blood, too.

Sadak froze, confused... The smell... Where has the smell of the wolf disappeared? Sadak started again, but froze once more – and the he understood that the wolf had turned aside. But the wind was the same. Just a moment. He looked back at his owner, as if to apologize, and turned aside swiftly, rushed across with the same confidence. 

Musriep got infected with his anxiety, and he hit his horse with a lash, but the horse, one of the best ones, a quick-legged horse as he always had them, wouldn’t catch up with them – Sadak was getting farther and farther. And then Musriep saw the wolf from his saddle. Sadak attacked him like a stiff arrow from one side, and the wolf fell down, swung over two or three times, and Bars reached him from behind, and the dogs got intertwisted with the wolf in a snarl.  

- Well done, my Sadak! Well done, Bars!- Musriep was shouting at full speed, waving his lash, into the very end of which heavy lead was inwoven.

But when he approached the battle, there was nothing for him to do – the wolf was bathing in blood, his intestines were lying on the snow. That was Bars’s job.

His dogs proved once again that they had no equals. Even the one called Musriep the Hunter didn’t have anybody equal to them. Sadak and Bars had practised one of their tricks this time – perhaps the situation required this.  Sadak covered the last fifty steps crawling on his belly, for the wolf’s eye not to catch him, and rushed when the time came, knocked him down, digged his teeth into his throat... And that moment Bars came up, fursious after the chasing, bit into the wolf’s paunch, wound his head round a couple of times...

Musriep threw the wolf to Sadyr, onto the croup of his horse. The dogs were running beside them, looking victorious, and roaring every once in a while – the wolf’s head was handing down helplessly, and Sadyr’s horse was roaring with anxiety, too, though he understood that the wold was dead and there was no danger.

Artykbai’s aul occured on their way. They couldn’t but visit the old man, not to speak of presenting him with the wolf they’d killed. Clutching at his rare leg, Musriep dragged him to the yurt behind himself.

-      Artiekie,- he said – this wolf is yours...

The old batyr was never spoilt with simple care from people, not to mention friendship. He sat up in his bed and stretched his both hands to Musriep:  

-      Oibai, my dear! Wife, put up the pot, we’re going to do a toi. It’s the first time in fifteen years that a wolfskin  has appeared in my yurt!

He might have been exaggerating, probably his kinsmen had been leaving a part from their killing for him. But nobody could doubt the sincerity of his joy.

Yesieniei came to visit Artykbai towards the evening, too.

The wolf’s skin had already been removed and spreaded on the kieriegie – a latticed wall. His face nearly reached the uyks – the uppers poles connecting the lattice to the shanyrak, and his tail trailed along the floor.

-            Turkman, is it you who gave the wolf to Artiekie?- Yesieniei asked jealously.

-            Yes...- Musriep replied matter-of-factly,- Only this one came to hand...

-            Not bad... That’s a seasoned one!- Yesieniei couldn’t but remark.- Let your wealth  get three times ninefold! But we haven’t come empty-handed, either...

The curtain flew off, and Musriep the Hunter appeared in the yurt, sowing two red foxes.

-      Where is my Ulpan?..- he began.- Where is my snow-white one? Come here... Accept my aip... Assalaumalikiem, Artiekie! Your family, your cattle – is everybody safe and sound? Ulpanzhan, your agai¹ is guilty towards you.  Take it and forgive me. Hail, Niesibieli, you must keep laughing at me... All right, laugh. People like to make fun of stupid old bones...

¹Agai is  an elder brother, an uncle, it can be used to adress an older man respectfully.

Ulpan came up to him and took the foxes.

-     You give, and I take – she said with a smile. – And now I give them back to you. I don’t need any aip. And she out the foxes back into the hunter’s hands.

Taking his honorable place, Yesieniei interfered into the conversation:

-     I say it as a bey, there are returnable aips and ureturnable ones...- It was clear that he hinting at the fact that the bay horse with a gray spine should stay with Ulpan. – Muzbiel-tory will be Ulpan’s. Since the very morning, while hunting, Yesieniei had been inventing ways of entangling the girl in a conversation...

Ulpan felt it, too, that  she couldn’t keep silent, that it would be indecorous, and answered with a joke:  

-     And can a horse who came back to a kos, to his one, be believed to belong to this kos?

Yesieniei understood that she meant that Muzbiel-tory, along with Artykbai’s horses, was to join Sadyr’s herds. He adopted her joke and hinted humorously:

-     Came back to his kosmates?.. It means he wants to draw away the whole kos.

Ulpan grew suspicious but carried it off. What is it that the old man is trying to say? It he hinting at the bridewealth he is ready to pay? She’d better relieve him from this thought!

-        Horses acquired as a whole herd,-she said,- brought no good to our family.

Musriep the Turkman was straining his ears. Something’s going to happen... And Musriep the Hunter grasped nothing from these roundabouts, he was holding the foxes in his hands and raised his own matter:

- Ulpanzhan! I’m ready to be your prey, hang this aip! Take it as my present to your father; take the foxes. I’ll drop them if you don’t...

What could she do? Ulpan took the foxes to the neighboring yurt and came back at once – to pour out tea.

At the dastarkhan, hunting was the main subject again. Musriep the Hunter was telling the story of a gorgeous red deer who escaped Yesieniei:

-     Yesiekie, whar a pity! A snow-white deer,  horn like gold! It’s all because of your dogs... If they hadn’t been squabbling with each other, the deer wouldn’t have escaped us! Good dogs are like this – one goes around, one follows, another one cuts short...And yours? They chased it in a crowd, got tired, had a dust up, we could hardly tear them apart. Hounds gathered from different places is no pack for hunting, that’s why the deer escaped.

Artykbai listened to his words with anziety.

-           You say a deer? Snow-white? Oimai! Our Ulpan once rescued him. Zhigits had been baying him for the whole day, they finally rode him down, and he plunged into the lake. Could it be he?..

-           Sounds like him,- Ulpan said.

Artykbai told the truth when he said that Ulpan saved the deer. When he jumped into the lake, the hunters, not knowing how to take him in sent their men to Artykbai for a bow and some arrows. Ulpan wouldn’t let him take the bow and rushed to the lake on her ambler.

He had known that deer even before. She’d meet him in the forest occasionally, and the animal took her. The girl didn’t chase him and hallow him with fierce dogs. To tell the truth, the deer wouldn’t let her come close, but he still didn’t run away. Without ceasing to crop the grass and brooms leaves, he looked at her in quite a friendly way, as it seemed to Ulpan, though suspiciously.

On the bank, Ulpan found the zhigit, about fifteen men. Dogs were lashing with furious barking, feeling the close but inaccessible prey. But water was already cold at that time, and nobody dared to dive into the lake, neither the gounds nor their owners.  

Ulpan wouldn’t talk to them for a long time:

- Get out of here, you all!- she shouted imperiously.- What a shame! Forty Kurlieut houses going to tear a miserable deer into forty pieces. Don’t you dare touch him! This is my deer!  

The zhigits, though not very happy with her interference after a whole day of hard chasing, chose not to argue – they left the place and took their hounds along.  Maral waited fro a while till they disappeared from view and till their smell, that of danger,  got dissolved in the air. Then he climbed out to the bank and shook off the water. He had been chased for they whole day, but he didn’t fling away from Ulpan full tear, but shuffled off to the forest, tired.                                                                                                                                                      ₄

The talk about the deer acquired quite a different meaning unexpectedly, and Musriep the Turkman was watching all of its  turns closely.

It all started with Musriep the Hunter’s exclamation:                                                                                             

-      If only you could see the eyes of that deer! Black as the black can be... Looking at you, intoyour deepest...

It was the deer and only the deer that we was speaking about, but Yesieniei spoke without even intending to:

-      You said he had black eyes. And the forehead? A snow-white, clear forehead!- Embarrassed at realizing that this all was just had a too direct relation to Ulpan, Yesieniei turned to Musriep the Turkmanу and added nonchalantly:- If you hadn’t parted from us with your yellow-piebald hounds, nothing would have saved the white deer.  

But Musriep didn’t feel like taking Yesieniei’s side in this conversation, so he made it his own way:

-      Eh... Why do you think that nothing could save  him? Я I saw him today, too. Gorgeous! He jumped out of the broomss, in about fifty steps from me. But I didn’t chase him adn called the dogs back, too...- He caught Ulpan’s grateful glance and went on:- I don’t hallow such peaceful animals. Wolves and foxes are mine. But there’s no need to harm a deer.

Ulpan was asking Musriep the Turkman worldlessly, with her eyes only: ‘Is this true? Can I believe this?” Artykbai brightened up, too:

-      Oh, Ulpanzhan!.. We’re lucky to have Musriep that thinks just as you do. Our whole aul calls the deer Ulpanzhan’s deer. Apart from not harming him, everybody cherishes him. 

Musriep the Hunterт gave a solemn promise: -I won’t harm him. either, I won’t... If I happen to see your deer as a prey for a second time, shall I never see my son, who’s lying in his cradle at home! Ulpan warned him:

-     Agai, there’s also a female one with two baby deers, she lives near the Tuzdy-kol¹...You mustn’t harm them, either... Please don’t...

At first, Yesieniei was satisfied with the way in which the conversation at the dastarkhan had evolved. Filled with a special meaning...  And what then? And Musriep the Turkman is to blame! He should have praised the deer’s beauty, comparing in to that of the girl, and the girl’s beauty – to the beauty and splendor of the deer. And what did he do?.. “It’s a shame to hallow... not tear till blood oozes... finish him off...» He does understand everything and still going elsewhere, as if it was all about mere hunting... Even Ushan seemed willing to keep up the ball... And both Musrieps, one out of cunning and the other out of folly brought the conversation into impassable jungle.  And he  himself... He didn’t interfere! А And what favorable turns there were... When Ulpan said that a herd of horses acquired as a whole had brought no good to their family, the answer should have been like this: no misfortune comes twice if there is a strong hand to divert any kind of it. Well, let it be... It wasn’t for the last time that they were in Artykbai-batyr’s yurt, and it wasn’t the last time that Artykbai was pouring out tea And when he orders for kumis to be sent to them, she’ll sit down by the carved bowl with a spoon in her hand.  Let it take him ten days, he’ll invent something to prevent anybody but Ulpan from interfering with the conversation, he’ll make her laugh, and then sink into a reverie, and then he’ll strike her like an arrow, she’ll get hot and cold and trembling...

Ten days had passed, and Yesieniei still hadn’t invented anything to make Ulpan get hot and tremble.  He was in Atrykbai’s house and took the old man for a hunt a couple of times, placing him in a sledge. Artykbai was contantly keeping hold of his bow, but not a single wolf occured to them. They came home empty-handed.

Yesieniei would visit them ans sit at the dastarkhan silently.  Ulpan seemed to have got used to her new neighbors. They made fun of Musriep the Hunter openly, and not of his words and jokes, which were quite awkward, but of him as such. She listens to Musriep the Turkman in quite a different way, but he’s going to leave soon, and Yesieniei’s landing will become like dumb after his  departure.

But why, Yesieniei kept brooding, why does he have to seem to be something and not what he actually is? No, Yesieniei cannot buy stay Yesieniei! What would he look like if he became more voluble, excessively caring, gentle... It would provoke nothing but mockery.

Yesieniei called Turkmen-Musriep, who had been packing for the trip since morning, to him:

-    I thought we’d spend this winter together, and you won’t agree for some reason, you old dachelor. You’ve gor something on your mind, but I’m not going to guess. Please grant me one last wish. You’ll have to stay for one more day for this.  

- Right, Yesiekie, I will.

-        You won’t ask why?

-        You’ll tell me yourself...

-    I will.. If you’ve agreed, go to Artykbai. As my matchmaker. So when are you scared? You’ll say it as it is... Say that Yesieniei took a fancy to Ulpan.  Why not? There are men older that me who take young girls as their tokals¹. And I’m an old bachelor, just like you are. But you’ve never been married, and I’ve been alone for nearly a dozen years, though I have a wife. I haven’t turned sixty yet, you know this. You composed an “Algashkym” – about first love. It may be first, and Ulpan will become my swan song. Speak to her yourself if it’s necessary. You’re irresistible in talking to girls and women. Prove this one more time – for me.

¹ A tokal is a concubine.

There was nothing unexpected for Musriep about his request, though he had been expecting Yesieniei to settle his matter himself, but it looked like he was afraid of getting a refusal.

- All right, I’ll go there if you ask,- Musriep said. – You don’t just go. Go in a way to bring me her consent. Don’t think about me only: do you want the white yurt, the principal yurt of the Siban clan, to become empty forever?

Of all he had said, these words had the greates impact on Musriep. What are the Sibans without Yesieniei?.. Ten auls, not very significant, all around the margins of the forest. Yesieniei had made their clan powerful, he cannot but be taken into consideration while settling the matters of the steppe.  And he himself was left heirless. Who of his kinsmen could replace him? Noone... There’s no man like this in any of there auls. And Yesieniei understands it. That’s a pity... He must help... But Musrieps feels sorry for Ulpan, too. It would e etter if Yesieniei had chosen a different girl for himself. Though... And what would she feel like? He’d feel sory for her, too... Oh, shaitan! Why is there no widow to deserve Yesieniei in all the Siban auls, in at least one of these ten auls!

It was already astride, on his way to Artykbai, that Musriep was thinking of this all, and, sorry for Yesieniei, sorry for Ulpan, sorry for himself, he dismounted and entered the yurt.  

Ulpan was not at home, and this took a load off Musriep’s ind. It meant that he could talk business without looking into her eyes, as beautiful as those of a dear. To dave the time, he repeated Yesieniei’s words straightaway without embellishing or changing a thing. Artykbaiwas listening in silence, frowning, and the mother, Niesibieli, could not check her tears and rushed out of the yurt.  

-     This is why I’ve come to you today, Artiekie,-Musriep finished.- I told you everything, and I am to pass your answer to Yesieniei on this very day.

Artykbai lay still like he did on the hardest days of his illness – in hospital in Stap.

-          What answer can I give, Musriep,- he spoke at last.- Will  Yesieniei back down? You know him not worse but better than I do. If I say no, will he let us be? Thanks even for sending you as a warning.

-          Can I tell him you’ve given your consent?

-          Does an erne ask for a fox’s content when it attacks it right from the sky?

- So what answer shall I give to Yesieniei?

 Artykbai kept silent again.

-     We’ll put it like this...- he decided, and it looked like the decision hadn’t been easy to take.- Let Ulpan - herself... Tell Yesieniei that he should speak to Ulpan. If she asks as for a blessing, it’s a sure thing. It’s not difficult to give a blessing...

Musriep could leave, but he was waiting for the old man to say something else. The mother’s cries. The father is against it, oo. If he tell Yesieniei of this all, will he give it up? No, he won’t. An if the girl herself says no, not in her life. He’ll get his own way, anyway, and her lot will only be more tragic...

He was waiting, and not in vain, for Artykbai added:

-     Musriep, it was more than twenty years ago that we met. In a battle, i knew that I was protected on one side if Musriep was near...Please talk to my daughter yourself, too. Help her... Her advice will be sincere, I know it. Speak to hear this very day. Your namesake, this babbler, came to us bright and early and took Ulpan for a hunt, for foxes. They were going to lake Tuzdy-kol. Go there as soon as you leave the yurt.  

He didn’t hurry. He was pacing. There’s no good in being a matchmaker when there’s nothing but tears arount, and not those of joy. And how shall he talk to Yesieniei? He’s impenetrable for two things: a spell from a bullet has been put on him, and the words which contradict his intentions won’t reach his ears. He said this morning’ “Your kiui “Algashkym” is about first love, and Ulpan will be my swan song.”  

And she’d been in high spirits since morning. A small kos of their horses had been attached to Sadyr’s herds, and now there was no reason for going to the steppe often. Her parents were reluctant to let her go after the failed attempt at kidnapping her, too.  It’s good that Musriep the Hunter had came and took her for a fox hunt.

The dame which came was cloudless and sunny. The blue sy was covering the earth like a blue dome, and the clouds which had spreaded the snow on the ground drifted apart. Powdered with snow, birches stood there like young married women wearing white dresses. A white patridge flew suddenly from under the broomss, which were white, too, raising white dust glittering in the sun – and thin branches showed their bare blackness.  

Ulpan was a daughter of this steppe, and she has a delicate feeling not only for the change of the four seasons but also for tone of early or, say, late autumn, when the fluffy whiteness of the snow carpet replaces mud.  She was excited with the trip, even though her companion was Musriep the Hunter who provoked nothing but laughter in her.

At first she felt the fervour of a hunter, too – the erne crushed the spines of foxes happening in their way easily, and they were numerous. But soon the hunt began to tire Ulpan. Hunting for a fox with an erne is not such a merry thing.  There’s no insane galloping, to chasing... You just have to watch and wait.

Ulpan had to restrain her impatience and her new horse, the bay one, Muzbiel-tory. She understood his state well. The fact that in his saddle he had a girl whose weight didn’t reach a quarter of that of the real owner – Yesieniei – seemed humiliating.  He’d show her what riding should be like but for the iron bridle bits... Though her hand was a firm one, too... Otherwise he’s rush and keep rushing till her clothes were torn to shreds.

Ulpan was looking at Musriep the Hunter with surprise, too. She knew him to be odd, but not nearly as bad as that!

Here he is, bowing down to a dead fox after having taken his erne away.

-    Why, you red dog, bitch, black-stockinged legs. You though you’s escape me? Look, she started messing around before the proper age! What a shameless animal... And you’re mother had even less shame than you do.

The Kazakhs believe dogs to be mature after they have turned nine months. The hunter was putting a fox, a young one, to shame, for having escaped the claws of his erne falling from above.

Sometime later he started telling off the erne: -

-    It is the first time you’ve seen a fox? How long shall I kep telling you: if it’s got its tail in the air, it’s female. Brag her closer to the head. If you grab at the tail, she’ll crap your whole head. You’ll sit at home for a whole month, your beak down, as if you had lost your father... Ulpan, daughter, take it as my present.

Another fox, an old one, with gray hairs flashing in some places, got scolded as if she was Musriep the Hunter’s wife:

-    You old sly thing in dirty yellow pants! Why the hell did you clown around? If you come across old Musriep, lie down at once, no wagging, no jumping...

Ulpan grew tired of listening to him, tired of dragging along aside, and, hardly managing to hold back her impatient bay horse, she turned to the hunter:

-         I’d like to see my deer on my way;

-         Go if you wish, daughter,- he agreed.

Not far from there, Ulpan found the deer’s hoofmarks and followed him, but then she saw Musriep the Turkman from a distance.  He was standing up in his stirrups, looking out for someone. He was going at a jogtrot, and his two hounds were running along. Yes, it is he, his black astrakhan hat, his colt-skin coat, and the horse is his – red, waltzing a little while trotting.  

Ulpan was pleased to see him. He’s the one she always feels free with, though this Musriep seems to be taking to pains to hide that he’s got a weak spot for her... But Ulpan feels no danger for herself in him. Somehow she knows,  Musriep the Turkman will never confess to her, will never open up. It’s not his age, and there seem to be no more obstacles.  Perhaps her elder brother would treat her like this if she had one. And she’d treat her elder brother like this, too.

She gave the bay horse free rein, and he carried her fast to the shallow ravine, into which Musriep the Turkman had got.

-     Agai,- she asked, having reined Muzbiel-tory near him,- are you hunting for wolves? So why did you start so late? You must have overslept?

Admiring the girl, he answered:

-It was not a wolf that I wanted to see, it was you, Ulpanzhan...To say good bye. I’m going home tomorrow.

-          But isn’t your home here? Are you leaving us?

-          Who said a thing about leaving? Can anyone leave you? I’ll come back soon.

-          Go if you need to,- she agreed.- But today you’ll be our guest. I’ve gathered a whole jag of  saltwort for you to make a melodious sybyzgy...

Musriep didn’t have the heart to start the conversation for which he’d been looking for her at once. So he agreed readily:  

-          A sybyzgy? Of course I’ll make one and have it sing.

-          But it will be in the evening... And now... Shall we look for a wolf?

Musriep hadn’t intended to hunt that day – the hounds just hanged bumbling behind him when they saw him mounting his horse.  But he was ready to fulfil any wish of Ulpan.

-          Let’s look for some,- he agreed.- Aren’t you afraid of wolves?

-          But you’ll be there...

-          Not completely... But I want you to hold by each of my words!

-          I won’t make a step unless you order me to. I’m your slave, agai, marked with your burn!

Musriep dismounted and tightened up the belly-band of the bay horse, and, while pulling out the straddle, he touched the girl’s leg unintentionally. The leg was warm, and Musriep started, as if he had gor a burn, and withdrew his hand

A chain of deer’s traces was stretched on the snow near them, and Ulpan offered generously, to thank Musriep for taking her along:

-          Agai..Do you want to get see my deer close-up?

-          If you let me...

They had been riding side by side, stirrup to stirrup, before, and now Ulpan came ahead of her companion and tarted calling oul in a loud voice like people call their goats auls:

-     Shoge!.. Shoge!

The deer heard the familiar voice, leaped out of the brooms underbrush, made several high jumps, and froze on the meadow.  His elegant yellowish horns were shining in the sun like golden daggers – maybe this was the readon why Musriep the Hunter called him a golden-horned white deer. But he had grown some darkish hair for the winter, acquired a silver-gray color, only his forehead had become whiter, so Yesieniei mentioned the white forehead for a good reason back then, in Artykbai’s yurt.  

The deer had come to Ulpan’s call fearlessly, but now he grew suspicious. Could she had started going with hounds, too?.. And there’s a man beside her, and you should always expect danger from a man... Men are enemies! And hounds are enemies.

But the deer didn’t feel like fawning on Ulpan, showing her his prowess, crossing the meadow inthree jumps, since she had come not alone... If she wants to see him, he mustn’t take anyone along. He jumped, turned without touching the ground with his legs, and disappeared in the wilds again.

Bars and Sadak ignored him completely. They had been trained to attack wolves since their early years. And what was this? A goat, there’s enough and to spare of the ind in the aul...

Musriep liked the beautiful deer and also liked the trust with which he treated Ulpan and, anticipating their conversation which was yet to come, Musriep began expressing his delight with slight exaggerations: 

-     Not a single flaw! – he exclaimed.- And we hallow him instead of admiring his beauty, we want to fill our pot with meat as if sheep and stuffed horses were not enough

They rode further, and the yellowish-piebald dogs were trotting ahead indifferently, with their noses to the ground, sniffing at distant smells... But suddenly both hounds froze, looked back on their owner and rushed upwind together.

Musriep was giving his last instructions to the girl:

-     Ulpanzhan, the hounds are going to drive a wolfot of somewhere now. Don’t miss the one who’s chading him. Don’t come closer than half a verst. If the wolf turns to the forest or to the lake, don’t cross his way. The hounds will do everything.  The chase will last for about ten versts, than the wolf will try to hide in the forest. But at that very moment I’ll appear from the other side... Have you undertood everything?

-     What could I fail to understand?..

They were riding side by side, keeping their eyes on the hounds, gradually moving away from the thick forest to the opposite side of the hollow overgrown with osier bed and brooms.

-Agai!- she called out, excited,- One of the dogs has stopped!

- Follow the one who’s running far off, Ulpan, don’t miss the one who’s running alone...That is Bars.  

Ulpan whipped her bay horse, and Musriep was left behind. What was not new to him and had happened many times in his life was soemthing of a novelty for Ulpan – she had noone to go with, and wolf-hunt is no business for a girl, anyway. And here she was, galloping, keepind her eyes on Bars, nestled up along her horse’s mane, as if she had been born like this, astride, in a fierce race.

Everything happened according to the routine.

Sadak ran to one side, towards the wolf – following his smell,- Musriep followed Sadak.  Ulpan wouldn’t realize it from his behavior, but Musriep understood it – Sadak was less tense than he was the previous time when a seasoned wolf happened to come across them, he was running in a somewhat relaxed manner, a little bit negligently... The dogs must have stirred a bitch-wolf. And a bitch is a bitch... She’ll run up hill and down dale till she dpors... Bars will have dodge to a lot, but he won’t let her escape! Of course Sadak can smell both Ulpan with her horse and Bars... And a bitch-wolf! In the middle of winter, he’d distinguish her smell at a day’s marching distance. Had he encountered her in such period, he most probably wouldn’t even think of tearing her into pieces, he’d have quite different things on his mind...

And Ulpan had already been following Bars for a long time, and the distance between him and the wolf had shortened, but it was still a far cry from catching her.  And the plain seemed to be meant for such galloping, when the first snow didn’t even cover the horse’s pasterns and didn’t interfere with the wolf’s  and the dog’s running.  If Ulpan loosened the reins, Muzbiel-tory would have caught the wolf. But what was she to do then?.. Musriep said that the dog would do everything himself and that she shouldn’t try to turn the wolf round. Indeed, what if the wolf attacks her with her chaps grinning after she has caught up with her What then? All the more so that there is a legend that wolves are aleways ready to attack a young girl...

                                                                                                                                                                                               Fascinated by the chase, Ulpan kept her eyes on the noticeable yellow-piebald dog.           Ulpan didn’t know where she happened to be. Neither did she realize that the wolf had made sure there was no escaping and turned to the forest. She had to hold back her horse; Ulpan recollected herself and looked around to see what was going on. The distance between the hound and the wolf had shortened greatly, and still the wolf was likely to be the first to get to the forest.  And to escape. And what is left was no more than a verst. Shall she give a cry or what? If only Musriep-agai appeared, he’d know what to do!  But he’s nowhere to be seen. And the forest is already within a bowshot.  The hunt was a failure! But why – there’s a snow drift... Has the wolf dived into her lie? And there two yellow-piebald hounds... What is it?  Could they have had a brush together, missing the wolf?

Ulpan nearly ran into them, and, seeing the wolf spreadeagled on the snow she burst into tears – with the strain of the chase, with a sense of success, with sorrow, - and her eyes were shedding tears; when Musriep came up to her, she was still sobbing and couldn’t stop.  

-          Oh my God! What happened? Why are you crying?

-          I don’t no... I’m not crying, Musriep-agai, but I can’t stop the tears, – she said, still sobbing.

-          It’s all right, Ulpanzhan, it happens... You can’t master your tears when your horse wins a race or when your hound take in a wolf. Pace around a little for the horse to cool down gradually.  

While she was riding around, Musriep took the wolf-bitch away from the hounds and kept dragging her against the snow till the blood was cleaned off her skin. After this, he called Ulpan:  

-          Come here... Take it, ainalaiyn¹..

-          No, agai...

-          Forget your “no” when I’m talking to you! It is an ancient tradition to attach the first animal killed in a hunt to the saddle of the one who’s been hunting for the first time. 

When they were already pacing, Musriep was still procrastinating the beginning...

-         So are you happy?- he asked.

-         Oh, Musriep-agai! I didn’t even know it could be like this... You gallop at a breakneck pace, you are afraid but still keep on galloping. It turns out one can even lose one’s voice...

-         We’ll go once again when I come back...

-         I nearly died of vexaiom – it looked like the wolf was going to escape, she was close to the forest. I wanted to give a cry but appeared to have no voice!

-         It’s even god you didn’t,- Musriep explained to her.-Hearing the owner’s voice, a hound gets distracted and loosed speed. And the wolf escapes.  And when the hound and the wolf face each other, the hunter must take the place behing the wolf to distract it.

Ulpan listened to him, nodded, but then she looked around:       - Agai, where are we going? Are we going to get to our aul? My head’s just spinning after the chase.  We’ve got quite far. What forest is this? I’ve never been here.

-         Why! You come here every day. The wolf was running in circles and got to the same forest, but from the oppsite side.

-         But it seemed to me she was contantly running straight ahead.

The hunting conversation had exhausted, and Musriep still couldn’t proceed to his commission. He turned sulky and kept silent for a long time, giving Ulpan brief and abrupt anwers and sometimes even failing to hear what she was asking him. Ulpan, unable to understand it, became silent, too, and was only looking at him, perplexed.

Finally she broke down:

-    Musriep-agai, what are you thinking about?

-     Me?..- he asked as if he had returned from a very distant place.- Me?..- And he relapsed into silence again. He cast a glance at Ulpan, and the girl grew anxious with apprehension.

-     About what?..

There was no creephole left for retreating.

-     Ulpan...- he began – Ulpan, listen to what I tell you and don’t interrupt me whatever I say, hear me out, no matter if you are willing to listen or not...

After this intoduction, he entered upon the commission with which he had been entrusted by Yesieniei in a dry and business-like tone and retold her the conversation with her parents.  Now the right to say “yes” or “no” belonged to her.  Hos voice sounded as if he was speaking about going to a fair or about the beautiful autumn they chanced to have this year, favorable for herds and flocks...

The indifference, with which Musriep was speaking, might have had the greatest impact on Ulpan. Indeed, she could but notice how intent Yesieniei’s look was when he was looking at her... But it seemed to her she was just admiring as an old man, nearly her father’s peer, could admire the youth! And still she felt embarrassed, and her intuition hadn’t failed her!  She had known Yesieniei-bey since her very childhood. Then she didn’t see him for a long time, but his name was her number ne concern among all the names which were famous in the steppe.  He’s forty years older than she is. And there’s noone to protect her against Yesieniei, his will is inescapable. What can she?... For certain, Musriep-agai was reluctant to be etrusted with such a task...  But, if you have a head, bow it donw to the ground, if you have legs – bend the knees!.. Ushan began to laugh.

At first it was not loud, but more and more reckless and despearate, and her laughter sounded more and more like weeping, she gave out, she started falling down from her saddle, and Musriep barely managed to grasp the hand, in which she was holding the rein, and pulled her to himself roughly.

- Stop it!. – he cried rudely.

Ulpan gathered up in her saddle and  became silent.

*- Do you recognize the forest now?- he asked cautiously.

-          Yes. I think there’s the smoke of our aul...

-          You mother must be waiting for us frying baursaks...The smell’s so titillating...               <

He spoke to her so camly and gently, like to a child. Her voice sounded even, too, when she spoke to Musriep:

-     Agai... Don’t be hurt, it wasn’t you I was laughing at... Are you waiting for my answer? Tell your elder brother Yesieniei... If Yesieniei himself has looped my neck, there’s no power in the yurts of the few Kurlieuts to get out of the loop. He is proposing to me? It’s not for us to contradict him. But he should know that Ulpan is not the kind of girl to be got cheap

Musriep agreed:

-     Ouf course, you aren’t... Ainalaiyn, everything will be the way you want! And the rest you will say to him.

Ulpan was listening to him and she wasn’t, and still she was. She heard him say – of course... Could he think he to be glad? She was angry with Musriep – why did he come to her with such a commission, how could he agree! Ulpan was angry, and still she trusted Musriep and found it necessary to explain:  

-     Musriep-again... That first evening... You and your friends rescued me! And still I felt some danger. No, it wasn’t from Tulien and his son. I saw Yesieniei’s eyes!..  He came to us again and kept looking... Once he didn’t even notice tea being spilt all over his beard.  I nearly though Yesieniei had lost his mind.

It occured to Musriep that it would have been easier to face a dozen of Kieniesary’s sarbazes than to hold a conversation with Ulpan alone, when she’s riding by your side, and your horse is pacing, and her horse is pacing.  

-     Yesieniei?.. How can you say he’s lost his mind? To lose one’s mind and to throw one’s kuruk onto  a girl like you!

-          He’s been living for many years,- Ulpan objected.- And he’s been alone since long ago. Hasn’t he seen anyone more beautiful than I am?

-          I don’t know,- Musriep said. – Maybe he has. But I wasn’t born yesterday, either, and I have seen them, too. Sometimes she’s beautiful. But you’d better not listen when she opens her mouth. Sometimes she’s wise. But you’d better close your eyes when listening to her. Ulpan...God has given you much – you can be looked at and listened to.  Yesieniei has been alone for a long time, I think he had been choosing for a long time...

        Had she asked him about something else, Musriep could hardly answer to her, as her pail had become his pain, and he had nothing more to tell her and to answer to her. 

But, fortunately, Ulpan asked nothing more.  Musriep was casting oblique glances at her and seemed to understand what the girl was thinking about... She loathes Yesieniei, she can get the bow at the head of her father’s bed and send a sharp arrow, at short range, into the one whom she used to call black bura as a child...

And still – she is a girl. She cannot be indifferent to what the others think and say of her! She can be listened to withou closing one’s eyes? She can be looked at without closing one’s eyes?  What heart of a girl can but melt at praising? Even though it’s not the one she loves, the one she sees in her restless dreams who utters it.

She was silent. Musriep was silent, too.

They reached Artykbai’s yurt, noticing Niesibieili even at a distance. Niesibieli was fluttering about the yurt, pretending to have some troubles of her own, some urgent ones, but in fact, she was keeping her eyes on the path where Ulpan was to appear.

Musriep was surprised at the composure with which Ulpan turned to her mother after everything:

- Ala... Musriep-agai took me for a hunt. Musriep-agai presented me with a wolfskin. And tomorrow he wants to go home. Order for a colt to be stabbed. Musriep-agai will be out guest today, I won’t let him go.  

Though Musriep was trying to avoid looking into Niesibieli’s eyes, he understood that it wasn’t about the guest that the mother wanted to hear from her Ulpan. And Niesibieli  replied humbly, without trying to fish anything out as many other mothers do:

-     All right, daughter... For whom can we stab a colt but for Musriep the Turkman? You didn’t have a brother before and you won’t have one, so you won’t have nobody closer than him.

She was hinting at something, too, trying to draw Ulpan out, she was hoping that Ulpan would determine her fate herself without shifting the responsibility on the old feeble Artykbai and on her, who would wish her daugther greatest happiness but didn’t know how it could be reached. Niesibieli was waiting, but Ulpan didn’t want to share anything with her now, and Musriep spoke first:

-     No...- he objected.- There’s no need to... You shouldn’t stab a colt for me alone. Tea with your baursaks will do.

Ulpan refuted his protest:

-     Ala, don’t listen to him... We’ll eat to the full. Order for the hounds of Musriep-agai to be fed, too. They’ll have to go a long way tomorrow – maybe a hundred versts. And there must be not a single aul on their way.

In the yurt, they were met by Artykbai’s eyes, anticipant as those of Niesibiely, but Ulpan spoke first without letting Musriep thrust in a word:

-     Father, I didn’t know that there were hound cleverer than people. Sadak, Bars. They taught me how to hunt wolves! They smelt a bitch-wolf and started chasing her...

She went on describing the hunt in detail, and Musriep noted to himself once again that Ulpan seemed to be afraid of coming off even for a minute – what if her parent ask: what did you answer to Musriep when he passed the news of Yesieniei’s sad and tragic proposal....

It went on like this at tea, and after the tea Ulpan brought an armful of saltwort and put it in front of Musriep – it had both dry and fresh stalks... They were all well-matched, even, with no knotty spurs, each five suiema long – from the stretched thumb to the index finger.

Musriep – he was reluctant to get engaged in a difficult conversation with Ulpan’s parents, too – looked over the stalks, chose two of them, the most suitable ones, and started carving out a sybyzgy. Each hole must be in a precisely defined place, one mistake – and the sybyzgy will have a wrong tonality. And he brought the wide end of sybyzgy to his mouth after each cut and listened closely to check it... Seems to sound right...

While he was cutting out all the seven holes, he was thinking of what he could play. “Suir-batyr”? But it’s a battle-cry, and not of all the Kieries, but of the Sibans.  This kiui is good for starting a campaign, but not for solacing a girl and her parents. “Bozingien”?.. A lamentation of a white camel who has lost her colt. It won’t do, it’s out of place, too. How shall Niesibiely and Artykbai listen to this kiui?

Ulpan got tired of waiting and came up to him.

-     Have you already tuned the sybyzge?

-     It seems to me I have... What shall I play?- he let her choose.

Ulpan didn’t hesitate:

-           Is the  “Algashkym” kiui yours?

-           I think so.

-           Play it...

Artykbai and Niesibieli were exchanging glances when Musriep took the sybyzgy to his lips and the first sounds of the song – a song without lyrics about first love – were heard in the rood. There was no need for lyrics. Listening to the delicate pipe sounds, everyone, no matter young or old, kept saying to himself: “Oh first love...” And everyone was thinking his own thoughts – either of the past or of the future... With those who had their everything in the past, the kiui sighed, “As long as I live, I will not forget our parting by a white yurt and your words: “You will always be my beloved one”. And the one for whom there is nothing even in the future hears, “As long as I live, I will not forget the way I could part with you by a white yurt and my words...”

This was the reason why Musriep’s kiui was so good to listen to – everybody could find something personal in it. And he himself, without taking the sybyzgy away from his lips, was jubilating and grieving, and today he played his kiui not in hsi usual manner, longer than usual, and everything – his conversation with Yesieniei, searching for Ulpan in the steppe, and her words: I’m not the kind of girl to be bought cheap – could be found in the song of his obedient sybyzgy, which was made of simple saltwort, and without human hands, without human lips, saltwort can only murmur in the wind...

Ulpan had heard this kiui, “Algashkym”, before, but she couldn’t recognize it that day. All of a heap, Musriep – in his late forties, not a boy... – played it as if he had just discovered these sounds... Was it fow her? About her? She felt sad, and still it was not despair. She realized that Musriep, Yesieniei’s messenger, was bidding his farewell to her now. Farewell... And he was to bid hers, too.  

When the last sound had died, Ulpan said in a low voice:

-     Algashkyn... First love. It can be first and it can be last...

Musriep couldn’t say a thing in her presence – either to Artyk-nai or to Niesibieli. Ulpan was puring him tea, and all that he could do was exchange a heartening glance with the old batyr. But this glance got also caught by Niesibieli, who was keeping her eyes on him. And she said, as she was seeing him off with Ulpan:

-     I can see it that you wii be Ulpan’s elder brother. She’ll never have anybody closer to her than you in the whole Siban clan...

And Ulpan pretended not to hear her mother’s words. After this all she believed herself to be entitled to address Musriep like a sister:

-     Musriep-agai... If you keep wandering around for a long time, I’ll be hurt... Don’t let me miss you.

And she was stroke the glossy wiry mane of Musriep’s red horse.

Musriep was impatient to leave, and he patted Ulpan on her head – with a feeling quite different from the one she used to evoke in him.  Gave her a chuck on the shoulder...

-      Only God knows who’ll be the first to be the first to weep – you or I. Goodbye, ainalaiyn... Goodbye, zhenieshe. Keep cooking your baursaks, I’ll visit you agai soon.  

His horse didn’t like to set off late in the evening. The horse was stepping slowly, with reluctance, and he had to be hit with kamcha a couple of times to understand: his owner is not going to stay, his owner is in a hurry

When Musriep entered Yesieniei’s yurt, the latter was sitting there as black as the night, through which Musrip had been going to him.

-     Where have you been? What misfortune kept you away for so long?- he snapped at him.

Before answering, Musriep sat down.

-     Long?.. Would it be better if I had returned to you with a refusal immediately? Who’ll let a lucky matchmaker leave without a treat?

Yesieniei brightened up at hearing about the “lucky matchmaker”.

Musriep went on:

-     Yes, yes, yes, yes... I spoke to everyone. And, what is more, to Ulpan! But I would like to give you a warning – Ulpan’s not the kind of girl... No the kind to be taken cheaply. You’ll speak to her personally. And the parents – her parent’s won’t refuse.

Yesieniei was indignant:

-           Cheaply? Do I lack cattle? Or am I greedy?.. Or can’t I speak to Ulpan is she’s given her consent?

-           I guess it’s not about horses...- Musriep said briefly.

And he chose not to explain it to Yesieniei, who was drunk with the news, that it was not about the amount of horses he would sent to the Kurlieuts’ aul, it was about something wuite different... Ulpan will din it into him what is what.

And now Musriep wanted to leave Yesieniei with his happpiness and his hopes like he had just wanted to leave Artykbai’s house. And the sky was still dark in the East when Musriep took his hounds and set off for home, for his aul.

More than two weeks had passed since Yesieniei settled in Karshygaly.

Musriep the Turkman had left, and Musriep the Hunter had left, too. Yesieniei was angry with them – they had left him...  Musriep the Turkman seemed not like himself, though he had accomplished the task. He brought a consent and left Yesieniei to himself in all other respects. Musriep the Hunter said, “Tis erne has wasted away, he’s good for nothing and cannot take in a dead fox. I’ll get a different one”. And he disappeared.

Yesieniei had his kinsmen near him, but nothing apart from meat and kumis has ever got to these zhigits. Not to mention heart-to-heart talks... They aren’t much use while hunting- always making a fuss, galloping around, dcaring the animals away with their noise and shouting.  

And they behaved in such a wasy as though the people from Artykbai’s yurts were taken for toliengits¹ without kith or kin, who were to serve to Yesieniei and his family obedinetly and dumbly.  They shouted at Niesibieli every once in a while. Young zhigits, unaware of Yesieniei’s intentions, put the make on Ulpan.  And yesterday this akhmak Imanaly, the younger brother, took it into his head that he could call Ulpan down when she stopped by Muzbiel-tory:

- He-ey! Never come up to him again! Such a horse costs much more than ten girls like you!.. Keep your hands off him!

Ulpan threw the rein down and never saddled Muzbiel agai, in spite of Yesieniei’s remonstrance and entreaties. Even the fact that Yesieniei sent Imanaly away: “Go away for my eyes never to see you!” failed to molify her. Imanaly left his home, but Ulpan stil wouldn’t mount the day horse woth a gray stripe on his spine.

¹Toliengits are  servants, people from different places, they could belong to different tribes and clans.

Yesieniei could have treated Imanaly less radically some other time. But now... Since Ulpan, though she had given her consent, avoided giving the main answer – when... If she came from a family equal to Yesieniei’s in its status, the brother’s vagary would have caused a breach, and Yesieniei himself would have been sent away from the bride’s aul!  But, anyway, Ulpan was still loyal to her word, and Yesieniei could not unriddle this and suffered.

He was displeased with himself: a renowned bey, he can settle most complicated matters  - and he fail to unreel the ball of a girl's attitudes! And he was angry with Turman-Musriep again. He left without helping him... So what is behind Ulpan’s words – she’s not the kind of girl to be taken cheaply... The point cannot be like buying expensive things, at the Tobolsk or Irbitsk fair. Whst guile! The guile of a girl, which, as the saying goes, is enough to load forty asses!

Had she offered resistance, he’d break this resistance. But there’s no resistance. She’s smiling inscrutably and keeps saying – yes, I agree. Yesieniei said nothing, sullen, then Ulpan said as if humorously “Why hurry?.. We’ve got the whole winter for this. We’ll have enough time for talking, otherwise we’ll tire each other.” And she went away.

Yesieniei decided that was enough and he had to short-cut the headrope, as he could see no end of this. And that very evening he was waiting for her with special impatience in his yurtFire was burning in the hearth, and guest were sitting around it. Ulpan came not alone but with two young women.  She had changed her clother – taken off the zhigit's garment she usually wore during the day. She was wearing a dress. Yesieniei said to her friendly:

- Take your seat higher, Ulpan. The most honorable seat.

The jocular young women found it funny that the aged, and not even aged but old, Yesieniei, rejpiced at seeing Ulpan like a child.

Ulpan grew alone in her family. So she got used to behaving like an independent boy. She didn’t feel like a girl for a long time. She was always tough in the childish dust-ups of the aul, which burst out unexpectedly and go down immediately, too. She was the first horserider. And having grown up, she preserved these boyish manners, but also came to realize her power of a young woman.

Yesieniei called her, and Ulpan took the honorable place with no trace of shyness, sitting down a little higher than the host.  

-     Closer,- he said.- Sit closer to the fire... It was only one moment, but it was enough for Ulpan to realize without any explanations that this evening she couldn’t get away with mere glances. Quit for air-built promises for the future. She said:

-     I’ve heard it those who prefer to sit close to the fire will be cold for the whole life.  

-          But winter’s coming, it’s getting cold.

-          I’m used to it...- Ulpan replied.

Yesieniei either couldn’t or chose not to understand it or was at loss for words...

-     And how does Artiekie feel?

-     You saw him yesterday and this morning. He’s just as usual...

If Yesieniei though that he was master of himself, Ulpan was one, for sure. She was sitting on her honorable place humbly and waiting f,что о what else he would like to know humbly.

-     Does he scold me?

-     What for? And if he wanted to – who dares scold you?-Ulpan asked innocently.

Yesieniei had never in his long life given so much sighs and felt so helpless.

Their conversation came to a deadlock with all the half-words, and Yesieniei – there was noone to get angry with at hand, got angry with himself! Is he a man or what? How long is he going to be so shy of this girl, she’s young enough to be his granddaughter! He got tired of breaking his head over the true meaning of her words, and she asked her straightforwardly, fixing a dark and intent look on her, but gently:

-      Ulpanzhan... Musriep the Turkman told me... Passed your words over to me... You’re not the kind of girl to be bought cheaply. I don’t know... What is it that you want? Cattle? However numerous it is in the steppe, it’ll all be your, just say the word...

He realized that he was most probably saying wrong things and couldn’t stop, and he could see it on Ulpan’s face that he was saying wrong things, but he was waiting, waiting for her answer...

She tumbled up like she used to do as achild, as a girl of which all boys in the aul were afraid. 

-      I can’t be bought, I can’t be sold! Who will get the cattle which will be paid for me?.. When Sadyr isn’t there,  my father would drive or little herd back from the pasture, too. Or my mother. I was the one who handled it in our family!

-     I’m listening to you and I cannot understand... What do you want? “What do you want?..” Ulpan fell to thinking. She feel for thinking, but it must have been the reson for her being Ulpan, Yesieniei's chosen one, that she could think, unlike many her peer.

Ulpan can never become an ordinary tokal, she won’t put up with the status of a slave who is loved by her husband but has to settle for leftovers from the dastarkhan of his senior wife¹.

She ventured to tell him what she had been thinking about for many days, but she told it not outright:

- And to which of your houses are you going to take me?

Yesieniei was confused. He never answered at once, but he could feel that he couldn’t hesitate for a ling time with this girl. It’s been too long, anyway...

¹ Tokal often enjoed her husband’s love but had no power.

-         As you wish,- he said,- Otau¹ will be waiting for you. And if you wish, you can stay in my white yurt. It’s up to you.

-         No,- Ulpan said with dignity – If you want to take me, take me to the big yurt, I’ll sit on the place of honor as I am now. But tell me if the eyes of your younger brother will ever get used to it, will Imanaly accept it?

-         They will...- пообещал Yesieniei,- Привыкнут His eyes will get used in a day. You’ll be the baibishe.

It was a thing of importance for Ulpan to make everything clear for herself on this evening, the evening of final decisions.

-    But Yesieniei has his baibiashe...

-    Baibiashe?.. No. I live in Oriele, and she lives in Soriele. If you believe that I will never deceive God, believe this, too – there’s a way of seven years between us.

Ulpan was listening tensely.

People call it oriele if a horse is pinned down with one front and one rare leg.  He won’t run away then – it looks like he’s neither completely free nor completely bound. One can hear this word every day in the aul, but now it sounded in a very different way, when Yesieniei applied it to himself.

And Soriele is an occasional dug-out digged hastily, where dead bodies are put in time of troubles and changes till the time comes for commiting them to the earth, in their native parts, among the graves of their fathers. There were may wars, and there are many names – Soriele. Ulpan learned this word from her father, Artykbai told her that, hadn’t Kotsukh came at help with his Cossacks, he’d have stayed in the Soriele forever...  

So... Yesieniei himself is  Oriele... And to Soriele he sent his first wife, and he’ll stay there till her dying day. It is intended like this. And when he mentioned a way of seven years... They’ve been living apart for seven years. This cheered Ulpan up, she won’t be a handmaiden. She won’t, and she cannot!

¹Yutau is  a smaller yurt meant for a newly married couple.

-     Yesieniei...- she said.

Ulpan used to call him “aksakal” before... And now, hearing his name pronounced for the first time, Yesieniei froze, as if straining his ears,- was if he whom the girl called? Yesieniei froze and looked around – but he’d been left face to face with Ulpan since long ago, all the other people left, understanding that they’d disturb him here.

-     Yesieniei,- she went on – You have a way of seven years there. But between you and me, there’s a way of forty years. Has it occured to you?

He’s put the same question to himself many times before, he was prepared for it.

-     It has,- he replied. – I’m not the first one to take a girl with such disparity in years. You’re not the first to catch the eye of a man of my age. Forty years? I’m Yesieniei...

Ulpan was listening, and Yesieniei went on:

-     I don’t know why I didn’t leave your house... Karshygaly... Beauty, youth. And the main thing is that – I saw whou could be Yesieniei after me, at the age of forty. And a second Yesieniei by my side, too.  And this will begin – tonight!

Ulpan – she had been resisting her fate so long that she couldn’t believe it herself – Yesienie’s words stirred her. She didn’t know what to say to him, but zhigits came to help her.  They entered the yurt, one with a kumgan, one with a bowl for washing hands, and the third one was carrying a plate, on which pieces of boiled meat were heaped. The only thing Ulpan managed to do was to cast a glance full of unexpected for herself gratitude and affection at Yesieniei’s dark face pitted with smallpox.

But the time of their privacy was over. Sadyr with Artykbai on his shoulders wedged into the yurt. Then came Niesibieli and stayed humbly by the threshold.  

Yesieniei rose to greet them.

- Sit down,- he said.- There’s no other place in this yurt for you from no on... Only the tor¹.

And everybody present in the yurt knew that it was not just an evidence of hospitality. It was courtesy towards people who were going to become his relatives soon.

Artykbai ans Niesibiely occupied the tor. It looked like the matter was going to get settled tonight, they’ll always sit here as long as they live, from now on, and nobody will dare entrench the land of Karshygaly which belongs to Yesieniei’s relatives... In Atrykbai’s name, the word “bai” will define his status, too, and the Kurlieut settlers from the Kipchak tribe, which is not related to the Kierieis, will become rightful and well-respected people on this land.

But this all was yet to come, and the first suspicions that it was going to happen were only occuring to the enviers, which were though to be Yesieniei’s kinsmen. Yesieniei didn’t care for them that  moment. He hadn’t pay full tribute to the father of his bride-to-be yet.

-Artiekie... We’ve started the winter butchering today, as prescribes the law. My duty is to present a head to you for you to bless the dastarkhan.

Artykbai received the head of a sheep from Yesieniei’s hands with care – it had been long since renowned people last asked him to bless a meal – and took a knife to give a piece to everyone. It looked like he was still in doubt whether he was favored with such honor, and Sadyr, his old comrade-in-arms, found it necessary to encourage him:  

- Artiekie... I think this house cannot do without your blessing.

Artykbai passed the palm of his hand over his face, his lips were moving, uttering the words of the table prayer silently.  Another dish appeared on the tablecloth – zhaia, smoked horse meat with a golden tincture of fat. Kumis was served, and only owners of big herds could drink it in this season.  

¹Tor is a place of honor in the yurt, opposite to the entrance, by the heath.

After tea, Yesieniei announced another decision. He wanted to be generous, and he felt strong as ever, capable of giving joy to people around him.  

-      Artiekie,- he said.- Ulpanzhan said it is difficult for you to look after the cattle. I can see it myself. And what if... Let the whole kos of Sadyr belong to Ulpan from now on. I’ll take no colt from this kos for myself. If she leaves her herds in Karshygaly, your horses could be pastured with them, too.

People at the dastarkhan grew suspicious. What is it - generosity?.. Or is the man, aware of his age, trying to define Ulpan’s share beforehand to avoid eventual family strifes? Yesieniei was known to be guise, and merciless, and fair, but hardly anybody knew him to be kind. Could his soul have started to melt with age? Then some would say – live to be a thousand years, Ulpan. And the others would rue the hour when it occured to Yesieniei that he could winter over in Karshygaly and Atrykbai’s yurt happened to be on his way.  

-     Yesieniei, my friend...- Artikbai’s voice failed him for a moment.- Your act is worth you. Ты You comforted my heart and the heart of Ulpan’s mother. I’ve been afraid for many years that they would be absolutely helpless with me. Now I’ve taken my ease.

Yesieniei rose up, took a bright emerald caftan embroidered in gold, with a gold medal on the left lapel, in memory of the victory over Kieniesary – a present from the Siberian Governor General, and threw it on Artykbai’s shoulders.

Sadyr lent his shoulder to Artykbai, Yesieniei helped the old man. Niesibieli left, and the others left, too.

-     Ulpanzhan... I don’t want you to think that I have given you your part. This is my present. The rest of what I have is for the two of us to manage. Two Yesienieis, two hosts. And Sadyr’s kos is yours. Do whatever you want to it. I just hope your old men will never lack a thing. You know that I have no children, there’s noone to leave it for. You’ll be my son and daughter, my wife and lover. If you rise like a sun over my house, I’ll never have a thing to ask God about. Sit closer. Put your head – here...

He listened to himself and wondered. He though he had long forgotten what tenderness was, forgotten the words to be spoken when alone with a girl. It turned out he hadn’t!

Ulpan listened to him with her heart pounding... Who else on her way could become Yesieniei? A man must be firm in about his decisions. He must possess both strength and a big heart, and she guessed the man she had met on the top of the hill not long ago to be just like this. My God, and what was he like, just imagine, forty years ago! And if not him, whom would she meet? Somebody like Murzash, Tulien’s son... And even a young zhigit, would he, or could he grade up to Yesieniei? Who knows?.. But she had never met one.  

Just a while ago – after the matchmaking conversation with Tyrman-Musriep – Ulpan felt like slaying Yesieniei with a bullet, sending an arrow into him with her father’s bow. Can she be trying to justify herself after everything she didn’t want to happen has happened?  

Ulpan lay down, put hear head on his knees as he asked her to.

- Let us waste no words,- she said- Gather your Sibans and my Kurlieuts tomorrow, arrange a toy and repeat what you say to me, what you promise, in front of the people...

Yesieniei didn’t answer. His large, dark, pitted by merciless smallpox face was approaching the white face of the girl.

Later – much time had passed since that night – she was listening to a song of a Russian akyn, arrangd for Kazakh by akyn Abai, from the Tobykty clan. About a possessive old man - Tiengiz¹, how he rushed to a young Cossack woman like an inevitable storm, and his dark-blue eyes got wet with passion.

¹Tiengiz is  the way the Kazakh people called Kaspii.

The eyes she saw before her then were dark brown.

At dawn, Yesieniei went to the water tub and splashed a lot and with pleasure.

- Will you?- he offered to Ulpan.- Wash yourself, too.

She got up, and suddenly a simple and clear thought occured to her – this man, her husband, would be beside her day and night, through fall and fair, from now own.

The old body – heated like it used to be in its young days by the realization of its strength and imperishability, cooled down because of the water. Yesieniei spread his namaz mat.

And the young body – it first cooled down after the bath, but it got warmed up again...  

Ulpan slipped under the blanket again.

9

It was already spring when  Yesieniei, Ulpan, Niesibieli and four zhigits with them left Artykbai’s aul. They got to the border of the Russian settlements astride, as usual, and there Tliemis was waiting for them in a previously agreed place.  He had got a wagon for them – with a covered top, which could be drawn apart and drawn close like an accordion, with little steps on its sides.    This wagon had three horses in the harness. Tliemis called this wagon – the carriage...

As far back as she could remember, Ulpan had never got even into a simple wagon. But now she stepped onto the little footplate, eased lightly into the saffian seat, as if she had done nothing but travel by wheels in her life.  

And why shall she be shy? She wasn’t shy when she became owner of a fortune she couldn’t even think of. Yesieniei only chuckled looking at her giving orders, with significance and prudence... The kos presented to her by her husband had five hundred horses.  Artykbai’s aul had never known such abundance, the aul was smothered in meat and showered with kumis. By the time they were going to leave, two hundred mares had come in.

Wealthy people could say that Ulpan entered Yesieniei’s house almost naked. She had some clothes, festive in the eye of Niesibieli, turned and altered ancient garments of her parent’s.  It was the mother who had shaped and sewn them. Well aware of her dauther’s passion, Niesibieli did her best to make everything suitable for horseriding.

Towards spring, Yesieniei was going to Take Ulpan to his aul, but she said to him:

-     If your family see me in my old rags, will they sneer: thanks Allah she hasn’t come to us pantless...

Yesieniei gor embarrassed. Somehow he wasn’t used to thinking about what a woman could need, what she can scarcely do without. He decided:

-          In the middle of May, a fair will take place in Tobolsk. Order for forty fine horses to be driven there.

               Ulpan did. For why do you need wealth if you cannot eat and drink delicious, dress well, if you cannot do what you want! This summer you’re rich, and next winter you may turn into an utmost beggar! She wanted to go to the fair, too – for her eyes to get used to what she hasn’t seen and doesn’t know...

Tliemis – the one whom Yesieniei sent to Irbit when he himself was in Stap, in hospital, wounded, - had already been in charge of his trade matters. Yesieniei sent his men to aks him to meet them. And Ulpan showed no surprise. It would be embarrassing not only for herself, but also for Yesieniei, if she stared at everything...

But underneath, many things amused her. The ordinary road they went along... Ordinary – and extraodrinary it was. The road had one track in the middle, for the forehorse, who was holding his head, framed by the bow, lordly up.  And two tracks on the sides, for two outrunners – they were galloping beside, curving their heads in opposite directions. And the wheels of the wide carriage were rolling right behind them. Ulpan – daughter of nomads, whose life passes far from passable places – saw such a road for the first time, the Russians must have laid it.

Without slowing down, without shifting to trot ot pace, the three horses were galloping at full speed, and it seemed that the carriage was floating without touching the ground. Being accustomed to a saddle, Ulpan appreciated such ride, too. Convenient and fast... The zhigits accompanying them were left far behind.  

When you’re astride and you like the horse, you can feast your eyes on the set of his head, his splendid mare of the beautiful curve of his neck... But you cannot see him sideways. And here you have all the three horses in front of you! And the perpetual jangle of little bells accompanies her swift ride, never dying out.

So... Ulpan was counting in her mind. First – the road... The carriage with three inexhaustible horses. Well, hold on, my dear Yesieniei! Let me get to the fair...

Ulpan noticed a Russian izba, in which she had never chanced to be before, too.  Tliemis arranged it in one house that  tea and food should be prepared for them there. Two clean rooms. Painted wooden floor, glazed windows, and it was as light as during the daytime inside. And the dinner served to them had most probably been cooked in the large oven occupying fully a third of the entrance room.

An aged fair-haired blue-eyed woman was regaling them, taking out pots and bowl dexterously with an oven fork, pulling frying pans and sheets closer with a poker. Ulpan had had enough time to get hungry, so she was eating the puffy white loaf made of sour dough with pleasure. She liked the round curd patties. How many things it turned out to be possible to boil, fry, and bake of meat, milk, and flour...

-        How many cattle heads does this family have?- she asked Tliemis in a low voice.

-        Cattle?!.. They’ve got nothing. A couple of horses, a cow, and some hens – about a dozen, that’s all. They also sow a little crops for themselves.

Ulpan couldn’t stop looking around the izba in admiration. Both this and the others, as after the dinner they went out to go further. The small Cossack stanitsa stood there cozy and neat. The stanitsa hand’t dissapeared from her view yet, and Ulpan made another mark for herself: a Russian izba. Here you go, Yesieniei!

Many things of that dat and all the following days got etched into her memory. The steppe looked the same as the one she loved and the one she was used to seeing... The green manes of groves. Feather grass in the wind. The sultry face covering all this space when the sun is up in the afternoon. And her life? Every season spent in the yurt. Four kinds of cattle allowed for breeding by the faithful Prophet Muhammad. Sogym – the winter butchering, when each family prepare as much meat as it has. A monotonous life – with no changes, like a long night. Somehow Ulpan had managed to get used to the lot of a Kazakh woman, with her dirty skirt, with her livelong humiliation, with the worthlessness of talks... Maybe she was exaggerating on facing the life stood in such amazing contrast to the one she knew. But some new thoughts and intentions, still unknown to her, provoked disturbing thinking in her: “Wait and see...”  

Tliemis also saw about the place for them to stay at. On the bank of the river, where the Tobol makes a winding loops, yurts were standing: three white and two dark ones.

Descending from the carriage, Ulpan gave an order, as if she had always been in the habit of giving orders:

- My mother and me will settle in my otau, you – in the big yurt, and in the third one you’ll accept your guests. We’ll have dinner there, too, and tea should be served in the otau. Get down, my little tiger...

Ulpan was doing her best to show no surprise, and she succeeded, and Yesieniei could not but be surprised and didn’t try to conceal it as he watched the unconstraint and prudence with which Ulpan was acting and doing everything and – thanked Allah for the innumerable time for  his extraordinary decision taken last autumn – to winter over with his herds in

Karshygaly.

He lingered to greet the people welcoming him, and Ulpan with her mother along with Tliemis went further, to the snow-white otau.

Some Kazakh woman was going to throw the lid covering the smoke flap above open.

Ulpan said:

-           Tell her not to touch it, mother’ll open it herself.

-           Hey, woman! Don’t touch it, go away!- Tliemis shouted. It must be his wife. One doesn’t speak so rudely and with no pretext for this even with hired servants.

.       The woman disappeared as if she never was there.

To open the lid is no easy thing to do. First Niesibieli looked at the sun, defined from where the wind was blowing, and only after that she threw the felt open.

She entered the yurt following her daughter and stopped agaze. The upper cover, made of a white blanket, was decorated with a black velvet ornament, delicately woven carpet stripes hid the lattice walls, and the floor was covered with shag carpets. Opposite to the entrance, bedclothes were heaped – satin, velvet... The trunks were covered with felt slips, which were also made of a white blanket. Сундуки былипокрыты войлочными чехлами, тоже из белой кошмы. A polished brazen kumgan with a long curved spot, a brazen washing bowl, curtains of heavy blue silk.

Everything was shining and gleaming here, but Ulpan, true to the promise she had given herself, showed no sign of surprise.  She thanked Tliemis – he had followed the hostess and her mother into the yurt:  

- Only you can notice if anything is wrong... And I can see no flaws, not a single one, Tliemis-aga. Don’t be hurt because I call you by first name. I call everybody, starting from Yesieniei, by forst name.

He’d got used in long years to being called Tulamiesh or Tilamiesh by Russian women,  so he didn’t even give it a though when Ulpan addressed himby his first name, which is not common in auls when speaking to men.

He was hesitant as for how to address this tokal, who seemed to be spoilt by her old husband’s care, too.   Having made no decision, he omitted any form of address:  

-    There are flows... They’re bound to be here! But we’ll set it right step by step. You can find everything at the Tobolsk fair, all that you can wish for. And, what is more, I’ve got a whole herd of merchants I know. So don’t worry.

He left.

-Ala... Sit down. The most honorable place, the one you always take at home. This is my otau. You’ll take me to Yesieniei’s aul with this yurt.

-        Sunny, when did it happen? When did you order such a yurt?

-        Ala, am I Yesieniei? And what difficulties can Yesieniei have! We’ll go to the fair tomorrow. Whatever you need for yourself, for father, for the house – take it... We’ll buy everything... It’s not like I came to the fair with Yesieniei, it’s Yesieniei who came with me.

But how could Niesibieli but be surprised? It took Ulpan a single winter to tame a man like Yesieniei. And the main wedding in his native aul hasn’t taken place yet.

The woman who was trying to open the lid with no luck as they arrived came in. 

-    Will you have a wash?- she asked.

-     Yes, yes, we will... And are you Tliemis-aga’s wife?

- I am...

When Ulpan and Niesibieli had washed and changed their clothes, zhigits brought the dastarkhan and a boiling samovar. Ulpan told them:

-     Let any of you call for Esieniei. Place the samovar here, I’ll be pouring out teas myself.  

Yesieniei came not alone. Apart from Tliemis, there were two Tatar merchants and a Russian. Those two were called Galiaskar, Galiulla, and the Russian one was called Gleb.

о

It’s the first time that Ulpan’s acting as a hostess outside her aul, away from her home; she was catching the guests glances, reading their thoughts with srtained attentiveness... It looked like they took her for Yesieniei’s daughter at first. And Niesibieli – for his wife. But then they began to hesitate – and remained hesitant until Yesieniei spoke to her:

-     Ulpanzhan... Mechants have come to us, and merchants are always in a hurry, they always are short of time and a lot on their plate. This Russian wants to buy your horses, by the slump. Of course, if you come to terms. 

Tliemis found it necessary to remind of the fair prices:

-     Four horses are sold, forty roubles each. But those were the best horses of all.

 - And how much does this man – Talib - offer?

-          Thirty-five each...

Ulpan chose not to think long and not to haggle:

-     What’s the tradition?- she said to Tliemis. – To strike hands or what. I agree.

Before leaving, Gleb said:

-     Madam, I owe you the very best silver fox I manage to find and a French perfume...

Tliemis interpreted it and explained – “madam” is the way to address a noble woman.

He went out to see Gleb off, and Galiaskar and Galiulla congratulated khanum on a good deal, wished her good luck at the fair. Galiaskar invited her to his house for the next day. His wife and children will be glad...  If khanum goes to the bazaar with them, it will never occur to any merchant or seller to cheat on her... And, apart from the fair, he, Galiaskar, has a shop of his own. All the goods on its shelves are meant for khanum, let her only tell what she needs.

Galiulla, seemed to be a little frustrated by the fact that Galiaskarhad outstarted him with the invitation. One can deal with this madam, as Gleb called her. They had already figured how much money would, God willing, fall into the Russian merchant’s pocket after he sold the forty horses, and how much would fall into theirs...

Then they both left, and Tliemis came back and brought a massive bundle of paper money and a bag of silver to Ulpan.

-          You owe me a lolly...- gently, as he always spoke to her,  said Yesieniei.

-          When he sends me the silver fox, I’ll make a good tymak for you – your head will be warm in winter. Deal, my boy?

-          Deal, khanum, deal...

-          But here you are – take some money, too, for your pocket not to be empty.

-          Oibai-au! Are you giving me this much?

-          It’s all right... I can spare it...

-          No! I’d rather take this big silver rouble with that tsaritza woman! I’m not going to give it to anybody! She’s such a beauty. I’ll keep her.

Niesibieli was listening to them, never ceasing to jubilate and to pray to Allah, asking him to grant them longer happiness. No it seemed strange even to her that she rushed out of the yurt, in great distress, when Musriep the Turkman told him about Yesieniei’s intention. And watching his old son-in-law with her daughter, so very young, Nesibieli was trying to unriddle it: was it Yesieniei who had become more simple-minded and kind-heartet or was it Ulpan who had found the right way to talk to him, she could be all kinds of a woman - affectionate, imperious, playful, and stubborn... “My boy”, “my little tiger”... – and he likes it when she calls him like this

And Yesieniei himself?.. Niesibieli had never known a man like his. Intoxication with his richness, inexhaustible ambition, the arrogant manners of a batyr, passion for hunting – he might have kept this all, but Ulpan overshadowed this all, she could be both his ward, heeding his practical advise, and his tutoress, whose advice he heeded himself.  

The huge, seemingly gloomy Yesieniei gets a glance of undertanding every time she looks at Ulpan.  “My Yesieniei”,- she calls him. And sometimes they’re just like children. Ulpan is about to go somewhere.  Yesieniei calls her over in a strict voice, and she runs to him, stands bolt-upright.  He’s bound to rearrange something: to smooth her camisole or to refasten the strings of her malakhai hat. “I’m afraid you’ll grow up to be a great sloven and softie... – and she gives her a slap, as if she were a child.- You may go now”. Yesieniei, he’s Yesieniei. He can afford doing whatever he wants without taking it into consideration whether it’s proper or not. Now what he said about the traritsa woman’s beauty – he meant Ulpan.

He paled into the background during there fair days. If somebody else acted like this, it could provoke quizzical looks, stealthy sneers. But Yesieniei... Some people, who used to be afraid of his sterness and morose manners, were now trying to keep closer to him and were rediscovring him.

The journey to the fair mattered a good deal for Ulpan. She became the subject of talks – her intelligence, the influence she had on business matters. And – what is just as important – she found out herself that she cоuld be different, not just an aul girl who likes horseriding and learned how to hunt wolves with hounds with the help of Musriep the Turkman.  

One who has lived woe is in fear that one’s present happiness will be short-lived. It mostly turns out to be true – and Niesibieli kept begging God not to turn his back on her daughter’s hearth.

They were sitting - Yesieniei and Ulpan – with their jokes, Niesibieli – with her joy and apprehension, when the curtain was thrown open and Musriep the Turkman appeared in the yurt.

-      Assalaumalikiem...

A lash was hanging down from his dand, he was wearing travel clothes – one could see it that he had just dismounted.

-      Musriep-agai!- Ulpan sprang to her feet. Niesibieli rose to greet him, too.

Yesieniei stared at the unexpected guest fiercely:

-    It is you, Turkman? You?.. I’ve already forgotten your face! Where have you been hanging about the whole winter? Why do you get me miss you? Sit down, you aren’t going anywhere.

It was not customary, not the done thing, otherwise Ulpan would have fallen upon Musriep’s neck, embraced him and given him a kiss. He understood everything from her look, he also understood that he’d really become her elder brother after her marriage, and he’d like to hug her and to pat her like a sister, too. 

Yesieniei seated him beside himself.

-    Nobody has heard a peep from you, Turkman... But I’ve heard that you’d been biting the bullet for so many years, and now you’ve got tangled, too. Why didn’t you invite us to your wedding toi?  

Musriep found the right words at once:

- We postponed the toi till you arrive,- he said.- We didn’t have time for this... We’ve got a baby, so Shynar can’t leave it, she’s spending day and night beside it.

- A baby?..

If there had been only two of them, Yesieniei would have surely taunted his friend, he’d have asked: why so soon, did you woman leave her home with a getting?

But he felt constricted with Ulpan ans said briefly:

-    Well, congratulations...

And Ulpan asked, certainly:

-        Son?.. Daughter?

-        I don’t know yet. It can’t get to its feet, and Shanyr won’t show me – she says I’ll bedevil it.

-        Doesn’t rise?- Ulpan was surprised..- And when was it...

-        It’s been long. It was twenty days yesterday.

-        Twelve days – and you wants the baby to rise to its feet?

-     What’s this nonsence?- Yesieniei demanded an explanation. Niesibieli smiled and turned to her daughter:

-     E-eh, Ulpan... How could you fail to understand? It’s a camel who had a baby, a camel...

-    Really?..

Ulpan understood it from Musriep’s eyes that her mother was right and broke into laughter of relief. As she had thought , just as Yesieniei had, that some misfortune – what misfortune could it be? – had forced Musriep to marry a woman expecting.

Musriep started to explain – the little camel is still helpless, it has no control over its legs, and the legs ar elong, awkward, and it can’t even lift its head, it’s only lying still... Shynar had brought a white camel from her house.

- And the baby camel, is it white, too?- Ulpan interrupted him.

- Yes, Shynar says it’s snow-white.            We’re thinking of making it the top prize for the paluan who defeats everybody during our toi.  

Yesieniei interfered:

-          I can see it in Ulpan’s eyes... You incur her avarice, you want me to compete at your toi!

-          And what can happen to you even if you do? Or are you so very old? How many times have you fought paluans, renowned ones... and won!

-          He will compete, he will!- Ulpan exclaimed merrily and patted Yesieniei’s knee.- He’ll defeat everybody – and the white baby camel will be mine!

-          Right!- Yesieniei agreed, but he laid a condition of his own, too:- But you, Turkman, will fight among the others.

- I will...

The fate of the prize seemed to be sealed long before paluans got at grips at the toi...

Ulpan hadn’t seen Musriep for a long time, and such changes had taken place in his life since then, and she kept on questioning him:

-     Musriep-agai, you say y friend’s-to-be, my sister’s name is Shynar ²?

-     Would I have married her if her name was different?

-     What a brag!- Yesieniei said,- he used to be a brag as a bachelor and still is a brag, though married!

¹A paluan is an athlete, a fighter.

²Shynar is a sycamore; it meant beauty, stout-heartedness, and loyalty as a feminine name.

_ A brag or not – you’ll see it.

-     Are you going to say that she’s more beaustiful than Ulpan? Difficult it was to answer such a quaetion, but not for Musriep:

-     Each woman should have her own, unique kind of beauty. Do we argue about what kind of horse is better – a bay or a black one? No. We say – beautiful, good, elegant, splendid...

It must have been to comfrot himself that Yesieniei recited the old tried truism:

-           As the saying goes,  the bauty of a man is in his wit, and the with of a woman is in her beauty...

-           Well, consider me as lucky as you are – the wit of my Shynar is not in her beauty only, as I’ve found out.

- Ulpanzhan... It seems to be that he’s regaining consciousness?

-     You’ve come to look like a man, too!

 Yesieniei answered, not joking now:

-          You told the truth, Turkman... Sometimes I can hardly recognize myself...- But he wasn’t used to being absolutely frank, even with Musriep, so he returned to the previous line of the conversation:- Wherever she sends me, I go. Whoever I turn into, this will be her work! And yours –is she like this, too?

-          Well, it’s easier for me now – Musriep replied with a plangent sigh.- My poor one has no single second of freedom now – it’s all because of this baby camel. I can only see it in her eyes. Sometimes I see there’s no firing – so I rush to fetch some dung. There’s ni water... I grab the buckets, run to the lake and carry them back, trying not to spill.

-          No less than run!

-          A mosquito can get a tiger running...

Ulpan was listening to them condescendingly – two men, one far from being young and one not very young, expounding on young women, their wives.

She had a request:

-          Musriep-agai, will you find some time tomorrow to accompany me to the market? Do you have many demands on your time?

-          I’ll go there once and blaze through all of them...

Yesieniei asked petulantly:

- So am I to sit here alone?

-          During the day, Musriep-agai will be with me, and in the evening he’ll be with you. You’ll have things to do during the day. Your Kierieis and your Uaks can’t wait for Yesieniei to start trying their winter backlog of cases.   If you want, we can go together...

-          No,- he said dismissively.- All that’s missing is loafing about the market. I’ve never done it in my life!

-     I’ll try to be quick,- Ulpan promised.

The next morning, as the carriage was running smoothly towards the city from the bank of the Tobol, Ulpan raised the matter of Shynar again:

-     And what height is she?

She had already become disaccustomed to Musriep the Turkman and was now confused as to whether she should call him by his first or full name.

-     If you stand near each other, you can look into each other’s eyes. But she seems to me a little thinner than you. This girl has never chased a wolf in the steppe, she’s pastured camels.

-     And her temper?..

-     Temper?- Musriep repeated, not knowing what to answer.- She’s calm. Not timid. Probably friendly... The old women of our aul grandmother her, I’m afraid they can spoil her. You can hear nothing but: «Ainalaiyn-ai... Ainalaiyn-ai...» And the kids call her nothing but aiai-apa¹...

-          And how do you call her?- Ulpan asked.

-          Me?.. Akmaral...

Ulpan stopped questioning him for a while – she must have thought of  her white deer in Karshygaly, the white doe with two baby deers by the salty lake... Why does Musriep call his wife in such a way? Are there no other pet names? Say, Akbota – white camel...

But it was best not to search her memory but turn the conversation:

¹Aiai-apa means beautiful aunt;

_ - Musriep-agai, what would you do if you became rich?

-     I’d rather not,- he answered,- There’s only suffering for a rich one... He can’t sleep during the night, afraid of losing his cattle. Either a jute...Or someone can drive it away...

She still insisted:

-     But anyway?..

-     I’m telling you the truth, ainalaiyn,- I don’t know. What I need, I have. Two horses for riding, two mares, two hounds. And now a camel's joined us. And a baby camel...

- No! The baby camel is mine!

-          Oh, right, right – it’s yours...

They entered the city... The eyes of the steppe-dwellers were not used to seeing such throng – you can’t meet so many people at the greates toi ever! The houses are made of stone, and the wooden ones are all decorated with fine carving on their gates and windows... That’s nothing, as even the horses were roaring with fear, slanting their eyes and could startle any moment. Tliemis, who was sitting at the teamster’s place, could hardly hold them back.

Tliemis was explaining things, too... A two-storeyed white house – the governor used to live in it. And this one? A massive building, firmly set onto the ground, with towers and akyward crosses. That’s a church.  Here the Russians pray to their God, here they gor baptized at birth and their lasr rites are read when they leave this world. A long stone shed with large windows with crowds near it – shops and stalls. Whatever you need, whatever you want, you can always buy it here as long as you have the money.  

Ulpan understood that there was no memorizing everything at a dash and said: 

-Let’s go to the house of the yesterday’s Tatar, the merchant, Galiaskar?.. Right, Galiaskar is his name.

Tliemis turned into a by-street – and set the carriage towards a two-storeyed brick house. 

— You asked me what I’d do if I possessed a great fortune? – Musriep asked Ulpan – First of all, I’d build such a house... Just look how clean is the yard, the grass is like a green carpet.  A well. If it’s all so neat outside, can you imagine what’s inside?

Indeed, the interior and adornments of this house seemed to be the perfect luxury to Ulpan. And she took the measure of Galiaskar’s wife and his daugther stealthily but with great care.  The Tatar women choose light and comfortable clothes – they carry themselves in a free way.  Their language is similar to the Kazakh and different, but she can understand it.  And Galiaskar himself spoke Kazakh as if it was his mother-tongue.

The large round table was laden, and the space left was barely enough for sqeezing in teapots and cups. One would think there was nothing to add.

But Galiaskar’s wife, Raziia, was still fluttering around:

- Help yourself... Whatever you find on the table is for you... That Galiaskar is always letting me down. He comes late at night and tells me we’re expecting guests in the morning. I told him flat out – are you going to kill me? For I won’t manage to do a thing and will die of shame. And he keeps saying it in Russian  nichaua, Raziia-knanum, niachaua... In Russian, so that I can’t ask him. He says: You’ll see a beautiful Kazakh girl in return. Well, he was right. Help yourself...

Ulpan chose not to eat much to prevent them from thinking she was starved. She had some tea, and after that  Raziia-knanum took them to Galiaskar's shop. Not only did the merchant speak fluent Kazakh – he also knew what any woman of the steppe could need and had goods suited to every fancy and every fortune. Right he was when he said: “There’s no place to find what I’ve got in my shop...”

Saffian boots of various sizes... Beaded kavushes-ichigs. Velvet camisoles, plush camisoles... Look at them -  and you’ll see a rainbow spread over the counter! And the same rainbow was in the other corner, where silk dresses were hanging. Where were they sewn? In Kazan... It’s a far way from the northern Kazakh steppe, but someone managed to invent a style to both preserve the appearance customary among the aul women and make the dress lighter and more comfortable. 

For a strat, Ulpan asked for three pairs of boots. A helpful seller, also a Tatar, invited her in Kazakh:

-     Sit down, we need to try them on...

Ulpan did sat down but – she hadn’t changed her foot wraps in the morning. So she refused to try them on, she only compared them to the boots she was wearing. They seemed to be the right size...

-     I’ll take them...                                                                                                                        

Then she forced her mother to try on kavushes and spent much time picking everything she needed, for  when would she come to a fair next... Only double-frilled dresses and sleeved camisoles were missing in the shop.

-          But can we find someone to sew it?

-          Certainly...- the seller answered.

He brought a tailor – Shakir, and Shakir found himself in a fix. Usually the Kazakhs won’t let the tailor touch them to take measurements, it’s considered to be a sinister sign. The thin winding-sheet cloth is very hard to find, and it’s very expensive, so it’s the dead and not the living who are measured to a nail.

Straightening her back in a lordly way, Ulpan stood before the tailor and kept standing still while he was taking the measurements with great care, almost without the young woman, writing the figures down on a piece of paper. And Niesibieli in her corner was whispering incantations, begging God to save her Ulpan from the evil presage.  

When it was over, it occured to Ulpan that Musriep had told her Shynar was the same height as she; and she said to Shakir:  :

-          These dresses and these camisoles – three items of each kind.

-          Three?..

-          Yes. And how much time do you need, when will they be ready? – In about five days...

Time came for paying, and beads of the abacus started drumming under the dexterous fingers of Galiaskar himself – he wouldn’t entrust such a great purchase to the seller.

He kept calculating and saying to himself:

- Blue velvet – forty-five arshins... Crimson velvet – fifty-five...- Red – thirty-three...

He was still muttering, and, eventually, several large denomination bills went to his drawer. But Ulpan didn’t regret it – if one has money, why keep them?Money are meant for spending.

At parting, Raziia-knanum recommended Ulpan to put on all the new clothes after she’d gone to the bath – the way from the aul was a long one, - and she was the one to find a local old woman to take them there.  

Ulpan’s father had told her about the bath, as he had been to Russian settlements and had spent half a year in hospital in Stap. But hearing is one thing, and entering the hor sweating-room, where it is hotter than it is in the steppe on the hottest day, is another... A delicious languor enveloped the whole of her body, and the old woman’s hands were rubbing it, and the body got covered in tickling soap sud... And her hair, washed with the water which had a tart vinegar smell, were tumbling down her shoulders...  “I’ll come here again tomorrow, - Ulpan thought blissfully. – And the day after tomorrow, too. I’ll come here every day until we go to the aul!” And in her memory, Ulpan tied another knot for the future – a Russian bath...  

On her way home, Ulpan noticed Galiaskar and Musriep – they were in a tarantass with a red horse in the harness that was so big that she couldn’t reach her withers with her hand...  The tarantass was sliding forward noiselessly.  Its edges were sided with shiny metal, the passenger box was made of wicker and painted a lively brown.

At first she thought this to be Galiaskar’s tarantass and said:

- Musriep-agai... If you take to traveling by the merchant’s waggon, you’ll forger how to saddle.

- It’s not a waggon. It’s a tarantass. Mine. – You bought it?

- With the horse and all the harness...

This is what Akmaral sent me to the fair for. Do you think she’ll like it?- he asked apprehensively.

-     That’s a sure thing!

Ulpan was returning home – to the yurts on the bank of the Tobol – in Musriep’s tarantass. She wanted to take a leisurely ride along the streets and to see the city in detail.  So she was watching and could not but notice that the dark-red horse, accustomed to both the noise and the throngs, was pacing in a free, easy manner, so that everybody coul admire her beauty.  All the four plates shone in the sun as she turned.

-     You’ll buy me a similar tarantass tomorrow. Will you, Musriep-aga? But I need a couple of horses. I’ve seen it in the street.

-     I will if you ask. And what color should the horses be?

-     Whatever you like, I’ll like it, too...

 Yesieniei met them by the big yurt.  

-     Turkman... You’ve thrown your whole gain from the wolfkins into this waggon. Where will you get money to feed your wife?  

-     A good wife will feed her hurband.

Ulpan couldn’t wait to tell Yesieniei about her wish:

-     My Yesieniei, don’t scold Musriep for his buy. Tomorrow, I’ll buy a tarantass with horses, too. Our horses are too timid for harnessing.

-     You want to bring me to nought!

-     I will, I will!.. You’re nought already, I’ve got almost no money of my own left. We’re going home in five days. And in the meanwhile – every morning in the bath, washing. Try it and you’ll see yourself what a bliss it is!

Before they set off, the smaller white yurt – otau – was demounted, and the camels were endorsed with it as well as the bags with their new acquisitions, and Ulpan with her mother went in the new tarantass carried lightly by calm and swift runners – dark-gray horses.

At their departure, Ulpan reminded:

-     Musriep-agai, tell Shynar to cherish my baby camel and not to show it to nobody...

10

It was before noon as they approached the aul, and Yesieniei told her gently and with a slight mockery:

-           Well, young kielin, you go on foot... And I’ll watch you bow in all directions by custom.  

-           I don’t know whether I’ll manage to... But don’t look at me, will you?

-     I won’t,- he promised.

A crowd of girls and young women, who had came out to welcome them, was approaching, and Yesieniei made Ulpan and her mother alight. The woman accompanying Ulpan from her native aul alighted, too, - they had been ging behind them. And the zhigits – about twenty horsemen – followed Yesieniei.

Sidling a glance on the women meeting Ulpan,  Yesieniei grinned: «My kinsmen could beat a flap-eared ass in terms of wit... They imagine that Yesieniei’s baibishe will enter her own house under their cover...”

Indeed, they had two bakans – thin poles, - on which they were carrying a dark green silk curtain to hide their new relative from prying eyes. 

In front of them, Aitolkyn, Imanaly’s wife, was walking. She had put on a coat over two velvet camisoles, and a light white calico zhaulyk was towering on her head like a turban.

Two young women – on either side of Aitolkyn – were wearing lighter clothes, according to the weather: saukielies with golden galloons on their heads, sleeveless camisoles, white dresses with puffy double frills.  The three of them stopped to bow when the closed tarantass with Yesieniei in it was passing by them.

The dark green curtain was approaching Ulpan. Aitolkyn thinks she’s higher if she has a zhaulyk to scrape the sky on! And to camisoles in such heat, a coat – they are meant to hide her fat, bulging hips.  Sweat running down her face had drenched the lower part of her zhaulyk, under the chin, and dust had stained the white calico, so it looked like Aitolkyn had a beard...

Anf the one on her right?.. She’s swarthy, red-cheeked. Embroidered boots on her feet. Her smile, sure to win one’s favor... The corners of her eyes are curved up a little... A mole on her left cheek. So this is Shynar, just like Musriep decribed her, answering Ulpan’s qusetions. Of course, it’s Shynar! Thanks God Musriep has finally found a mate.

In auls Yesieniei, after his first wife had left, Aitolkyn believed herself to be the superior and the most significant one. She greeted Ulpan and Niesibieli disdainfully:

-    Hello, my dear! How do you feel? Is everything allright in your house? – The words were getting stuck in her teeth, as if they were clammy, and she seemed to never use the polite form of address at all.

And even when she was scattering handfuls of shashu – sweets, Aitolkyn had her own words to say, with a hint, as if warning for the future:

-    The welfare of a house starts with the first steps of the kielin... Just as accruement of a flock starts with the herder’s stick. Both the good and the evil depends on the eyebrows of the kielin enetering the house, whether her eyebrows are raised or bent down...

Children rushed to get some shashu. They were tearing the sweets away from each other, fighting. Ulpan couldn’t take her eyes off them. Many of them had potbellies – a sign of stravation diet.  Thin legs. And red, swollen eyes. It seemed strange to Ulpan – how many bony, sick children are there in Yesieniei’s aul! Did they have a jute in winter and famine then? 

Aitolkyn’s prud was still puffing her up, she was sticking her flat nose in the air... Shynar came up to Ulpan.

-          Is it you, ainalaiyn?- Ulpan asked.

-          It is me,- Shanyr answered.

Niesibieli understood it at once – Musriep’s wife. She gave Shynar a kiss:

-     I wish you many years of happiness!

But if Ulpan was studying Aitolkyn, Aitolkyn was studying Ulpan, too, as only women can study each other. It’s strange...  There’s a white silk kerchief on her head, like a shawl, and saukielie’s put over the kerchief.  The neck is bare!.. She wants to show off – let men see what a beautiful neck she’s got! Oh, what a shame! The dress is bright-yellow, made of silf, and the collar is red. That’s clear – lack of cloth. And she’s gont only one camisole on, dark blu, made of velvet. Can she has a better thing, this beggar? Look at this beauty, for which a whole kos of horses was given! If only she was worth it... And her face... Her face is no whiter than that of hers, of Aitolkyn! We’ll see what this girl will look like after she’s given birth to three sons and two daughters... And she’s got wicked eyes. And Musriep was making a pitch for her! Those boots... If she had a little wit, she’d be wearing not those red ones with pail emroidering, but  blue spotted ones. This homeless Shynar, pauper’s wife, has got the same pair on. It’s not for no reason that people say: “There’s nothing worse than when a kiediei¹ takes it into his head to prink...”

Aitolkyn raised her hand, and the two young women started moving towards Ulpan to hide her from prying eyes with the curtain when she’s going to her husband’s house. 

Ulpan raised her hand, too, to stop them, and said: - Listen, kielin...- Doing so she was looking elsewhere, avoiding  Aitolkyn’s eyes.- Tell them to take it away... I’m not going to hise when I’m going to my aul.

«Kielin?..» For Aitolkyn, the first woman in Yesieniei’s aul, such form of address was worse than a lash, with which her husband, Imanaly, regaled her every once in a while.

¹A kiediei is a poor man, the lower class.

-        What? – was the only thing she could say.

-        I tell you to get the curtain taken away. When on my way to my aul, I want to see the land and the water, the women and their children... Take it away...

-        As you wish...

Aitolkyn frowned with indignation and though: “It’s you and not me whom people will disapprove of”. She didn’t want to admit her defeat and din’t give up her place in the front of the cortege. Ulpan and Shynar were walking side by side and talking in low voices.

- I thought that Musriep-agai would come to my wedding...

-        He’s sent his elder brother. And he’s finishing with sowing.

-        Sowing?..

-        Yes. I didn’t know it, but they – not for the first year – have been sowing a lot of oats and half a lot of wheat. I helped them , too.

-        That’s why I felt your hands to be scored...

-        Your hands are no silk, either.

-        Though I’ve never done the sowing, I’ve always had enough things to do... And how’s my white baby camel? Is it alive?

-        It’s so alive there’s no controlling it!

-        And your aul, is it far from here?

-        We’re still at the wintering place, we haven’t moved yet. And your camel – that’s a disaster. I have to keep it pegged up,   as you asked to show it to noone until you arrive...

Ulpan squeezed her elbow gratefully.

Aitolkyn was still marching at the head, and the young women who had felt affiance towards each other at once, could not but talk about her.

-    Aitolkyn is at the head...- Shynar said, and the point was not in the words but in the was she uttered them.

Ulpan supported her:

-        My God, how snobbish she is...

-        Why? She’s right,- Shynar smiled quizzically.-A disobedient kielin should be tamed right from the start; after this it will be too late.

-     Who says I’m disobedient?

-          Noone says, but I know you as if I had been born in the same aul, as if I had grown up in the same aul as you.  

-          I see... Musriep-agai gave you a long song and dance about me...

-          Your Musriep-agai won’t let a fleck tarnish your dignity, just as well as mine...

-          E-hey!.. And why are you always calling your lord simply by name?

-     It was his order, so I got used to it.

Sometimes you say a little but lear a lot. Ulpan gave Shynar a stealthy pinch on her hip; they wanted to continue their conversation, but suddenly they looked ahead, where Aitolkyn was wobbling. The high heels of her boots had got urved backwards and were getting more and more curved with each step.

A recollection came to Snahyr:

-          I think there’s a song... “High-heeled boots, but watch every step... Once you stumble – you’ll jump and fall on your back...”

-          I’ve hard it... But sometimes they sing not “jump”, but “spring with your rear to the sky”.

                They nearly burst into laughing.  Another thing they liked at their first meeting was their similar impression of Aitolkyn, similar attitude to her.

To put an end to it, Ulpan asked another question:

-     Does she come of a gentle family?

-      That’s sure! They same she comes from the khan’s family...

Ulpan raised her eyebrow in disdain.

Yesieniei’s aul stood in a hollow between two lakes, which were overgrown with reeds along their banks. Ahead, where the white of six or seven yurts was showing, Ulpan noticed hers – otau – from afar.

-    I nearly kicked the bucket...- Shynar complained –While helping to settle your yurt, while arranging the bedding...

-     Wait a minute...- Ulpan stopped her.

A way out, far from the lakes, there were  disodrerly arranged yurts, dark in the green of the steppe, remarkable for their shabby apperance.

-     And who lives there?

Shynar took to enumerating deliberately:

- There live your cattlemen, sheep herders, your dairy-maids, watermen, heaters, horse wranglers... 

- You say my?

-         Yours.

Ushan said nothing.

Her native aul had never seen simple welfare, not to mention abundance. But each of the Kurlieut families had its cattle and its yurt, though not of a white but of a dark blanket, but it was their own one. There was no dependence, and Artykbai, her father, was respected for his one-time daring, his one-time merits.   Not for his richness but for his cool and sober mind.   And those yurts, patched all over, were the latest resort for the poor. The aul of Yesieniei – a renowned bey, a batyr... A rich man. Would it be better for the Sibans if they had no Yesieniei? Astagfirulla! What evil thoughts are creeping into her head – just when she’s on the threshold of his house...  But, though Ulpan was thrilled at her new, unfamiliar status, though – she knew it – it was not only joy but also calamities that was waiting for her, the difference between two auls, the white and the black ones, struck her from her first steps on Yesieniei’s land. 

Near Yesieniei’s big yurt, man an women of the Siban aul were sitting in waiting.

Aitolkyn was still at the head, within a thrown nosse, - bowed low to the white yurt.

-     Do everything as I do...- Shynar whispered to Ulpan.

And – turned to the elders, went on one knee and made her first low bow to them and not to the white yurt, where her husband was waiting for her. Shynar did the same, but she was so ashamed that she had to cover her face with an end of her kerchief.

One of the zhigits was about throwing the curtain of the big yurt open when Aitolkyn, wanting everything to be done at her command only, ordered to him:

-          Open it...

-          But I was going to...

-          I tell you to open it, hurry up!

The zhigit moved her aside with his elbow:

-     I will, but you keep back... Are you going to enter the yurt before the baibishe? I said keep back...

In the big white yurt, noticing the silent local aksakals sitting on the places of honor, Ulpan bowed to them and only after that she took her place – a little below Yesieniei.  Shynar didn’t dare to follow the lead this time, she got confused, but Ulpan called her up in an authoritative tone:

-     Come here...

Shynar greeted the aksakals, too, but she blushed with embarrassment and sat down crabwise... And beside her, Niesibieli and the other Kurlieuts accompanying Ulpan sat down.

Yesieniei, watched them with a chuckle and turned to Shynar:

-     Eh-hey!.. Your Musriep’s no Siban at all, he’s a Turman... For you, Shynar, the Sibans have all their places of honor unoccupied. You aren’t even obliged to reverence these old men with a bow!

The oldest of all, the one who had a beard as white as snow, interrupted the host:

-     Don’t talk like this even jokingly, Yesieniei. I saw it with my own eyes – it wasn’t for nothing that our aksakal Biespai gave his senior daughter-in-law to a stranger Turkman zhigit. It was for his braveness... And Musriep’s own father fell in the battlefield very young, protecting the Sibans again the Kalmyks.   As all kinds of people came to our land! Indeed, Yelaman was quite a batyr... Who else – of the Sibans – has ever got a burial hill like that, as high as a mountain? The highest one stands on Yelaman’s bones, let him rest in peace!

Yesieniei raised his hands:

_ - Oibai, Bakie...I give up!

Noone managed to say a thing after this – the one in question entered the yurt – Musriep. He bowed to everyone from the threshold, and Ulpan and Niesibieli rose to their feet at his appearance. He shook Niesibieli’s hand with both hands, and Ulpan gor a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

-    How dares he, this Turkman! – Yesieniei yelled, feigning jealosy.

Paying no attention to him, Musriep said:

-    Let your arrival bring us all happiness, Ulpanzhan...- Then he turned to Yesieniei:— It’s no concern of yours... You sit still... Sit still!..

The old men were listening to them approvingly. Peace and conciliation in the house. Peace andc onciliation between friends. This is a better and easier way for people to live in this world.

-        Take a higher place,- Yesieniei invited Musriep.

-        No, my pla will be next to Niesibieli, the matchmaker.

-        Listen!- Yesieniei was indignant.- Have you gone crazy while hanging about far away from us? You call Ulpan your sister, but you call her mother your matchmaker. How am to understand this?

-        Understand it as you wish,- Musriep said and took his place next to Niesibieli.

He inquired about Artiekie’s health and gave a sigh about the old man’s inability to come to his only daughter's wedding.  Niesibieli passed a request from him – as Musriep is quite sound himself, he should come and visit him.  Musriep gave a promise – when they move to the dzailiai near lake Kairan-kol, their auls will be on the opposite banks, and then... 

-    You’ll take along Shynar, too. We’ll go, too, - Ulpan said.

Musriep chuckled at her determination:

-    It’a a golden bridle that Yesieniei is bridled with...- he drew the first line but apparently decided he couldn’t draw the whole song and stopped at once, pointing the edge of the second line on himself: - And you, Musriep, stop champing at the bit, sober down! 

He had an ear for music, could reproduce a melody he heard, composed a kiui of his own, but God had not graced him with a perfect voice. This is why Musriep only sang two lines, replacing the names in a well-known song.

The whitest beard belonged to Bakbierdy, but he had not lost a trace of his fancy for a lively talk, for people...

-     I can see...- he said,- I can see – golden bridles suit you both. I am glad... One of you married Artykbai-batyr’s daughter, the other – Shakshak-bey’s daughter. Therefore, Allah does not deprive the Siban clan of his mercy. Have sound judgement, let the golden bridle never scuff...- He spread his hands over them and blessed the newlyweds.

Today, the severe Yesieniei was in gay and kindly disposition.

-         Oh, aksakal!- he said.- What shall I do now? You’d better address your words to Musriep alone. But you bridled me along.

-         This is the right way, Yesieniei, you must be bridled first. I’ve never heard Musriep to have given a single flick on a boy’s forehead.  

-     So why does he need a bridle?

-     Oh, my God! I liked the kielin he brought to our aul. I said talked of him like that for her to never meet me with a frown.

The old man rose to his feet. He was of the age when one does not linger even at the most decent dastarkhan, over the most amiable conversation.

Ulpan rose to see him off, too.  Out of fur coats and caftans hanging on the wall, she chose one – with gold embroidery – and threw it onto the old man’s shoulders.

-     Let your wishes com true, ata...

The other old men rose, too, following him.

After their departure, Ulpan came back to her place and whispered:

 - Shynar... Are you Shakshak-bey’s dauther?..

-         Well... I’ll tell you later.

Musriep turned to  Niesibieli – they had been sitting side by side since the very beginning:

-           Listen, matchmaker... When the toi’s over, don’t go to anybody. First to us. – Musriep cast a cursory glance at Shynar.  – That’s her order to invite you – only like this, on such conditions. And Ulpan she’ll invite herself.

-           She has already invited me, but I haven’t told Yesieniei yet.

-           Is her invitation not enough? I won’t back off,- Yesieniei said.

They had already been drinking kumis for a long time and had had enough.  Time came for the samovar – the samovar, sparkling clean, puffing like a horse after a long race, was brough into the big yurt by a young zhigit, one of the servants in Ulpan’s yurt on the bank of Tobol. A gilded tea set appeared on the dastarkhan – Ulpan had bought it at the fair, - teaspoons clattered, the sugar was not poured in heaps, sugar was in sugar bowls, in sherbet glasses, there were amber apricots and dark-violet, almost black raisins.   

- I’d like to sit in peace for an hour, pour out the tea, - Ulpan asked and moved aside, making way for Shynar.

After the old men had left, Musriep started giving orders at once:

-           Matchmaker, sit here, on the place of honor. And don’t stand up, no matter who comes! – He didn’t quiet down till Niesibieli changed her place and even gave Yesineiei a tease: - So you want to remain a renowned bey, Yesieniei himself even in your own house? You’re a son-in-law, you must show courtesy...  

-           Let Allah punish for never leaving me in peace! – Yesieniei was indignant.- When they came, our aksakals were already sitting on the places of honor, could I kick them away?  Listen, Ulpan, I’m beginning to think ill.   What is there between you? Why do you let him dance onmy head?

-           Between us... There is between us – Ulpan was deliberately speaking slowly and cryptically. – There is... I’m Musriep’s sister, Musriep’s my elder brother, the only one I’ve never had in my life.

While she was speaking, Musriep sat down between Yesieniei and Niesibieli:

-     Have you got that? If you have, never forget it. I’m the man you must respect no less than Artiekie.

-     What a kainaga I’ve got...- Yesieniei snorted.

-     I am as I am, there’s going to be no other...- Musriep retorted immediately. – And you, Ulpan?.. Didn’t you see whom you were marrying? Was it out of naivety that you gave your consent?

Ulpan smiled, and Yesieniei raised his hands:

-           You see – I’ve got my hands up... Mouth shut! I’m not Yesieniei anymore and I don’t want to be Yesieniei!

-           No, Yesieniei, - Ulpan objected. – Don’t raise your hands. Time hasn’t come for you to give up your name yet. Wait a little! You’ll be Yesieniei till the end of our toi. And then?.. Me?.. But you’d better look sharp the. If you take a wron decision as a bey, I – I’ll reonsider you decisions...

Yesieniei had never happened to hear so many outbursts against himself. Maybe it was the reason why he liked it – not no object, but to laugh it off:

-     Can you hear, Shynar? Can you hear them? Out of my yurt, out of yours – both smokes are fused into one... You’ll let me into your house if I come in the evening and say: ainalaiynmy beard is wet with tears; Ulpan laid her lash on me, she gave me a thrashing... And I’ll say: I’ve got noone left to complain to about my luck... But for you...

Shynar felt an urge to answer – I will... It is not only for her that Yesieniei says all this, but also for Ulpan, so that Ulpan could realize that her friend has entered their house as a sister and that  Yesieniei can speak to her like to an insider, like to a kin, not caring the whispering around.

Ulpan realized it and laughed with gratitude.

And Shynar was still hesitant. Yesieniei himself?.. Yesieniei-bey? In her aul – far from here, - Shynar had heard more than once that the man bearing this name   was hot-tempered, showed cruelty sometimes, that he had a pitted face, a never-smiling face. She’d heard a different thing, too...  Thieves and brigands who steal horse herds at night add to their common prayer: “Oh Allah! Save us... Prevent us from falling into Yesieniei’s hands...”  

It seemed to her that now a different Yesieniei was spoken about. And Shanyr, who hadn’t dared to lift her eyes to him before, looked up, but she couldn’t say a thing and merely smiled.

Yesieniei insisted:

-     Shynarzhan... You’re sinlent... Why? Could this Turkman have tamed you as he used to tame a disobedient horse in a herd? You haven’t answered – will you let me in or not?  

Shynar answered:

-     Will I let you in or not? I think I will... I won’t neglect your complaint. Perhaps we will be able to comply with your request, too, - she said, imitating the tone of a bey carrying a resolution.

Yesieniei nodded with satisfaction and turned to Musriep:  

-     Listen, Turkman, no wonder that they recognized each other at first sight!

And Ulpan relapsed into silence for some time, following the conversation.

It is only at tea when the Kazakhs can speak to each other comfortably and leisurely. As long as there’s meat on the dastarkhan, there’s no time for talking! First one has to choose a nice peace of meat with one’s eyes, then – to manage to grab it as though by chance... One’s eyes, hands, and mouth are never idle. And one’s ears are deaf to any conversation, however wise it may be.  

A puffing samovar and a pot with tea  brewed in it make people at the dastarkhan attentive to each other, then one hold an easy conversation, confide one’s innermost thoughts to one’s companion, or have a dust-up.  

Ulpan, listening to Shynar, Yesieniei, ans Musriep, receiving the blessing of the honorable old man called Bakbierdy, could not but think of what struck her as she was entering Yesieniei’s aul, which welcomed her in a family-like way. With hospitality. Like a babishe.

Not only the children, ragged and sick, lingered in her mind. No... They’d already spent much time at the dastarkhan, and Yesieniei was like she always saw him by her side. But why – except for the four old men who were the first to leave after having blessed the newlyweds, and for Musriep, who is known to be independent, - it was only stoopingly that zhigits entered Yesineiei’s yurt?..  

As he had appointed them himself – forty zhigits, not obly Sibans, but from all the clans of the Kieriei tribe, forty zhigits – one by one – were entering the yurt, reported of what had been done for the toi to pass as Yesieniei had ordered, and withdrew hurriedly with their back to the exit. Some were given a bowl of kumis, some weren’t. And Imanaly’s elaborate curses accompanied the feast like an unceasing song – he was fussing outside, it occured to Ulpan then: perhaps it is Imanaly with his yelling and Aitolkyn with her arragance who scare people away from Yesieniei, preventing them from merely coming close to him. There’s no use in doing it for the Sibans, the clan which she entered as a baibishe.

Even Tliemis, Yesieniei’s proxy who had come with him, didn’t linger. He appeared once and informed:  

- Three hundred yurts have gathered by lake Kozhabai, of five volosts – the Kierieis and the Uaks... They’re driving the cattle together for butcherind. Milking mares. There’ll be enough kymyran¹, too.

            This was the only thing he said before he left without even taking a load off his feet.

¹Kymyran is  camel milk cream.

She had Shynar – her new affection – by her side. Musriep is her elder brother forever and ever. Her mother couldn’t take her happy and restless eyes from Ulpan.  

There was Yesieniei...

But Ulpan couldn’t enjoy her happiness in complete serenity. Respect for Yesieniei? Yes... Fear of him? Yes. Do his kinsmen – the people from the Siban clan – love him? No...  The one whose glory has traveled for mnay marching distances in all directions keeps his fellows in his clutches, and the very bearer of this glory is eventually solitary.  There’s no denying it - Yesieniei is a great man, but a great man means painful pressure, too, Ulpan understood this – Ulpan daughther of the poor but free Kurlieut tribe. And, in spite of the possibility to think whatever she wants, to say whatever she wants, to do whatever she wants, in spite of Yesieniei’s love for her –anxiety was creeping into Ulpan’s soul.  

She was hoping she could be wrong... But why can she hear no laughter, why can she hear no cheerful voices in the aul which has meat and kumis enough and to spare? And noone has sung a single song since they made themselves comfortable at the rich dastarkhan.

She was distracted from these thoughts, which were so totally improper for the first visit to her husband’s aul, by Musriep:

-    When the toi is over, we won’t be going anywhere for three days, - he insisted. – And today we need to go home, if we may, Ulpanzhan...  

He seemed to have repeated this request for a second time.

-    Right, Musriep-agai...- Ulpan agreed; suddenly she felt extremely exhausted.- Act as is proper for you and Shynar. And I’ll stay in the otau with my mother till we return, till the beginning of the toi.

Shynar said nothing, but it was clear that she supported the request.

Yesieniei and Ulpan... Ulpan and Yesieniei... Apart from this life they both had their own life. Musriep and Shynar left fro their aul towards the evening.

-     Is Shakshak-bey’s daughter awake?..

The voice of Asriep – her husband’s elder brother – reached them from the yard.

-     I’ve got up, agiekie¹, I got up long ago!

Shynar rushed out of the yurt to meet him, her sleeves were turned up to the elbows, she had flour and dough stuck to her fingers.  Asriep had driven the mares which belonged to their two families from the pasture.  

-     Tether them...

But as soon as Shynar started luring the colts, Asriep called out for her once again:

- He-ey... And where’s your lazybones?

-         He’s no lazybones, he’s gone to fetch some wood, he and apa.

-         Couldn’t he manage alone?

-         Apa wanted to get some dry bark...

- Why did you fall to the dough bright and early? Are the gusets coming today?

-        Today, agiekie...

-     Allright, you can go. I’ll tether the colts.

Though he kept grumbling for form’s sake, as the senior family member, but his grumbling couldn’t confuse Shynar. Asriep loves his brother, now he loves her, too, and when he blusters out threats – these threats aren’t scary at all and sound more like a joke. And she always finds a joke to reply with, and Asriep likes it that Musriep’s wife, whom he got for latter himself, turned out to be open-hearted, straightforward, and cheerful – he never saw her eyebrows bent.  She happened to hear  Asriep telling his wife: “Look, she doesn’t know what sitting idly means. And the way she looks after herself – there’s no speck of dust on her camisole...”

Asriep seemed to be content with the way it happened – last autumn... The cold Siberian rain was pouring from the sky in a solid stream, it had already been pouring incessantly for three days. The heavy clouds seemed unlikely to ever wander apart.  

Towards the evening, Asriep was driving the cattle into the barn, when a white camel stopped by their house; she was looking at the man holding her with discontent... The man? Or – the woman?.. Looked like a girl, but she was wearing men’s trousers and a men’s hat. A girl... Water was streming down her hair tied into three braids.  Her bridle leather boots got soaked, too, which made their blunt noses swell.

An aged woman in rags was sitting astride the camel, she was the one to speak to Asriep:

-    Otagasy-ai... We are wet we are cold... Will you let us is – at least to the barn, for a night, if we can’t enter your house?

During the recent fortnight, in anticipation of winter, starveling steppe people had been wandering to Cossack stanitsas, hoping to earn some bread there. And Asriep’s “Russian izba” – that’s the way they saw it – could give them a shelter against the rough weather at leat for a night.

He said to the woman:

-         You’d better stay at home, what relatives are you going to see in such weather!

-         Huh, not likely any... We’re going up hill and down dale till out legs can carry us. Maybe among the Russians we can escape death of hunger.

-         How can you escape it? There’s only men’s work in their settlements. You can’t feed yourself and your daughter...

-I thought of earning something from tailoring. You’d better tell us if you’re going to let us in or not, that’s better than your advice.

- What else can I do to you? Get off the camel, let’s go ...

The girl, without interfering with their conversation, pulled the rein downward twice and said: “Shok! Shok!”, but the camel  wouldn’t lie onto the wet ground, into the mud – and she roared displeasedly.

-     Wait a minute...- Asriep took the rein, led the camel under a tent, but even there she didn’t go down to a hen bedding at once – it took her long to try it in every way, stepping back and then moving forward, and finally she bent her knees and lay down on her stomach awkwardly. The girl’s mother came off, and Asriep ordered to them:

-     Go into the house. My wife’s there. Посушите Dry your clothes, have a warm...

Asriep closed the barn, and then Musriep appeard – he was returning from Yesieniei. Two hounds, his yellow-piebald ones, rushed to the host, put their muddy paws on his shoulders and yelped, demanding a caress.  And they wouldn’t quiet down till he patted ach of them on back of the neck.  

-     Why did he invite you?- Asriep asked.

He wants me to go with him to place the herds for the winter. And when there’s enough snow, we’ll go hunting. He says you’ll forgotten me completely, stay close to me just a little.  

-     Will you go?

-Well, he’s always alone... He still can’t come to terms with the loss of his sons, though it was long ago. I agreed. Asriep examined the horse that his brother was riding:  

-     Your Kulan-tuiak is skin and bones, you’ve trotted off his legs.  Take the red one. let him have a rest, stand still for a while.

It was just before the trip to Karshygaly, when they came across the Kurlieut’s aul and Artykbai-batyr.

Having unsaddled the horse, Musriep entered his dug-out. Noone would venture to call it lived-in and cozy.  Ее It was cold – the corner of the oven had fallen off.  The clay brick, of which the furnace cold end was built, had gradually drifted apart and was facing a fall, which would block the door. The second room was just as cold. The bed stayed there unmade and battered since morning.  On the middle pole supporting the flat roof, there was five-lined lamp, and he lit it. The glass hadn’t been cleaned for a long time. However, the light was just enough to notice cobweb threads in the corners. And the wet clothes he’s replaced will lie about till the very arrival. No, thought while changing his shoes, every house needs a woman, there’s no way to do without a woman...  She’d even have reworked the furnace for the winter – what a life it is in winter with no furnace? She’d have plaistered the hut from the outside. Looks like Asriep hasn’t got down to it... Though his brother will fix it all while he’s riding around with Yesieniei...

Musriep set to the housework twice a year, and then he worked from dawn till dusk, and dusk falls late in their parts in summer. He even didn’t go home for the night – ten days in spring and twenty days in the end of summer.  He wouldn’t let Asriep take the plow in the sowing time and wouldn’t give him the  scythe. He coped alone – for their  two houses. He usually sowed an dessiatin of wheat for his brother’s family and an dessiatin of oat for himself. He made hay. He carried corn when the time came and the spikes got swollen with heavy grains. He harvested his oat green, it went to a haystack like this, too, the hay was no worse than pyried, which horses like.  

This was the end of his worries. Asriep did the thrashing, took the bags to the shed.  And Musriep sprang to his saddle at once, and only horses and hounds could tell where he was keeping himself.  

There was not a single drop of water in the house, and even if there was – there was nothing to boil it on, and Musriep went to his elder brother’s house at dusk. He knew that he should only praise his wife, tell her how generous she is, and Zhanisha would give him something to eat, give him tea with baursaks.  Of course, she had long ago discern that awkward flattery of his: neither in the Kieriei-Uak auls nor in the auls of the Agryn-Kipchaks had he chanced to drink the tea as good as she brews...  But every time Zhanisha starts showing off her housekeeping proficiency and gives him one extra piece after another. 

In Asriep’s kitchen, he saw the girl – the girl was sitting by the oven, in which fire was dancing, trying to make herself warm and drying her wet clothes by the furnace.  She got sleepy in the heat, it took her some time to realize somebody had come in, and Musriep managed to spy her legs. All right! Round rosy heels, taut calves...  As far as he could gather, such legs were quite a rarity among the Kazakh women, who spend half of their lives astride.  

But he was denied any longer watching – the girl started at the door creaking, swiftly drew her legs in and turned away. What he saw was enough for Musriep, anyway, - pretty, with a straight, a little upturned nose, she flushed in the heat, and her swarthy cheeks were rosy. 

Zhanisha stood up:

-    Sit down, myrza-dzhygit¹...

They had already had some tea. Near the dastarkhan, by the door, an aged strange woman was sitting. Evidently, it’s the girl’s mother, Musriep guessed.

-    You have guests...- he said.

-         Well, we’re not like you, - Zhanisha taunted him.  – He’s forty and still won’t get married! We’re men of family, we often have guests.

-         It doesn’t matter,- he gave a wave of his hand.- My whole life is before me. I’ve got an elder brother, he’ll get me someone, I’ll make it.

-         He’s offered you all kinds of daughters! There’s no pleasing you!

-         Because he doesn’t mind the girl but minds her father, - Musriep put it off with a jest.- It’s not the father whom I’ll take to my house.

-         Look, what a cock...- Asriep shook his fist at him. – I’m not going to mind your affairs anymore, you do it yourself...

Zhanisha interrupted them:

-    Oh, come off it...- she said to her husband – Or else our guests will think you’re going to have a fight. Mirza-dzhigit, shall I make some tea for you? The supper is almost ready. Maybe you’ll wait for the supper?

-    I can have tea after supper just as well.

While Zhanisha was fluttering around the over, the brothers were talking about their affairs.  Asriep has stacked not ten arabas of green oat, as we expected, but fifteen, and thirty arabas of hay, this must last us for two years. Musriep was dubious as for the size of Asriep’s araba, it must be no more that a kite’s nest... But, indeed, he's been working for a full due this year and made much hay...  

-     You brat! – Asriep grew hot.-You call it working – hanging about on a meadow and waving your scythe! You’d should try carrying hay and stacking... Next summer I’ll teach you to saddle me with your troubles!

They had such talks every autumn, so Zhanisha served supper, paying no attention to them. Millet porridge was showing yellow in a deep plate, and over it, in the middle, a little heap of meat nestled. Zhanisha called the girl, who was still sitting by the oven in the kitchen, too.  But the latter neither answered nor came. Can one make a girl – her wedding’s around the corner – come to the dastarkhan barefoot. Zhanisha brought her the supper in a cup.

And the girl’s mother was eating slowly, taking a little millet with her spoon, and she never touched the meat.  She retained her dignity, as if she wasn’t hungry at all and sat to the dastarkhan only as a concession to the hosts.

Asriep took care of her:

-     Eh, zhenieshe... Ladle deeper. We’ve got this – millet – enough and to spare. Don’t be shy. There’s noone to be shy of. This is my younger brother. And my woman has spoilt him, he doesn’t heat his oven and has nothing to eat...

He managed to speak and to eat at the same time and kept moving pieces of meat up to the guest.

- And what is your name?- he asked.

-         Nausha...

-         And your husband’s name?

-         My husband’s name was shakshak.

Asriep recalled an old steppe story – about a man who had the same man and to whom his fate proved to be merciless.

- Oibai-au! – he exclaimed.

The story tells that after the death of the legendary Shakshak-bey, his poor wives wandered apart all aroung the world. Maybe she is one of them?

- My God, he was no bey!.. He was an Argyn, of the main tribe. And my husband was a Karaul. A bootmaker... And I tailored for women of the aul and subsisted on what I got. But it’s been three years since he left us.

- There’s no need to tell any more... One who has relatives can guess! Eat... Don’t be shy to eat, you haven’t touched a piece of meat with your spoon!

The woman said to Asriep sincerely.

-            Let God reward you for your kindness. I couldn’t even dream of finding myself with my daughter warm and with a roof over our heads.  I thought we’d sleep in the forest, side-by-side with our came.  And, God forbid, what if a starving tramp took her away!..

-            It’s okay... God is merciful! You’ll get to Kpitan tomorrow, it’s within a stone throw from Bolatnai. Eat to your full... And your daughter shouldn’t be shy, too. The cereal fills even better than meat. As the saying goes, a bai cherishes his cattle, and a poor man cherishes his health...  Eat...

The next morning Musriep got up early and took the horses to the watering-place. As he was coming back from the lake, he saw the girl leading the camel past Asriep’s windowns, and her mother was sitting astride... They must have set off straightaway to reach Kpitan by daylight. The rain wouldn’t stop. Having noticed Musriep, the girl stopped – from force of habit learned at her mother’s knees, she didn’t walk across a man’s way.  She’d had a good night’s sleep and rest.  She’s pretty... Musriep wanted her to look at him and to look back when leaving...

-     Have a good trip...- he turned to her.- I wish this rain stopped and wouldn’t wet you all the way!

Her right boot, which had dried by the fire at night, opened its chaps now. Musriep regretted promising Yesiniei to go with him, he could stay and help these homeless people in some way.  

He stabled the horses – Kulan-tuiak and the red one, let them to the oat stack and went out at once. 

The white camel was going further and further away. The transparent veil of the downpour blurred her silhouette.  The girl must have got her boots full of water, she must be walking with her feet wet now. And it’s pouring from above, too. There’s nothing worse than being homeless... And she turns out to be tall and stout upon a closer view.  There’s nothing crafty about looking beautiful with smart clothers on. And this girl can have appeal even wearing the ridiculous man’s heat, most likely, her father’s, as soon as she’s got a little rest... And men’s trousers – there’s enough room to hide two girls like her... Poor girl... And she could be as slender as a poplar. What is waiting for her in Kpitan? In Bolatnai, where they are heading?

Asriep oversaw it from the window that Musriep was somehow standing in the rain, standing and staring after those who were leaving and were their unexpected guests that night.

-    Katyn, katyn...Just look at him, - he called Zhanisha up to the windown – Looks like your Myrza-dzigit is - ripe! He even dropped his chin with grief at their leaving. Call for him!..

Zhanisha cracked the door open:

-    Myrza-dzhigit! Why are you soaking under the rain? What are you looking at? Come to us, let’s have some tea.

Musriep cast  his last look – the veil of rain had almost hidden all of the white camel. Inside, as soon as he sat down, his brother started teasing him:

-    Listen... You’re wandering about in all kinds of auls. Why couldn’t you draw a bead on a girl for her to give you tea, and not my Zhanisha?..

-    Do I go to look for a girl?

-     You think she’ll find you herself? Or do you hope God will send her to you?

Musriep caught himself at being in no mood for arguing with his brother, turning things into a joke...

-     Who will resist if God bothers?

- Really? Then tell me – do you like the girl who left this place in the morning and took her camel along? And you?

- Well, she’s lame of one leg... And has a cast in one eye. That’s a nice girl on the whole.

-     Right.

Zhanisha near the samovar thought – Musriep’s somehow isn’t himself, he’s answering briefly, raising no long squabbles, as the brothers are accustomed to doing.  

And Asriep was resolute:

-     Stop jabbering!- He said, though Musriep wasn’t.- Of all girls, this is the first khanum! And you’ll take her to your bosom!

 -  What do you mean – take her?

-         I’ll see about it! I will!

-         As you wish...

-     You brat!- Asriep was indignant,- Look at him, he’s all puffed up, obliging me! Was it me who watched her back with my chin nearly sinking into my bosom? Me?.. If you keep hanging about like this, you’ll get a worthless sharp-tongued woman, and you’ll be lost. But I won’t hear of it!

-     Why are you shouting? I told you – do as you want...

Zhanisha thought it was time for her to interfere:

-           You mustn’t, mustn’t! You mustn’t miss this girl. I liked her straightaway. She was so sweet to me and ep saying: “Apa, apa...”

-           Look here...- Asriep decided they’d had enough talks.- You go. If you promised Yesieniei, go, don’t hurt him.

Come as it may... It took Musriep long to saddle the red one and Kulan-tuiak, and perhaps he should have a rest. And he left.

Asriep waited till the veil of rain hid his brother, and threw his saddle onto a horse, too.

How far can a camel led by an unmounted girl go?  One can eat a good piece of mutton, not to mention drinking tea, and still catch up with her. He caught up with them after about three versts.

-     Zhenieshe!- he called the woman, coming close to them. – Tell your daughter to turn the camel back. It’s raining... You’ll stay with us for a couple of days...

Ar first, Nausha gor scared. She recalled her own words of the previous night: “What could we do if someone set his eyes on our camel”. Why did such foul words slip from her tongue, she’ invited the disaster herself!

Her voice with desperate:

-     If you want to take her away, throw me off to the ground, kill me... And have it!

But the girl didn’t seem to share her mother’s qualms, a chuckle slipped from her mouth.

-  Nausha! Why are you scared?- he was surprised.

-         How do I know why you got up to us, in such weather, which isn't’fit for a man or a beast... 

               The girl laughed again, she seemed to be not only braver than her mother, but also a better guesser. Asriep decided to  act straightforwardly:

-     Well, I got up to you... And noone, even God, can separate us anymore! Noone can separate us, Nausha. I tell you - come back, or else you’ll die wandering on the road. Come back – and be daughter’s-in-law mother.

-     What is this man saying? What is he saying? Shynar, do you hear it?..- There was perplexity in her voice, and he anxiety hadn’t passed off yet.

Shynar was silent.

-     This babbler called Musriep – you saw him last night, he’s my brother. Younger brother.

-     That’s clear.                                                                                                                                 а

-     He’s already forty, and he’s still alone, couldn’t find a decent bride! I found you to make your daughter his wife.

Asriep jumped off his horse and enfolded the girl’s shoulders – she was hiding from the wind behind the camel.

- Ainalaiyn... My little camel,- you mother called you Shynar, right? Do agree... You’ll feel good with us. I’ll be like a father for you. And Musriep is a real zhigit! You’ll see no grief with him, you won’t be on the road when it’s raining like this... Let’s take the camel back? And you get onto my horse.

He took the rein from her and, without waiting for her consent, his heart set against any objections, turned back to the house.  And Shynar didn’t seem to mind it. Though she didn’t get onto the horse – she walked behind Asriep.  She felt – like dry brushwood catches fire in the wind – a presentiment of changes in her fate.  She both longed for those changes and was afraid of them...  And most of all she was ashamed of her huge, clumsy boots, which were full of water and were squshing so out of place.

Asriep, once turning to the mother and then to the daughter, kept emblaizing the life which was waiting for Shynar. He promised to put up a white yurt – otau – for her. To drive up flocks of far sheep and herds of well-fed horses of all colors...

Nausha, even more schocked than her daughter, was asking:

-     Shynar, do you believe it all? Can you believe it?

But Shynar kept smiling and said nothing. She was listening...

He led them directly to Musriep’s dug-out.

-      This is your house now... Take off your wet clothes, changed into some other, I guess you’ve got some dry clothes... Just look! This batyr has littered everything here... Well, never mind... The bed can be made. And the oven can be fixed so that it could keep standing. Everything can be done with a pair of hands.

It stands to reason that the adornments of the kitchen and the second room answered the bright picture described by Asriep in no way.

-      Don’t be afraid...- he reasured them.- I’d have fixed it all by the evening. And in the meanwhile go to our place. My katyn’s already heating the samovar. Come and don’t be late...

Shynar was left face to face with her mother.

- Daughter... What happened? Is he joking? Is he telling the truth?

-             Why would he be joking, why would he be lying? He can’t be lying just because he’s shy or afraid of you.

-             Indeed, I must be still sleeping... And dreaming... Marriage? Just yesterday – did we even think of marriage?

-             Apa, who can know a thing before it happens? It seems to me they are not bad people.

-             Is it possible... Will I be the mother of their daughter-in-law?

               Poor confused Nausha still didn’t venture to ask whether her daughter was agree...

Shynar understood her:

-       It seems to me it’s already happened... Let’s get settled...

Nausha went out – to unpack the camel. Shynar heaved a  sigh and caught her breath.

She pulled off and threw into the mud room the repulsive heavy boots. The hat was flinged in the same direction.  And the wet men’s pants splashed with mud, which she’ll never put on on her life. Water had made her feet white. Shynar – all naked – was standing in the middle of the room, her hair let down. Whom should she be ashamed of? There was a red trace on her waist – it’ll fade away... On her hip, there were clotted reddish spots; it lookes like she’d scratched it at night. Shynar wiped them with a towel. She was studying her body with a new, unknown felling, and admiring it. She threw her arms behind her head and stretched herself. Made several steps – from one corner to another. The door creaked, and Shynar, still naked, covered herself with a blanket at once.  

But it was her mother.

Shynar didn’t feel like getting up. After the clammy, wet morning, she’d warmed up and would never agree to set her feet on the road again... The pillow smelt of cloves. Even though it’s a dug-out... If the oven gets fixed, it will be warm. To get him used to order, so that he won’t throw his dirty clothes around. Musriep, it this his name? Yes... God, when will my Musriep be back?.. My?.. What a shame!

And on a back chest, at the head of the bed, there’s another blanket and four pillows.  Does he have guest in his house, where there’s no hostess? Let apa take one of the pillows and a blanket and have a sleep.  

Nausha kept coming in and then out again, at last she brought in a korzhun, and then a little bag, a small trunk and some fardels. She reprimanded her daughter:

-     Why did you get into a stranger’s bed?

                   Shynar was in the mood for fooling around and joiking:

-          It’s not a stranger’s bad,- she replied.- Are our things wet?

-          No, they must be dry. I took everything inside for the night... Here are your ichigs, kavushes. Your dress and camisole – they’re creased but will smooth out. Аnd the hat was in the trunk, it’s all right – only the feathers needs a little stretching...

                The poverty is thrifty. Mother had saved some clothes, in which a young girl could appear with no shame. She sew them herself, and, though the hat had velvet only on top, and the plush of the camisole is not that fine, rough, Shynar would never be inferior among women, even though they’d be wearing more expensive clothes...

What a dress means for a girl! Shynar was dressing slowly, and when she was finished, she turned up to be more slender, and her gait was changed, and her eyes were shining like two stars reflected in the still water of a lake.

And Zhanisha seemed to have been waiting for the moment when she could look at Shynar – hardly had the girl got dressed, when she entered.

-     Mother of my daughter-in-law!..- she stretched one hand out to Nausha.

First they held each other by the tips of their fingers and stretched their joined hands forward, they did it three times and them embraced each other.

-               I can see an completely different girl...- Zhanisha kissed Shynar on her eyes.- I’ve come for you. Let’s have tea... Постель We’ll make the bed now and cover it. Agiekie promised to fix your oven.

When thewomen came, Asriep started packing.

— You’re two mothers here, have a talk which can make it ding not nly in my ears, but also in Musriep’s, while he’s on his way...

Zhanisha nestled at the dastarkhan.

- Come on, Shynarzhan... You’ll be pouring out tea. Who ever heard of two mothers fluttering about while the kielin is sitting idle like a knah’s wife! Run fast around us, roll over for us!

After the accidental introduction, which played out in such an unexpected way, they had much to learn about each other, and Zhanisha got on swimmingly with Nausha.

It turned out that Shakshak had been a good bootmaker, a master workman. Say, the ichigs and kavushes that Shynar has on, they made them almost four years ago... And then came typhus. He died, poor thing.  Everybody has relatives, and relatives can be worse than wolves... They commemorated his death on the seventh day, on the fortieth day, after a year...  That’s why there was no more cattle left in the house! And then came a drought, it was last summer. No raindrop fell. People from their aul, family by family, started moving closer to Russian settlements and towns... They couldn’t stay there alone... So they took their camel, she had had a miraculous escape, and hit the road.  And what could they look for?.. She’s got three roubles and seventy two kopecks in her camisole pocket.   This is what was left from Shakshak – for a rait of boots he’d made. And there’s nothing more, and let nothing ever come if she’s lying...

Shynar wasn’t listening to her mother’s words very closely, she knew their story well. What Zhanisha would tell about her family was of greater importance to her. The brothers lost their father ealy, he perished in one of the figths which the Siband were always having.  Asriep and Musriep pastured the cattle, they pastured cows. When Asriep was about twenty, they left for town, for Tyumen, together, they spent five years working as quay loaders. They loaded wheat, bricks, coal, and leather on barges and steamboats... They saved up a little money and came back home. Asriep is married, and Musriep’s alone... He travels around the auls much, to visit people, he’s on friendly terms with Yesieniei. Asriep’s always at home, there’s no taking a respite from him.  

-     We aren’t rich.- Zhanisha said.- But we’ve never been depended on anyone.

Shynar wanted her to tell more about Musriep, but she was too shy to ask her about this. Zhanisha began herself:

-      Our kielin seems bored with the Asriep stories...  And here’s our murza-dzhigit! You can’t find a man like this! I don’t remember him striking into a quarrel just once... You know what quarrels relatives can have... And when his elder brother takes to scolding him, Musriep won’t utter a word. He’ll laugh it off, and Asriep is at a loss for words.  When we need to sow some crops or make some hay – I’ve never known anyone like this. He won’t take the load off his feet from dusk till dawn. And then – just try to find him! He’s got nothing at home, so he’s a welcome guests at any toi.  People won’t leave myrza-zhigit in peace.  He’s got two horses and tw hounds. We milk the mares, and this summer someone cadged them from him for a while, they’ve just returned them. The colts are skin and bones, and one-year-olds have some meat on them.  You’ll see... An today as soon as you left, he got onto his horse, too. Yesieniei had invited him...

It seemed to Shynar that her sigh was very discreet, but Zhanisha still noticed it:

-      He won’t stay there long...- she explained.- He’ll come back in ten or fifteen days. And it was he who sent Asriep for you, Shynar, he told him – don’t come back without her, - she colored the truth a little. – He said, don’t miss this girl even if they demand a bridewealth of nine times as much as forty nine horses.

Shynar sat there blushing, as if she was sitting close by the fire. And her mother started objecting artlessly:

-     Why would we need so much cattle? Who’ll take care of them?

Shynar was resisitng laughter.

Asriep came at dusk, looking satisfied.

-    Looks like I’ve fixed it all...The oven is yours – the flame’s just roaring it it.  But now ot has to dry a little, don’t fire it for two days, stay with us. And tomorrow another work will be waiting... If the rain stops, coat Shynar’s house to make it shiny. And whitewash it. There’s a real heap of white clay in our shoshala¹. And one more – sort the tramps’ clothes out, so many good things are moulding!

At home Shynar,  without even having a seat, turned to dorting the things in the chest. Oh dear... New, unwashed linen, clothes never worn – everything was mixed up with cuts of sateen and corduroy, dressed krimmer skins, undressed fox skins. At the very bottom, there was an old belt with pockets and a cartridge-case stashed and finely dressed goat skin, for ichigs, was lying.   

Shynar failed to find a thing which could be of any use to her and frowned: “Was he going to live without a wife for his whole life?” she said to herself.

Her mother, who had just been examining the content of a wooden kiebiezhe – a chest for comestibles – in the kitchen,  entered the room.

-        There’s tea and sugar... Butter and flour are there, too...

-        So we won’t starve,- Shynar laughed in a carelessly manner and shut the chest lid close. – I don’t know... Maybe there’s something for you here, but there’s nothing for me. Well, he’ll get some beans when he’s back!..