FAREWELL, GYULSARY

       "That's enough, Tanabai. Do you think you're better than everyone else? We'll manage just like everyone else does. What sort of a man are you?" his wife shamed him. "Try to see what can be done before it's too late. Never mind them. We're responsible, it's up to us to fix things. There's a thicket of sweetbrier near the hollow. It's prickly, but we can patch the roof with it and hold it down with dung. And we can mow weeds for bedding. We'll manage somehow if the weather holds out."
       The two helpers urged Tanabai to listen to his wife. He gave in finally, slid out of the saddle and headed for the tent. He sat down inside, his head drooping as after a long illness.
       Everyone was quiet. They were afraid to speak. Jaidar took the kettle off the coals, brewed the tea strong and brought her husband some cold water to wash his hands. She spread a clean cloth, unearthed some candies and put little yellow pats of boiled butter on a plate. She invited the two women to join her and they sat down to tea. Oh, those women! They sat there, sipping tea from their bowls, chatting pleasantly, as if they were at a tea party. Tanabai was silent. When he finished his tea he went out and began laying the scattered stones of the sheep-fold in place. The amount of work to be done was staggering. But they needed something to serve as a fold for the night. The women joined him. Even the girls tried to carry the stones.
       "Go on back home," their father said to them.
       He felt ashamed. He worked without raising his eyes. Choro had been right: if not for Jaidar, Tanabai would have broken his wild neck long before.

       The next day Tanabai went off to help the two young shepherds move their flocks; then he worked all week till he was ready to drop. He couldn't remember working like that before, perhaps only at the front lines when they had dug trenches round-the-clock. But there it had been a regiment, a division, an army setting up fortifications. Here there were only himself, his wife and one of the women helpers. The other was out with the flock nearby.
       The hardest jobs were cleaning the filthy shed and chopping sweetbrier. The thicket was a mass of thorns. Tanabai tore his boots to ribbons there, his only army greatcoat gave up the ghost and hung in shreds. They tied the sweetbrier in bunches and dragged it to the shed, for it was too thorny to be carried or loaded on a horse. Tanabai cursed Five Trees Valley in which you couldn't even find the five stumps of the original trees. The sweat ran down them as they dragged the cursed brambles along, bent over double, ploughing a deep track to the shed with them. Tanabai felt sorry for the women but there was nothing he could do. He worked under tension: every minute counted, he had to keep an eye on the sky. Was it changing? If it began to snow their work would be in vain. He kept sending his older girl to the flock to see if the lambing had begun.
       Cleaning the shed was worse still. It would take a year to carry out the dung. When dry hard-packed sheep manure is protected by a good roof it's a pleasure to clean it. An axe would break it into large chunks. These were stacked outside to dry. The heat of burning sheep-dung is as pleasant and pure as gold. Shepherds use it for firewood in winter. But if it was left out in the rain and the snow, as it was here, nothing could be worse than getting it out. It was backbreaking work. And time did not stand still. All through the night, by the light of the smoking lanterns, they kept carrying out the cold, heavy, sticky mess on a wooden stretcher. They had been at it for two days and two nights.
       A huge mound of dung now rose in the back yard, but there was no end in sight. They were trying to clear at least one corner of the shed for the expected lambs. But what was one corner if the large shed itself was too small to accommodate all the ewes and their lambs, expected at a rate of twenty to thirty a day! "What'll we do?" this thought was uppermost in Tanabai's mind as he piled dung on the stretcher, helped carry it out, then returned, and so on endlessly until midnight, until dawn. He felt nauseous. His arms were numb. As if that were not enough, the wind kept blowing out the lanterns. Fortunately, his two helpers did not complain, they worked as hard as Tanabai and Jaidar did.
       A day and a night passed, then other, and another. They kept carrying out dung and stuffing up the holes in the walls and the roof. Then one night, as Tanabai was carrying out a load of dung, he heard a lamb bleat in the fold and its dam stamp and bleat in reply. "It's begun!" His heart sank.
       "Did you hear that?" Tanabai said, turning to his wife.
       They dropped the heavy stretcher, grabbed up their lanterns and rushed to the sheep-fold.
       There they swung the flickering lanterns back and forth. Where was he? Over there, in the corner! The dam was licking the tiny, shivering body of the newborn lamb. Jaidar bundled it into the bottom of her skirt. Luckily, they had been in time to prevent him from freezing to death outside. Another ewe had lambed nearby. She had twins. Tanabai wrapped them in his cape. Five more ewes were in labour, grunting softly. Yes, it had begun. These five would drop their lambs by morning. They called to the helpers. They led the ewes that had lambed out of the fold and into the corner of the shed they had about cleared.
       Tanabai spread some straw along the wall, placed the lambs on it after this and covered them with a sack. It was cold. He led the dams to them. He bit his lip thoughtfully. But what was the use of thinking? All he could do was hope for the best. There was still so much to be done, so much to see to. At least if he had enough straw, but no, there wasn't even that. Ibraim Would be sure to find an answer to that one, too. He'd say: "You try to get straw into the mountains when the roads are washed out."
       Well, he'd have to take things as they came! He went into his tent and returned with a can of ink. He drew a figure "2" on one lamb's back and a "3" on each of the twins' backs. Then he numbered their dams accordingly. You'd never get them straight otherwise when there were hundreds of them milling about. The time was close at hand, the shepherd's hectic time had come!
       And it had begun cruelly, unmercifully, as in war, when tanks advance upon you and you have nothing to defend yourself with. And so you stay in your trench and do not retreat, because there is no place to retreat to. It's either, or: either you survive the battle by a miracle, or you perish.
       In the morning, before the flock was taken out to pasture, Tanabai stood in a hillock, looking about in silence, as if reviewing his positions. His defence line was dilapidated, worthless. But he would have to stand firm. There was no place to retreat to. The small winding valley with its shallow stream lay between two hills. Higher mountains rose beyond them, and farther still were the highest, snow-capped peaks. Bare cliffs loomed black above the white slopes and winter lay on the ice-bound ridges. Winter was only a stone's throw away. It had only to move a bit, to toss the clouds down, and the little valley would be plunged into darkness, lost to the world.
       The sky was grey, enveloped in a cold grey mist. There was a ground wind blowing. Everything was desolate. They were hemmed in by mountains. Anxiety chilled his heart. The first lambs were bleating in the tumble-down shed. He had just culled another ten ewes from the flock, for they would soon lamb.
       The flock moved off slowly in search of meager grazing. You could not leave them alone for a moment on the slopes. Sometimes a ewe would be down behind a bush and drop her lamb without warning. If no one noticed, the lamb would get chilled on the damp ground. It would not live long after that.
       However, Tanabai had been standing on the hillock too long. It was no use. He headed towards the shed. They had only scratched the surface; they would have to get as much done as they possibly could.
       A while later Ibraim brought up some flour. The man had no shame. "Don't expect me to get you a palace," he said. "These are the lambing sheds the farm has always had. There aren't any others. We're not living under communism yet."
       Tanabai felt like knocking him down and barely managed to restrain the impulse.
       "You picked the wrong time to joke. Something's got to be done. I'm responsible, you know."
       "Don't you think I'm worried, too? All you're responsible for is your flock. I'm responsible for everything: for you, for all the others, for every head of cattle. Do you think it's easy?" And then, to Tanabai's amazement, the wily Ibraim burst into tears, covering his face with his hands, mumbling: "They'll send me to jail, that's what they'll do. I can't get anything any place. Nobody even wants to come here as temporary help. Go on, kill me, tear me to pieces, there's nothing else I can do. And don't expect anything else. I'm sorry I ever took this job!"
       And so he rode away, leaving Tanabai, the simpleton, feeling rather embarrassed. And that was the last anyone saw of him at the lambing station.

       The first hundred ewes had delivered their lambs. The flocks of Eshim and Bektai, located higher up along the valley, had not begun lambing yet, but Tanabai sensed the disaster awaiting them. All of them, the little band of three adults, not counting the old woman helper who was constantly out with the flock and his elder, six-year-old daughter, did nothing but receive the lambs, dry them put them on to the ewes, try to keep them warm with whatever was at hand, carry out dung and bring in dry weeds for bedding. They could hear the hungry bleating of the lambs now. There was not enough milk for them, for the ewes were in poor condition, and no wonder, there was no grain for them. What lay ahead?
       The shepherd's days and nights became a dizzy whirl. The lambs were coming hard and fast, they had no time to catch their breath.
       How the weather had frightened them the day before! It had suddenly become very cold, dark clouds obscured the sky, a hard, granular snow beat down upon them. Everything browned in the murk, all was darkness.
       But soon the clouds were dispelled, it became warmer. There was a smell of spring in the air, of dampness. "Maybe spring has come to stay. If only it were here for good. There's nothing worse than changes back and forth," Tanabai thought as he carried watery after-births out on a pitchfork of wet straw.
       Then spring arrived, but not as Tanabai had expected it. It was suddenly upon them in the night, carried in by rain, fog and snow. It came crashing down upon the shed, the tent, the sheep-fold and everything else in all its chilly wetness. Streams and puddles made the frozen, muddy earth buckle. It seeped through the rotted roof, washed away at the walls and began flooding the shed, chilling its inhabitants to the bone. It got everyone to their feet. The lambs stood in the water, pressing close together, the ewes bleated wildly as they delivered their lambs standing up. Spring christened the newborn in streams of cold water.
       Three people in raincapes carrying lanterns rushed back and forth. Tanabai was everywhere at once. His large boots dashed through the puddles, the dungwash, like two cornered beasts in the dark. The edges of his cape flapped like the wings of a wounded bird. He shouted hoarsely at himself, at the others:
       "Get me the crowbar! Give me a shovel! Pile the dung here! Block the water!"
       He had to divert the streams of water that were pouring into the shed. He chopped away at the frozen ground, hacking out ditches.
       "Give me some light! Over here! Don't just stand there!"
       Fog choked the night. It snowed and rained. And nothing could stop it.
       Tanabai ran into the tent. He turned on the lamp. It was dripping everywhere. But not as bad as in the shed. The girls were sleeping, their blanket was getting wet. Tanabai scooped them up together with their bedding and moved them into a corner, clearing as much space as possible. He threw a piece of felt on the girls to keep the blanket dry and, running outside, he shouted to the women in the shed:
       "Get the lambs into the tent!" and rushed in to help them.
       But how many lambs could they take into the tent? Several dozen, no more. And what about the others? Oh, if only they could save as many as possible.
       Dawn had broken. But there was no end to the torrents. It would let up for a while and then rain again or snow, or rain or snow again.
       The tent was jam-packed with lambs. They were all bleating. The stench was unbearable. They had piled their belongings in a heap under a piece of canvas and had moved in with their two helpers. The girls were cold in the canvas tent, they whimpered wretchedly.
       The shepherd's black days were upon them. He cursed his fate. He cursed everyone and everything. He neither slept nor ate, working feverishly among the drenched sheep, among the freezing lambs. Death was already mowing them down in the icy shed. It found easy entry here, there were holes enough. It could come in through the rotted roof, through the gaping windows and doorways. And in it came, cutting down the lambs and the weak dams. The shepherd carried out the tiny blue bodies and dumped them, several at a time, behind the shed.
       Out in the open, in the sheep-fold exposed to the rain and the snow, stood the big-bellied, pregnant ewes. They would soon deliver. The rain beat down on them, their jaws were locked from the cold. Their wet fleeces hung in dripping strands.
       The sheep refused to leave the fold. Where could they graze in such cold and dampness! The old woman helper, a gunnysack thrown over head, chased them out, but they ran back again, as if the sheep-fold was heaven. The woman wept, she herded them together and chased them out again, but they only turned back. Tanabai ran out in a rage. He could have broken a stick over their stupid backs, but they were all pregnant. He called to the other women and together they managed to get the flock out to graze.
       From the moment disaster had struck Tanabai had lost count of time, count of the lambs that were dying left and right. There were so many twins and even triplets. And all this wealth was being lost. All their labours were for nothing. The lambs were born and died in the mud and dungwash the same day. Those that survived coughed and choked, they had the scours and dirtied each other. Ewes whose lambs bad died bleated, scurried about, jostled each other, trampled those that were in labour. There was something unnatural, something monstrous about it all. Oh, how Tanabai wished that the lambing-time would bold back a bit!
       But the ewes seemed to be in a conspiracy: they kept delivering one after another, one after another, one after another!
       And a terrible, dark wave of anger rose up within him. It rose up, filling his eyes with black hatred for everything that was happening here, for this rotten shed, the sheep, himself, his life, and for everything he was struggling for so desperately here.
       His senses became numbed. He would become sick from his thoughts, he drove them away, but they would not retreat, they bored into his soul, into his brain. "Why is it like this? Why should it be like this? Why do we breed sheep if we can't raise them? Who's to blame? Who? Tell me who's to blame? It's you, and other blabbermouths like you. Why, things will pick up, we'll catch up, we'll overtake, we pledge. Fine words, aren't they? Well, you can go and pick up the dead lambs now and carry them out. Drag out that dam over there, the one that died in a puddle. Go on, show us what a fine fellow you are."
       At night more than ever, as he waded knee-deep in dungwash and urine, Tanabai's bitter, scorching thoughts all but suffocated him. Oh, those sleepless nights of the lambing period! There was a sea of dungwash underfoot and rain coming down through the roof. The wind whipped through the shed as through a field, blowing out the lanterns. Tanabai felt his way along, stumbled, crawled on all fours so as not to trample the new-born lambs, then found the lantern, lit it, and by its light saw his dirty, swollen hands covered with manure and blood.
       He had not seen himself in a mrror for a long time. He did not know that he had turned grey and had aged terribly. And that forever after now he would be known as an old man. He couldn't care less, he had no time to think of himself. He had no time to eat or wash. He drove himself and the women mercilessly. Faced with complete disaster, he told the younger of his two helpers to saddle his horse.
       "Go find Choro. Tell him to come at once. If he doesn't tell him I never want to see him again!"
       She came galloping back towards evening, slid out of the saddle, drenched to the skin, blue from the cold.
       "He's sick, Tanabai. He's in bed. But he said he'd come in a day or two even if he dies on the way."
       "I hope he never gets up!" Tanabai raged.
       Jaidar wanted to stop him but did not dare, it was better to leave him alone.
       The weather began to clear on the third day. The clouds crept off grudgingly, the fog rose higher into the mountains. The wind subsided. But it was too late. The pregnant ewes had become so thin by now that it was frightening to look at them. They were living skeletons with bloated bellies. How could they ever suckle their young! And what about those that had lambed and whose lambs were still alive, how many of them would live till summer and gain strength from the green grass? Sooner or later sickness would fell them. Even if it didn't, they would yield neither fleece nor meat.
       No sooner did the sky clear than another misfortune befell them: the ground began to freeze. It would soon be ice-crusted. However, it thawed by noon. Tanabai heaved a sigh of relief. Perhaps they'd be able to save some of the flock. Once again they took up their spades, the pitchfork and the wooden stretcher. They had to make paths in the shed, for the slush had become impossible. However, they had little time for this. They still had to put the orphaned lambs on to the lambless ewes. But the ewes butted, they did not want to suckle strange lambs. The lambs bleated for milk, each cold little mouth searched for a teat, grabbing at your fingers, sucking them. You shoved them off and they sucked at the dirty hems of the raincapes. They were hungry. They followed you about in a crying little band.
       It was enough to make you scream, to go crazy. How much farther could he drive these women and his little daughter? They were ready to drop. Their capes had not dried for days. Tanabai said nothing. Once only did he lose his temper. The old woman brought the flock back to the fold at noon, thinking she would help Tanabai. He ran out to check the sheep. One look made the blood rush to his head: the sheep were eating each other's fleece. That meant death from starvation was imminent. He screamed at the woman:
       "What's the matter with you? Can't you see what they're doing?! Why didn't you say anything? Go on! Get them moving! And don't let them stop. Don't let them eat fleece. Keep them on the move. Don't let them stop for a minute. I'll kill you if you do!"
       Then another blow fell. A ewe that had twins disowned them. She butted them and kicked them and would not let them suckle. The lambs pushed close, falling and bleating piteously. Such things happen when the brutal law of self-preservation comes into force and a dam instinctively refuses to feed her young in order to survive herself, since her system cannot nourish another. This action is like an infectious disease. No sooner does one ewe set an example than the others follow suit. Tanabai was alarmed. He and his daughter drove the hunger-maddened ewe and her lambs into the yard towards the sheepfold and here they tried to make her accept her sucklings. First Tanabai held the ewe while his daughter put the lambs on to it. But the dam twisted and turned and butted. The child could not manage it.
       "They can't suck, Father."
       "Yes they can, you're too dumb to help them."
       "No, see, they keep falling." She was close to tears.
       "You hold her, I'll do it myself!"
       But how much strength did the child have? No sooner had he put the lambs onto the ewe, no sooner had they begun to suck than the ewe broke free, knocked the child over and ran away. Tanabai exploded. He slapped his daughter across the face. He had never hit his children, but now his temper flared. The girl began to cry. Tanabai stalked off. He cursed everything and stalked off.
       He walked off his anger and returned wondering how to ask his daughter's forgiveness, but she came running up to him herself.
       "She's feeding them, Father. Mother and I put them on to her. She's not butting them any more."
       "That's fine, dear. Good for you."
       He felt much better. Perhaps things were not as bad as they seemed. Perhaps they'd still be able to save some of the flock. And look, the weather was improving! What if spring had really come to stay and the shepherd's black days were over? Back to work again. Work, toil, it was their only salvation.
       A youth on horseback rode up, it was a boy from the farm office. He asked how things were going. Tanabai was about to tell him where he could go, but the boy was not to blame.
       "Where were you all this time?"
       "Checking the flocks. It's hard, there's no one to help me.
       "How are things in the other flocks?"
       "The same as here. These last three days killed a lot of sheep."
       "What do the shepherds say?"
       "They're all cursing. Some won't even talk to me. Bektai chased me away. He's so mad you can't get near him."
       "So. And I haven't had a minute to spare for him. Maybe I'll manage to get over there. What about you?"
       "Me? My job is keeping the records straight."
       "Is there any help-coming?"
       "Yes. They say Choro's back at work. He sent out a string of wagons with hay and straw. They cleaned out the stable, he said he didn't care if all the horses died. But they say the wagons got stuck on the way. The roads are all mud."
       "Mud! Why didn't they think of it before? It's always like that. And what good'll the wagons do now? Wait till I get my hands on them!" Tanabai raged. "Don't talk to me. Go and see for yourself, count the heads, write it down. I don't give a damn any more!" Cutting the conversation short he headed back to the shed to receive the new lambs. Another fifteen ewes were lambing.
       As Tanabai walked back and forth, picking up the lambs, the youth came over and thrust a sheet of paper at him.
       "Here, sign the report on your losses."
       He signed without looking at it. And he wrote so savagely he broke the pencil.
       "Good-bye, Tanabai. D'you want me to take back a message?"
       "I've got nothing to say." But then he called the boy back. "Stop off at Bektai's place. Tell him I'll try to be there by noon tomorrow."
       Tanabai needn't have worried. Bektai forestalled him. He came himself, and in a most unlikely manner.
       That night the wind blew up again, it began to snow, not heavily, but enough to make the ground white by morning. It covered the sheep in the fold. They had stood up all through the night. They did not lie down now. They would huddle together and stand there motionlessly, listlessly. They had been hungry too long, spring had battled winter too long.
       It was cold in the shed. Snowflakes drifted through the holes in the roof made by the rain, they circled in the dim light of the lanterns and settled gently on the chilled ewes and lambs. But Tanabai worked on, performing his duties like a soldier of a burial detachment on a battlefield after a slaughter. He had become used to his terrible thoughts, his indignation had turned to sullen anger. His soul was impaled on it, gripped by a throbbing pain. As his boots slopped through the mire, as he did his job, through the long hours of the night, the past would come back to him in snatches.
       As a child he had been a herdsboy. He and his brother Kulubai had tended a relative's flock together. When the year was up they discovered they had been working for no more than their food. Their master had cheated them out of their pay. He did not even wish to discuss the matter. And so they had left empty-handed. They had on torn sandals, and each carried his meagre belongings in a little bundle slung over his back. In parting Tanabai had warned the man: "I'll get even with you when I grow up! " Kulubai had said nothing. He was five years older than Tanabai. He knew that words would not frighten the master. What you aimed at was becoming a master yourself and owning a flock and land. "When I have my own land I'll never cheat my workers," he would say. That is how the brothers parted that year. Kulubai became another rich landowner's shepherd, while Tanabai went off to Alexandrovka to work as a hired hand for a Russian settler named Yefremov. He was not a very rich farmer, all he had was a pair of oxen, a pair of horses and his own field on which he raised wheat. He took the wheat to the rolling-mill in the town of Aouliye-Ata. He slaved from sun-up to sun-down, while Tanabai's job was to look after the oxen and horses. Yefremov was strict, but you couldn't deny that he was just. He paid the wages agreed upon. In those days poor Kirghizes preferred hiring out to Russian masters than working for their kinsmen who always skinned them. Tanabai learned to speak Russian. Working as a carter he saw the town of Aouliye-Ata and a bit of life as well. And then the Revolution was upon them. Everything turned upside-down. The time of the Tanabais had dawned.
       Tanabai returned to his village. A new life had begun. It swept him up and carried him along, making his head whirl. Everything came to him at once: land, freedom, civil rights. He was elected to the local Committee of Poor Peasants. That was when he met Choro. Choro was literate, he taught the young people to read and write. Tanabai had to learn, after all, he was a member of the Committee. He joined a Komsomol cell. And here he and Choro also worked together. They joined the Party at the same time. Things were moving fast, the poor making their way to the top. When the campaign for establishing collective farms began. Tanabai threw himself into it heart and soul. Who, if not he, was to fight for the peasant's new life, for making everything--the land, the cattle, their efforts and dreams--the common property of all? Down with the kulaks!
       It was a time of drastic measures, of harsh winds blowing. He would be in the saddle all day and at meetings and conferences far into the night. They drew up lists of kulaks. The landowners, the mullahs and the rich were pulled up by the roots like weeds in a field. The field had to be cleared to make way for new crops. Kulubai's name was put on the list of kulaks. At the time Tanabai was busy riding up and down to meetings and conferences his brother had already made his own way in life. He had married a widow and had a house of his own. He owned some cattle: a cow, some sheep, a pair of horses, a milking mare and her colt. He had a plough, several harrows and other equipment. He hired field hands at harvest time. You couldn't say he was wealthy, but he was not poor. He lived well and worked hard.
       When Kulubai's name came up for discussion at the meeting of the Village Soviet, Choro said:
       "We have a problem here, comrades. Should we dispossess him or not? The collective farm could use men like Kulubai. After all, he comes from a poor family. He has never been hostile to the Soviet Government."
       There were various opinions. Some agreed, some disagreed. Tanabai alone had as yet said nothing. He sat there sullenly. Though only a half-brother, Kulubai was still his brother. And he would have to go against his brother. They had always been on good terms, although they rarely saw each other lately. Each was busy with his own affairs. He might say: "Don't touch him." But what would they do about the others then, for each would find a relative to defend him. He might say: "You decide." Then they would think he was a coward.
       They were waiting for him to speak. And the very fact that they were waiting made him bristle.
       "You're always like that, Choro," he said, rising. "They write about people with learning in the papers, what is it they call them--entellectuals. Well, you're an entellectual, too. You can never make up your mind, you're always afraid things'll turn out wrong. What's stopping you? If he's on the list, it means he's a kulak! And there can't be any mercy for him! I wouldn't spare my own father to protect Soviet power. And don't worry about him being my brother. If you can't do it, I'll dispossess him myself."
       Kulubai came to see him the next day. Tanabai met his brother coldly. He did not offer him his hand.
       "What do you want to dispossess me for? Didn't we hire out as farm-hands together? Didn't the landlords cheat us and kick us out together?"
       "That doesn't count now. You've become a rich landlord yourself."
       "I'm not rich. I worked for everything I have. I'm willing to give it up. You can have it all. But what do you want to make a kulak of me for? Have you no conscience, Tanabai?"
       "It doesn't matter. You're an alien class. And we have to liquidate you in order to build a collective farm. You're standing in our way and we have to get you out of the way.
       That had been their last talk. In the twenty years that followed they had not spoken to each other. The village had been full of talk and gossip when Kulubai was exiled to Siberia.
       There were few who spoke up for Tanabai then. Most people censured him. "Pray to God you never have a brother like him. It's better to have no kin at all." Some said it to his face. Yes, people renounced him then. It wasn't done openly, but when it came to re-electing him, they abstained. Thus, he was gradually removed from every office. He justified his actions to himself by saying that kulaks were burning down collective farms and murdering farmers, but most important, that the collective farm was gaining strength, that things were improving from year to year. A different way of life had come to the village. No, what had been done had not been done in vain.
       Tanabai recalled it all to the last detail. It was as if his entire life had remained behind in that wonderful time when the collective farms were gaining strength. Once again he recalled the songs of the time, he recalled the farm's first small truck and the way he had stood in the back of it holding a red flag in the night.
       Tanabai stumbled about the shed that night, carrying out his bitter job, thinking his bitter thoughts. Why was everything falling apart now? Perhaps they'd made a mistake, perhaps they'd taken the wrong road? No, it couldn't be, it just couldn't! The road had been right. But what was wrong then? Had they lost their way? Gone off the road? How and when had it happened? Take their pledges, for example. All they did nowadays was write them down in a book, and no one cared less about how you were making out. Before they used to have a red bulletin board and a black bulletin board. Each day they all talked and argued about those on the black board and those on the red board. It mattered then. Now they said that was all ancient history. But what did they offer instead? Nothing but empty talk and promises. But nothing real. Why was it so? Who was to blame?
       These bleak thoughts exhausted him. He was overcome by a weary indifference, a state of torpor. He couldn't apply himself to anything. His head ached. He wanted to sleep. He saw his young helper lean against the wall. Her inflamed eyelids closed as she battled sleep, then she began slipping down slowly and finally sat on the ground and fell asleep, her head resting on her knees. He did not waken her. He, too, leaned against the wall and also began slipping down-slowly. He could not resist, he could not throw off the terrible weight that was pressing upon his shoulders, forcing him farther and farther down.
       He awoke from a muffled cry and a heavy thump. The sheep scattered in fright, trampling over his feet. He jumped up in a daze. It was getting light.
       "Tanabai! Help me!" his wife called.
       The two helpers ran to her, he followed. Jaidar was lying beneath a fallen rafter. One of the ends had slipped off the crumbling wall, then the rafter had come crashing down under the weight of the rotted roofing. Sleep vanished from his eyes.
       "Jaidar!" he cried. He got his shoulder under the rafter and lifted it with a jerk.
       Jaidar crawled out and began to moan. The women wailed over her. They felt her bones. Tanabai, frightened to death, shoved them aside, his trembling hands felt his wife's body under her sweater.
       "What is it? Where does it hurt?"
       "It's my back! Oh, my back!"
       "Here, help me!" He tore off his cape, they put Jaidar on it and carried her out of the shed.
       They examined her in the tent. There weren't any visible bruises, but the blow had been a bad one. She was unable to move.
       Jaidar began to weep.
       "What'll you do now? What a time I picked. What'll you do?"
       "My God!" Tanabai thought. "She should be thankful she's alive. But look at what she's worried about. I don't care if the whole place goes to blazes! If only you get well, my poor dear."
       "Everything will be all right, Jaidar," he said aloud, stroking her hair. "You just worry about getting well. Nothing else matters. We'll manage."
       Now all three of them, having recovered from the first shock, tried to calm Jaidar. She brightened at their words and smiled through her tears.
       "All right. But don't be angry at me. I won't be in bed long. You'll see, I'll be up in a day or two."
       The women made her bed and started a fire in the hearth, while Tanabai went back to the shed, still unable to believe that disaster had passed them by.
       It was a white morning, everything was covered with soft new snow. Tanabai found a dam crushed to death beneath a rafter in the shed. They had not noticed her in the excitement. Her suckling lamb was nuzzling the dead ewe's udder. Tanabai became still more frightened and still more relieved that his wife had been spared. He picked up the orphaned lamb and went to look for a foster mother. Later, as he set a support under the rafter and reinforced the wall with a post, he kept thinking that he should go and see how his wife was.
       As he emerged from the shed he saw a flock of sheep approaching slowly through the snow. A shepherd was driving them towards him. Whose flock was it? Why was he driving it here? The two flocks would get mixed up, how could he do such a thing? Tanabai went forward to warn the stranger that he was in someone else's territory.
       When he got closer he recognised Bektai.
       "Is that you, Bektai?" he called.
       He received no answer. Bektai was driving the flock towards him in silence, whacking his stick across the sheep's backs.
       "He's crazy! They're pregnant ewes!" Tanabai was appalled.
       "Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Hello," he said.
       "I'm coming from where you won't find me again. And you can see where I'm going," Bektai said, approaching him. A rope was tied tightly around his waist, his mittens were stuck under his cape on his chest.
       Holding the stick behind his back, he stopped within several feet of Tanabai but did not return his greeting. He spat angrily and ground the spittle out viciously in the snow. He threw back his head. His features were darkened by the black beard that seemed pasted to his young, handsome face. His sullen, wild-cat eyes were full of hate and challenge. He spat again, and waved the stick at the flock.
       "Here. They're yours. You can count them if you want to. There's three hundred and eighty-five heads."
       "What's the matter?"
       "I'm leaving."
       "What do you mean? Where to?"
       "I don't know."
       "But why me?"
       "Because you're my sponsor."
       "So what? Wait! Where do you think you're going?" Now only did the situation dawn on Tanabai. The blood rushed to his head, choking him, making him hot. "How can you do such a thing?" he mumbled helplessly.
       "Just watch me. I've had enough. I'm sick of this lousy life."
       "Do you know what you're saying? Your ewes will begin lambing in a day or two! How can you do such a thing?"
       "If that's how they treat us, that's how we treat them. Good-bye!" Bektai swung the stick over his head, sent it sailing off as far as he could and walked away.
       Tanabai froze. Words failed him. Meanwhile, Bektai kept on walking without a backward glance.
       "Wait, Bektai!" He ran after him. "You can't walk out. Think of what you're doing! Do you hear me?"
       "Leave me alone!" Bektai spun around. "You do the thinking. I want to live like other people. I'm no worse than they are. I can work in the city, too, and get wages. Why do I have to waste my life here with these sheep? No grain, no shed, no felt tent. Leave me alone! Go on, kill yourself, go drown in dung. Have a look at yourself, see what you look like. You'll drop dead here soon, but even that's not enough. You'll still be shouting slogans. You want others to follow your example. Well, not this boy! I've had enough!" And he stalked off, stamping through the white, virgin snow so fiercely that his footprints filled with water and turned instantly black.
       "Bektai! Listen to me!" Tanabai caught up with him. "I can explain everything."
       "Do your explaining someplace else. Maybe some fools will listen to you."
       "Stop, Bektai! I want to talk to you."
       But Bektai kept on walking.
       "You'll be arrested!"
       "I'd rather go to jail than live like this!" Bektai muttered and did not turn back again.
       "You're a deserter!"
       Bektai kept on walking.
       "Deserters like you were shot at the front!"
       He kept on walking.
       "Stop! Do you hear me!" Tanabai grabbed his sleeve.
       Bektai wrenched free and kept on walking.
       "I won't let you go, you've no right to!" Tanabai gripped his shoulder and spun him around. Suddenly, the snow-capped peaks lurched and dissolved in blackness. An unexpected blow on the jaw had knocked him out.
       When Tanabai raised his spinning head Bektai had disappeared beyond the rise.
       A forlorn string of dark footprints followed him into the distance.
       "What'll become of him?" Tanabai moaned, raising himself on all fours. He stoop up. His hands were covered with mud and snow.
       He caught his breath, herded Bektai's flock together and drove it dejectedly towards the sheep-fold.

       Two riders left the village, heading towards the mountains. One rode a golden chestnut, the other a bay. The horses' tails were tied in knots, for the journey would be a long one. Clumps of mud and snow flew out from under the horses' hooves.
       Gyulsary was pacing smartly against the tight reins. He had become stiff in the stable waiting for his master to recuperate. However, it was not his master who rode him now, but a stranger in a leather coat with a canvas cape over it. His clothing smelled of paint and rubber. Choro rode beside him on the bay. He had let important visitors from the district centre ride the pacer before. Gyulsary did not really care who rode him. Many men had ridden him since he had been taken from the herd and his first master. There had been all sorts, both kind and mean, those who rode well and those who rode poorly. Some had been show-offs. They lost their heads in the saddle. That kind would pull the pacer up on his haunches in a dead chase, then whip him on again and jerk him to a halt again. They didn't care what they did as long as everyone noticed they were riding a pacer. Gyulsary had become used to everything. The only thing he resented was languishing in the stable. His former passion was still alive within him: he wanted to run, run, run. He did not care who his rider was. It was the rider who cared about the kind of horse he was on. If he was given the golden chestnut pacer it meant he was respected and feared. Gyulsary was strong and beautiful. A rider felt secure in the saddle.
       This time Segizbayev, the district procurator, was riding the pacer. He had been sent in from the district to check on how the collective farm was doing. The fact that the farm's Party organiser was accompanying him was yet further indication of the respect they had for him. The Party organiser was silent, he was probably worried, for things were going poorly with the lambing. The situation was very bad. Well, let him be silent. Let him be afraid. There was no need for him to pester a procurator with idle talk, subordinates should be in awe of their superiors. Otherwise there would never be any order. There still were officials who were on a familiar footing with their subordinates, but these very same subordinates later knocked them so hard that the stuffing came out of them. Power was an important, responsible matter, not every man was equal to wielding it.
       Such were Segizbayev's thoughts as he rode along, swaying in the saddle in time to the pacer's gait, and one could not say he was in a bad temper, though his mission was to check on the shepherds and he knew things were pretty bad. Winter and spring had clashed, neither would give way, and those to suffer most from the clash were the sheep: the lambs were dying off, the emaciated ewes were dying, and nothing could be done to stop it. It was the same story every year. And everyone knew it. But since he was an official representative, he would have to find someone he could hold responsible for it. And somewhere in the dark reaches of his soul he knew that the heavy losses of sheep in the district were even to his advantage. After all, it was not he, the district procurator and only one of the members of the District Committee Bureau, who was responsible for the state of affairs in the livestock breeding programme. The First Secretary was the one who would be held responsible. He was a new man in the district, well, let him worry about it. Segizbayev, for one, would be watching. And the people higher up might do well to watch him, too. Perhaps they'd begin to wonder whether they had been right in appointing an outsider. It had been a blow to Segizbayev, he resented having been by-passed for the job. He had been district procurator for many years and had proven time and again that he was a trustworthy man. No matter, he had faithful friends who would always support him. Indeed, it was high time he became a Party functionary, he'd been a procurator too long. The pacer was a fine horse, it was like rocking on a ship, and neither dirt nor slush could slow him down. The Party organiser's bay was in a lather, while the pacer was just getting damp.
       Meanwhile, Choro was thinking his own thoughts. He looked dreadful. His emaciated face had a yellow cast, his eyes were sunken. His heart had been bothering him for many years, it kept getting consistently worse. His thoughts, too, were depressing. Tanabai had been right. The chairman fussed and shouted, but all to no avail. He spent most of his time in the district centre, he always seemed to have business there. Choro felt they should discuss the matter at a Party meeting, but the people in the district centre told him to wait. What was there to wait for? There were rumours that Aldanov wanted to resign anyway, perhaps that was why? Well, why didn't he? And it was time he himself resigned. What good was he? He was always sick. When his son Samansur was home for the holidays he, too, advised him to resign. He could certainly do that, but what about his conscience? Samansur was a smart boy, he knew more about what was going on in the world than his father. He kept talking about farm management. They were taught well, perhaps things would one day be as their professors said, but by that time his father would most likely be dead. And he could not escape his burden. You could not escape and hide from yourself. What would people say? He had promised so much, he had raised their hopes, he had plunged the collective farm into terrible debt, could he say he was going to retire now? There'd be no rest for him, there never would, so he might as well stick it out to the end. Help would arrive, things could not continue as they were much longer. If only they'd hurry. And real help, not like this fellow here. "We're going to take you to court for the mess you've made," he had said. Let him! A court sentence wouldn't solve anything. Look at him scowling, as if the people up in the mountains were all criminals and he was the only one who cared about the farm. Actually, he didn't give a damn for anything, it was all a show. But you couldn't say anything.

       The great mountains were shrouded in mist. Forgotten by the sun, they towered gloomily on high like offended giants. Spring was out of sorts. Everything was damp and murky.
       Tanabai was having a hard time. It was both cold and suffocating in the shed. Several ewes would lamb at once and there was no place to put the lambs. It was enough to drive you mad, the bleating and the jostling. They were all hungry, they were all thirsty, and they were dying off like flies. To top it all, his wife was still laid up with her back. She had tried to get up but could not. Well, things would just have to take their course. He had no strength left to fight.
       He kept thinking about Bektai, and was choked by a feeling of helpless rage. It was not because Bektai had walked out, to hell with him, and not because he had deserted his flock like a cuckoo leaving its eggs in other birds' nests, they'd send someone around sooner or later to take over his sheep: no, it was because he had not found the words that would make Bektai cringe with shame and wish he was dead. That pup! That snot-nosed pup! And he, the veteran Communist who had devoted his life to the collective farm, hadn't found anything worthwhile to say. He had tossed his stick away and left, the pup. Could Tanabai ever have dreamed such a thing would be possible? Could he ever have dreamed anyone would laugh at his life's work?
       ,,,That's enough!" he would say to himself, but a moment later his mind returned to the same thoughts.
       Another ewe lambed. It was twins, both fine lambs. But what would he do with them? The dam's udder was empty, and where was the milk to come from? So these two would also die. Oh, misery! And over there were cold dead lambs. Tanabai gathered up the little bodies and was about to carry them out when his daughter came running in breathlessly.
       "Father, two riders are coming here."
       "Let them come," Tanabai muttered. "Go look after your mother."
       As he came out of the shed he saw them. "It's Gyulsary!" It was a happy sight. There was that same old pang in his heart. "It's been a long time! But look at him go, he hasn't changed a bit!" One of the men was Choro. He did not recognise the man in the leather coat that was riding Gyulsary. It was probably someone from the district centre.
       "Well, it's about time," he thought maliciously. Now was his chance to tell them what a time he'd been having, to get it all off his chest, but no, he wouldn't complain, let them feet ashamed. Was it right? Leaving him to battle alone and then coming round to have a look?
       Tanabai did not wait for them to ride up, he turned the corner of the shed and threw the dead lambs on the heap. He returned slowly.
       The men were there. The horses were breathing hard. Choro looked beaten, guilty. He knew he would have to face his friend's accusations. But the man on the pacer was angry and stern. He started shouting without even greeting Tanabai.
       "It's outrageous! It's the same everywhere! Look at what's going on!" he bellowed, addressing his words to Choro. Then he turned to Tanabai. "What's the matter, Comrade?" and he pointed towards the heap where Tanabai had deposited the dead lambs. "How come you're a Communist and your lambs are dying?"
       "They probably don't know I'm a Communist," Tanabai retorted and suddenly it was as if a main spring had broken inside him. There was an emptiness in his soul, he felt indifferent, bitter.
       "What?!" Segizbayev turned purple. He paused. "Did you make a pledge?" he finally said, jerking the pacer's head up as a warning.
       "Yes."
       "What was it?"
       "I don't remember."
       "That's why your lambs are dying!" Segizbayev jabbed his whip in the direction of the heap again and stood up in the stirrups, inspired by the opportunity to teach this insolent shepherd a lesson. However, he began by attacking Choro. "What's going on? The people here don't even know their own pledges. They're wrecking the plan, they're letting the sheep die! What have you been doing? How are you educating the Communists? And what sort of a Communist is he? I'm asking you!"
       Choro hung his head in silence. He fingered the reins.
       "I'm just the kind I am," Tanabai was the one to reply calmly.
       "Right, just the kind you are. Why, you're a saboteur! You're destroying collective-farm property. You're an enemy of the people. You should be in jail, not in the Party! You're mocking at our socialist competition."
       "Right. That's where I should be, in jail," Tanabai agreed in the same calm voice as before. And his lips twitched from the overwhelming rage that exploded inside him, from the bitterness, the hurt, from all that had filled his cup to overflowing. "Well?" he said, staring at Segizbayev, trying to control his twitching lips. "What else do you have to say?"
       'Why are you talking like that, Tanabai?" Choro interrupted. "What for? Why don't you explain everything?"
       "Oh! So I have to explain things to you too? What'd you come here for, Choro?" Tanabai shouted. "What'd you come for? Answer me! To tell me that the lambs are dying? I know that myself! To tell me that I'm up to my neck in dung? I know that myself! That I've been a fool all my life, killing myself for the farm? Well, I know that myself!"
       "Tanabai! What are you saying!" Choro turned pale and jumped down.
       "Get away from me!" Tanabai said, shoving him aside. "To hell with my pledge, to hell with my whole life! Go away! I should be in jail! What'd you bring this new lord in a leather coat here for? So he could badger me? So he could put me in jail? Go on and put me in jail, you rat!" Tanabai spun around, looking for something to grab. He snatched the pitchfork that was leaning against the wall and rushed at Segizbayev with it. "Get out of here, you scum! And stay out!" Blind with rage, he began waving the pitchfork.
       Segizbayev, half-dead with fright, jerked at the reins in confusion, pulling the pacer back and forth, the pitchfork came down upon the crazed horse's head and bounced off with a ring, then came down on his head again. In his wrath Tanabai could not understand why Gyulsary's head was jerking violently, why the bit was tearing at his hot red mouth, why the horse's rolling eyes were dazed and frenzied.
       "Get out of my way, Gyulsary! Let me hit that lord in leather!" Tanabai bellowed, bringing the pitchfork down again and again on the pacer's innocent head.
       His young helper came running, she hung on his arms, trying to wrench the pitchfork from him, but he threw her to the ground. Choro managed to jump into his saddle.
       ..Let's go! Hurry! He'll kill you!" he shouted, riding between Segizbayev and Tanabai.
       Tanabai swung his pitchfork at Choro as both riders galloped off. His dog pursued them. barking wildly, snapping at the stirrup and the horses' tails.
       Tanabai ran after them, stumbling, snatching up clumps of clay, throwing them after them, shouting all the while:
       "I should be in jail! In jail! Get out! Get out of here!"
       Then he turned back, still mumbling breathlessly: "I should be in jail, in jail!" His dog walked alongside proudly, as one who has done his duty. He expected praise, but his master did not notice him. Jaidar, pale and frightened, was limping towards him, leaning on a stick.
       "What did you do? What did you do?" "I shouldn't have."
       "Of course not!"
       "I shouldn't have hit Gyulsary."
       "Are you crazy? Do you know what you did?"
       "Sure. I'm a saboteur. I'm an enemy of the people," he said, overcoming his shortness of breath. Then he fell silent. Pressing his hands to his face, he doubled over and his body was wracked by sobs.
       "Tanabai, Tanabai," his wife pleaded, weeping together with him, but he sobbed bitterly, swaying from side to side. Jaidar had never seen her husband weep before.

       The Bureau meeting of the District Party Committee was held three days after this dramatic incident.
       Tanabai Bakasov sat in the reception room, waiting to be summoned to the office in which his case was being discussed, He had thought long and hard in the interim but still could not decide whether or not he was to blame. He realised that his was a grave offence, that he had raised his hand against a government representative, but if this was all it amounted to it would be simple enough. He was ready to accept any punishment for his unworthy conduct. However, in a fit of rage he had tossed everything to the winds, all his anxiety and concern for the farm, he had discredited all his cares and thoughts. Who would ever believe him now? Who would understand him now? "Maybe they will understand after all?" A glimmer of hope appeared. "I'll tell them about everything, about the winter we've had, the shed, the tent, of the lack of fodder, my sleepless nights, and Bektai. Let them decide if that's the way to run things." He no longer regretted what had happened. "Let them punish me," he thought, "maybe it'll make things easier for others. Maybe this'll make them take a closer look at the kind of life the shepherds lead and at our troubles." But a moment later, recalling all he had been through, he would become embittered again, clench his fists between his knees and repeat stubbornly: "No, I'm not guilty, not one bit!" And then he would begin to have doubts again.
       Unaccountably, Ibraim was also waiting in the reception room. "What's he doing here? He's like a vulture waiting for carrion," Tanabai thought angrily and turned away from him. lbraim was silent. He sighed as he glanced at the shepherd's bowed head.
       "What's taking them so long?" Tanabai wondered, fidgeting in his chair. "If I've got it coming to me, well, let me have it!" Everyone seemed to be assembled behind the closed doors. Choro had been the last to enter a few minutes before. Tanabai recognised him by the bits of hair stuck to his boot tops. It was the yellow hair of the golden pacer. "He must have been in a big hurry if he drove Gyulsary to a lather," he thought but did not raise his head. And the boots with the trickles of horse's sweat and hair stuck to them stood near him, hesitated a few moments, then disappeared behind the door.
       Time dragged on. Finally, the secretary opened the door and said:
       "Come in, Comrade Bakasov."
       Tanabai started, rose, deafened by the pounding of his heart, and entered the office to the incessant booming in his ears. Everything seemed dim. He could barely make out the faces of the people in the room.
       "Sit down." Kashkatayev, First Secretary of the District Committee, indicated a chair at the far end of the long table.
       Tanabai sat down and put his leaden hands on his knees, waiting for the haze to clear. Then he glanced down the table. Segizbayev, looking very arrogant, sat on Kashkatayev's right. Tanabai's hatred for the man was so great it disspelled the mist in front of his eyes. The faces of the men around the table stood out clearly. The darkest face belonged to Segizbayev, it was a dark purple. The palest face, completely drained of blood, was Choro's. He sat towards the end of the table and was closest to Tanabai. His thin hands twitched nervously on the heavy green cloth. Aldanov, chairman of the collective farm, sat opposite Choro, wheezing loudly, looking around sullenly. He did not conceal his attitude towards the case at hand. The others still seemed to be waiting. Finally, Kashkatayev looked up from his papers and said, accentuating each word:
       "We will now discuss the case of Comrade Bakasov."
       "You mean so-called comrade," someone said sarcastically.
       "They're out for blood," Tanabai thought. "I can't expect mercy from them. But why should I expect mercy? What am I, a criminal?"
       He did not know that in deciding his fate two forces competing secretly against each other would clash, each desirous of making the most of this unfortunate incident. One side, represented by Segizbayev and his followers, wanted to test the strength of the new Party Secretary, to see whether he could be cowed from the start. The other side, represented by Kashkatayev, who sensed that Segizbayev had an eye on his job, was searching for a solution that would uphold his authority without straining his relations with these dangerous men.
       The Party Secretary read Segizbayev's report. It enumerated every crime committed, both in words and in deeds, by Tanabai Bakasov, a shepherd of the White Stones Collective Farm. There was nothing in the report that Tanabai could deny, but its general tone and the way the accusations were worded drove him to despair. He broke out in a sweat when he realised how helpless he was in the face of this monstrous report. Segizbayev's report was far more vicious than the man himself. You couldn't attack it with a pitchfork. Everything Tanabai had intended to say in his defence collapsed in a heap, losing its significance in his own mind, becoming nothing more than a shepherd's trifling complaints against the usual hardships. Was he not a fool? What were all his excuses worth in the face of this terrible report?! Whom had he intended to fight?
       "Comrade Bakasov, do you admit the truth of the facts described in the report by Comrade Segizbayev, a member of our Bureau?" Kashkatayev asked when he had finished reading.
       "Yes," Tanabai replied in a hollow voice.
       No one said a word. It seemed they were all petrified by the report. Aldanov looked at everyone with smug satisfaction, as if to say: see what's going on.
       "If the comrades will permit me to, I'd like to say a few words to clarify the situation," Segizbayev said resolutely. "I would like to warn the comrades from the start not to try to explain away the actions of Comrade Bakasov as a simple act of hooliganism. Believe me, if this were so I would never have brought the case to your attention. We have other means of dealing with hooligans. And, naturally, my own feelings have nothing to do with it. I represent the Bureau of the District Party Committee, and, if I may say so, I represent the Party as a whole in this case. I cannot permit its authority to be trampled upon. However, the main point is that what has happened is further indication of the sorry state of the political and educational work being carried out among Communists and non-Communists, of the serious shortcomings in the ideological work of the District Committee. We are all to be held responsible for the political outlook of such rank-and-file members as Bakasov. We must determine whether he is alone in his way of thinking or whether there are others who share his views. Think of the significance of his words: 'A new lord in a leather coat!' Let us dismiss the coat. Now, according to Bakasov, it would seem that I, a Soviet citizen, a representative of the Party, am a new lord, an exploiter, an oppressor of the people! Indeed! Do you realise what this means, do you realise the significance of his words? I think there is no need for further comment. Now let us have a look at the other side of the case. I was very upset by the state of affairs at the White Stones Farm. When Bakasov declared he had forgotten his pledge, I called him a saboteur, an enemy of the people, and said he should be in jail, not in the Party. I admit that I insulted him and I was ready to apologise. But I'm convinced now that I was right. I do not take my words back but insist that Bakasov is a dangerous and hostile person."
       Tanabai had been through much in his lifetime, he had been through the war, from beginning to end, but he had never suspected that his heart could cry out as it did now. And with this cry that was as an unending cannonade in his ears, his heart sank, rose, crawled upwards, slipped and tried to rise again, but the bullets were hitting it point-blank. "What's happened to everything that was the meaning of my life, the meaning of all my work?" Tanabai's head throbbed. "I never thought I'd live to see the day when I'd be called an enemy of the people. And there I was, worrying about that lousy shed and those scouring lambs and that fool Bektai. But who gives a damn?!"
       "Let me review the points made in my report," Segizbayev continued, setting up his words in iron rows. "Bakasov hates our system, he hates the collective farm, he hates socialist competition, he hates our entire way of life. He stated that much quite openly in the presence of Comrade Choro Sayakov, the Party organiser of the collective farm. Besides, his actions are also punishable under the penal code: he attacked a government representative who was on official duty. I want you to understand me correctly. I demand that Bakasov be held legally responsible and that he be put under guard when he leaves this room. Article 58 makes provision for his crime. And there can be no question of Bakasov's right to remain within the Party ranks."
       Segizbayev knew he was asking for too much. However, he hoped that in the event the Bureau found it unnecessary to institute criminal proceedings against Tanabai Bakasov, his expulsion from the Party would at least be guaranteed. Kashkatayev would not dare to oppose this demand, which fact would further strengthen Segizbayev's hand.
       "What can you say for yourself, Comrade Bakasov?" Kashkatayev asked, becoming irked.
       "Nothing. Everything's been said already," Tanabai replied. "It sounds like I've always been a saboteur, an enemy of the people. So who cares what I think? Do whatever you want to, you know best."
       "Do you consider yourself a true Communist?"
       "I can't prove that now."
       "Do you admit your guilt?"
       "No."
       "Then do you think you're smarter than everyone else?"
       "No, just the opposite, dumber than everyone else."
       "May I have the floor?"
       A youth with a Komsomol badge on his jacket rose. He was the youngest one present, thin of face, thin of body and still very much an adolescent.
       Tanabai had not noticed him before. "Go on, boy, pour it on, don't spare the ammunition," he addressed him silently. "I used to be just like you, never sparing anyone."
       "Yes, Kerimbekov?" said Kashkatayev.
       "I don't approve of Comrade Bakasov's action. I think he should be punished accordingly by the Party Bureau. But I don't agree with Comrade Segizbayev, either." Kerimbekov tried to sound calm. "In fact, I think we should discuss the case of Comrade Segizbayev as well."
       "Well!" someone interrupted. "Is that the way you run things in the Komsomol these days?"
       "We're all governed by the same rules," Kerimbekov replied, becoming more flustered and turning red. He stopped, searching for the right words, trying to overcome his constraint and then, as if in despair, he began to speak scathingly, angrily: "What right did you have to insult a collective-farm worker, a shepherd, a veteran Party member? I'd like to see you call me an enemy of the people! You said you did it because you were very upset by the state of affairs at the farm, but don't you think the shepherd was upset, too? When you got there did you ask him what his living conditions were like and how things were? Or why the lambs were dying? No. judging from your own report, the minute you got there you began shouting at him. Everyone knows what a hard time the collective farms are having now during the lambing period. I have to be in the mountains quite often and I'm ashamed, I'm terribly ashamed when I talk to the young Komsomol shepherds, because we place big demands on them but don't offer any real help. Did you see the kind of sheds they have? And what about the fodder? I'm a shepherd's son myself. I know what it means to lose newborn lambs. They go on in the old way, nothing like what they taught us at the agricultural institute. And it makes your heart bleed to see what's happening!"
       Segizbayev interrupted him. "Don't try to arouse our pity, Comrade Kerimbekov. Emotions are a loose concept. What we need are hard facts, not feelings."
       "I beg your pardon, but we're not trying a criminal, we're discussing the case of a comrade," Kerimbekov continued. "A Communist's fate is being decided. That's why we should stop to think why Comrade Bakasov acted the way he did. His actions should certainly be censured, but what made one of the farm's best cattlemen, as Bakasov certainly was, come to this?"
       "Sit down," Kashkatayev said with displeasure. "You're leading us away from the main problem, Comrade Kerimbekov. I think it's evident to all of us that Comrade Bakasov has committed a very grave offence. Think of what he did. Who ever heard of such a thing? We will not permit anyone to attack our representatives with pitchforks, we will not permit anyone to undermine the authority of our Party officials. I would suggest, Comrade Kerimbekov, that you worry about improving things in the Komsomol Organisation instead of engaging in useless arguments about bleeding hearts and emotions. Emotions are one thing, actions are another. Bakasov's willful action should alert us. Needless to say, there is no place for him in the Party. Comrade Sayakov, as Party organiser of the collective farm, do you corroborate the report?" he asked Choro.
       "Yes, " Choro said, rising slowly. He was very pale. "But I'd like to explain...."
       "What's there to explain?"
       "In the first place, I think we should discuss Bakasov's case at a meeting of our own Party Organisation on the farm."
       "That is not mandatory. You can inform the Party members of the Bureau's decision later. What else did you want to say?"
       "I would like to explain.. .
       "What is there to explain, Comrade Sayakov? Bakasov's anti-Party words and actions are self-evident. There's nothing more to explain. You, too, are responsible for what happened. And we'll hold you to blame for disrupting the educational work among the rank-and-file. Why did you try to dissuade Comrade Segizbayev from bringing the case to our attention? Did you want to cover it up? It's disgraceful! Be seated."
       They began to argue the case. The director of the machine-and-tractor station and the editor of the district newspaper supported Kerimbekov. For a moment it seemed that they would succeed in defending Tanabai. However, he was so crushed, so confused, that he did not hear what was being said. He kept asking himself: "What's happened to everything I lived for? I don't think anyone here cares a damn for what's happening to the flocks and herds in the mountains. What a foot I've been! I've wasted my life for the collective farm, for those sheep and lambs. And none of it counts now. I'm dangerous now. Well, to hell with you! Do whatever you want to. I won't be sorry if any good comes of it. Go on, kick me out. It's all the same to me now."
       Aldanov, chairman of the collective farm, took the floor. Tanabai could see by his expression and gestures that he was raging about something, but it made no impact upon him until he heard the words: "chain-hobble ... the pacer--Gyulsary...."
       "And what do you think?" Aldanov was indignant. "He threatened for all to bear that he'd crack my skull, and all because we were forced to hobble the horse. Comrade Kashkatayev, members of the Bureau, as chairman of the collective farm I ask you to rid us of Bakasov. He really should be in jail. He hates every government official. There are witnesses waiting in the reception room, comrade Kashkatayev. They all heard Bakasov's threats. Should we ask them to come in?"
       "No, that won't be necessary," Kashkatayev said with distaste. "Your statement is sufficient. Be seated."
       He put the matter to a vote.
       "It has been moved that Comrade Bakasov be expelled from the Party. All those in favour. ..."
       "One second, Comrade Kashkatayev." Kerimbekov rose quickly to his feet. "Members of the Bureau, aren't we making a terrible mistake? I have another proposal: that we limit ourselves to a severe reprimand and warning. At the same time, I propose that we reprimand Segizbayev, a member of the Bureau, for insulting Comrade Bakasov's dignity as a Party member and a human being, and for Segizbayev's intolerable method of work as a District Committee representative."
       "What demagogy!" Segizbayev shouted.
       "I must call you to order, comrades," Kashkatayev said. "You're at a meeting of the District Committee Bureau, not at home, and I request that discipline be maintained."
       Everything depended upon him now. And he did exactly as Segizbayev expected he would. "I do not think it is necessary to institute criminal proceedings against Bakasov," he said, "but he certainly cannot be allowed to remain in the Party. Comrade Segizbayev is absolutely right about this. We will now put it to a vote. All those in favour of Bakasov's expulsion will raise their hands."
       There were seven members of the Bureau. Three voted for expulsion, three voted against it. Kashkatayev had yet to vote. He paused, then raised his hand in favour of expulsion. Tanabai saw nothing of this. He discovered the outcome when he heard Kashkatayev say to his secretary:
       "Enter the following in the minutes: 'By a decision of the Bureau of the District Party Committee, Comrade Tanabai Bakasov has been expelled from the Party'."
       "That's all there is to it," Tanabai thought, feeling his body turn to ice.
       "But I insist that Segizbayev be reprimanded," Kerimbekov persisted.
       This did not have to be put to a vote, the motion might have been declined, but Kashkatayev decided they would vote on it. He had a secret reason for this, too.
       "All those in favour of Comrade Kerimbekov's proposal will raise their hand."
       Once again it was three to three. And once again Kashkatayev raised his hand to make it four, and thus saved Segizbayev from being reprimanded. "I wonder whether he'll understand and appreciate this favour?" he thought. "Who knows? He's cunning and treacherous."
       Everyone began moving their chairs out, as if getting ready to leave. Tanabai decided it was all over. He rose and headed for the door without a word, without looking at anyone.
       "Where are you going, Bakasov?" Kashkatayev said. "Surrender your Party card."
       "What?" Now only did he realise what had happened.
       "Leave it on the desk. You are no longer a member of the Party and have no right to carry a Party card."
       Tanabai did as he was told. The card was under his jacket, under his sweater, in a little leather pouch Jaidar had made for it. He wore the pouch on a strap over his shoulder. It took him a long time to extract it in the dead silence of the room. He finally pulled it out, took out his Party card, heated by his chest, and placed it, warm and smelling of his body, on Kashkatayev's cold polished desk. he shivered as if he, too, felt the cold touch of the wood. Then, still not looking at anyone, he worked the pouch back under his jacket and prepared to leave.
       "Comrade Bakasov!" Kerimbekov's voice was sympathetic. "Haven't you anything to say? You haven't said a word. Perhaps it all happened because things were so difficult. We hope the door has not shut and that sooner or later you'll be able to return to the ranks. Do you want to say anything?"
       Tanabai turned, feeling awkward in front of this strange youth who was still trying to soften the blow.
       "What is there to say?" he said sadly. "I can't outtalk everyone. All I can say is that I'm not guilty in any way, even if I did raise my hand against him, even if I did speak badly. I can't explain it. So I guess that's all."
       The silence was oppressing.
       "So you have a grudge against the Party?" Kashkatayev spoke irritably. "Aren't you forgetting yourself? The Party is setting you right, it's kept you from being prosecuted as a criminal, yet you're still dissatisfied, you're still resentful! That means you really are unworthy of being a Party member. And I doubt whether the door back will ever open to you!"
       When Tanabai left the District Committee building he seemed calm. Too calm. And this was bad. It was the end of a warm, sunny day. People were walking and riding in all directions. Children were running around in the square near the clubhouse. Tanabai found it unbearable to look at them. He was disgusted with himself, too. He had to get back to the mountains, back home. Before anything else happened.
       Gyulsary was tied up beside his horse at the hitching post. He was big and strong, he shifted his weight when Tanabai approached and his dark eyes were calm and trusting. He had forgotten how Tanabai had battered his head with a pitchfork. After all, he was a horse.
       "Forgive me, Gyulsary," Tanabai whispered. "I'm in bad trouble. Very bad trouble," he sobbed, throwing his arms around the horse's neck, but controlled himself, ashamed to weep in front of all these passers-by.
       He mounted his own horse and headed home.
       Choro caught up with him beyond the Alexandrovka Rise. As soon as Tanabai heard the familiar cadence of the racing pacer behind him he scowled. He did not bother to glance back. A feeling of hurt darkened his Soul, darkened his eyes. Choro was now a different man from the one he used to know. Take today, for example. No sooner had Kashkatayev raised his voice at him than Choro had sat down as obediently as a schoolboy. Now what? People had faith in him, but he was afraid to speak the truth. He was cautious, he chose his words carefully. Who had taught him to be like that? While Tanabai was just an ignorant man, a plain hard worker, Choro was educated, he knew everything, he had held important jobs all his life. Couldn't Choro see that things were not as Segizbayev, Kashkatayev and all the others like them said they were? That their words were pretty on the outside, but false and empty inside? Whom was he fooling, and what for?
       Tanabai did not even turn his head when Choro caught up with him and fell in step beside him, reining in the heated pacer.
       I thought we'd start out together, Tanabai, he said, "but when I looked around, you were gone."
       "What do you want?" Tanabai muttered, still not looking at him. "Go on your own way."
       "I want to talk to you. Don't turn away, Tanabai. Let's talk like friends, like Communists," Choro began and bit his tongue.
       "I'm no friend of yours, and certainly no Communist any more. And you haven't been a Communist for a long time, either. You just pretend you are."
       "You can't mean that," Choro said in dismay.
       "Well, I do. I haven't learned how to choose my words yet. I don't know how to say the right thing in the right place. This is where I turn off. Good-bye." Tanabai turned his horse off the road and headed across the fields to the mountains, never glancing back, never once having looked his friend in the eye.
       He did not see Choro become deathly pale, stretch his hand out to stop him and then suddenly grab at his chest convulsively and fall onto the horse's neck, gasping for breath.
       "Oh!" Choro moaned, writhing from the terrible pain in his heart. "Oh!" he groaned hoarsely, turning blue. "Take me home, Gyulsary, hurry!"
       The pacer carried him swiftly across the dark, desolate steppe. The man's voice frightened him, for there was something terrifying, something ghastly in the sound of it. Gyulsary laid back his ears, snorting in terror as he raced along. The man in the saddle writhed in agony, his hands and teeth clenching the horse's mane. The reins hung loosely from the horse's neck.

       Tanabai was still on his way back to the mountains that evening when a man on horseback galloped up and down the village streets, rousing all the dogs.
       "Anybody home? Come on out!" he called, stopping by the houses. "There's a Party meeting at the farm office."
       "What's the matter? What's the rush?"
       "I don't know," the messenger replied. "Choro sent me. He said to hurry."
       Meanwhile, Choro was at the farm office. He was bent over, his chest against the desk, gasping, his hand tinder his shirt pressed hard against his heart. He groaned with pain, and bit his lip. Cold sweat broke out on his face, which had turned a ghastly green, his eyes had sunk deep in the hollow sockets. His gaze would become blank for a few moments, and then it seemed to him that the pacer was still carrying him across the dark steppe. He wanted to call to Tanabai, but Tanabai, after uttering those scorching words in parting, would not even look back. Tanabai's words scorched his heart.
       Choro had been half-carried into the office from the stable where he had rested a while on a pile of hay. The grooms had wanted to take him home but he refused. He had sent a man to summon all the village Communists and was now awaiting them anxiously.
       The watchwoman had lit the lamp and left Choro alone in the office. She busied herself at the stove in the front room, looking in through the half-open door occasionally, sighing and shaking her head.
       As Choro awaited his comrades, time trickled away in drops. With each passing second the time he had on this earth was running out in painful, bitter drops and only now did he discover its worth, after having lived so many years. He had not noticed the days and years slipping away, and before he knew it, they had disappeared in toil and cares.
       Not everything had come out as he would have wanted it to. he had failed in many things. He had tried hard, he had struggled, but had retreated at times to by-pass a sharp corner, to take the easier road. And yet, he had not by-passed them all. The force he had always avoided clashing with now had him up against the wall and there was no retreat. The road was ending. Oh, if only he stopped to think sooner, if only he had forced himself to look life in the eye before this.
       And time was slipping away in bitter, hollow drops. Where was everyone? Why was it taking them so long?

       "I have to make it!" Fear gripped Choro's heart. "I have to tell them everything." He tried to hold back the life that was ebbing away with a silent, desperate cry. He hung on stubbornly, readying himself for the final battle. "I'll tell them everything. How it all happened. What they said at the Bureau meeting, how they expelled Tanabai. Let them know that I disagree with the District Committee's decision. Let them know I'm against Tanabai's expulsion. I'll tell them what I think about Aldanov. They can see what he has to say after I'm through. Let the Communists decide. I'll tell them all about myself, just what I am. And about the collective farm and the people. If only I make it. Where is everyone?"
       The first to arrive was his wife with some medicine. She wailed and wept at the sight of him.
       "Are you mad? Haven't you had enough of these meetings? Let's go home. Look at you. My God, can't you ever think about yourself!"
       Choro refused to listen. He waved her away as he gulped down the medicine. His teeth chartered against the glass, the water spilled down his chest.
       "It's all right, I'm better now," he uttered, trying to breathe evenly. "Wait for me there, you'll help me home later. Don't worry. Go on."
       And when he heard people arriving outside, he sat tip straight, suppressed 'the pain and mustered his strength to fulfil what he considered to be his last duty.
       "What happened? What's the matter with you, Choro?" they asked.
       "Nothing. I'll tell you as soon as everyone's here."
       And time was slipping away in bitter, hollow drops.
       When all the Communists had gathered, Choro Sayakov, the Party organiser, rose, took off his hat and called the Party meeting to order.

       Tanabai reached home late at night. Jaidar came out to meet him with a lantern. She had been waiting for him, straining her eyes to see him.
       One glance was enough to tell her how bad things were. He unbridled the horse in silence and took off the saddle while she held the lantern, and he said nothing to her. "I wish he'd have gotten drunk in town, it might have eased his heart," she thought. Still he was silent, and this silence of his was frightening. She had good news for him. They had been given some fodder, straw, and barley flour. It had been warmer today, they had taken the lambs out to pasture and they had nibbled the grass.
       "They've taken Bektai's flock. They sent a new shepherd for it," she said.
       "To hell with Bektai and the flock, and your new shepherd."
       "Are you very tired?"
       "Tired? They've expelled me from the Party!"
       "Don't shout, the women will hear you."
       "Why shouldn't I shout? What's there to hide? They kicked me out like a dog, it's as simple as that. It serves me right. And it serves you right, too. We deserve worse than that. Well, what are you standing there for? What are you looking at me like that for?"
       "Go lie down."
       "I don't need you to tell me that."
       Tanabai went into the shed. He looked over the sheep. Then he went to the fold, wandered about in the darkness a while and returned to the shed. He was restless. He refused to eat and refused to talk. He dropped onto the straw that was piled in a corner and lay there motionless. Life, its worries and cares had all lost their meaning. Nothing interested him now. He didn't want to live, he didn't want to think, he didn't want to see anything at all.
       He tossed and turned, trying to fall asleep, to blot out his thoughts, but be could not run away from himself. He saw Bektai walking away again and the trail of black footprints in the white snow, and remembered how he could think of nothing to say to him; he could hear Segizbayev shouting again as he sat upon the pacer, the harsh words raining down upon him, and the threat to put him in jail, then he saw himself at the Bureau meeting, presented as a saboteur and an enemy of the people, and this marked the end of everything, the end of his life. And once again he wanted to grab the pitchfork and rush off shouting into the night, shouting for the whole world to hear, until he tumbled into a ravine and broke his neck.
       As he dropped off to sleep he thought that it would be better to die than to go on living like this. Yes, it would be better to die.
       He awoke with a heavy head. At first he did not know where he was or what had happened. Sheep were coughing nearby, lambs were bleating. That meant he was in the shed. Dawn was breaking. Why had he awakened? What for? He wished he had never woke up. There was nothing for him but death. He would take his own life.

       Later he drank handfuls of water from the stream. It was ice cold, there were thin slivers of crunchy ice in it. The water rushed out between his shaking fingers and he scooped more up and drank spilling it over himself. After a while he came to his senses and then realised the absolute stupidity of his intention to commit suicide, the stupidity of doing away with himself. How could he deprive himself of life that was given only once to man? Was Segizbayev and his like worth it? No. Tanabai would go on living, he would move mountains in his lifetime yet!
       Returning to camp, he hid his gun and bandoleer and worked hard all day. He wished he could be more gentle towards his wife, his daughters and his helpers, but he restrained himself to keep the women from suspecting anything. They worked as always, as if nothing unusual had happened, as if everything was as it should be. Tanabai was grateful to them for that. He said nothing and kept on working. Later he went to the pasture and helped drive the flock home.
       That evening the weather took a turn for the worse. It would either rain or snow. The mountains were lost in mist, the sky was heavy with clouds. Once again they would have to think of ways to protect the lambs from the cold. Once again they would have to clean the shed and spread clean straw to keep the animals from dying off. Tanabai looked grim, but he tried to forget what had happened and not lose heart.
       It was dark when they heard a rider outside. Jaidar went out to greet him. They exchanged a few words. Tanabai was working in the shed.
       "Come out for a minute," Jaidar called. "There's someone here to see you." The very tone of her voice told him it was bad news.
       He came out and greeted the man. It was a shepherd from the neighbouring camp.
       "Hello, Aitbai. Come on down. What brings you here?"
       "I've just come from the village. I was there on business. They asked me to tell you that Choro's very sick. They said you're to come."
       "Choro again!" he thought. The hurt that had subsided blazed anew. He did not want to see him.
       "What do you think I am, a doctor? He's always sick. I have enough to do here without worrying about him. And the weathr's changing again,"
       " It's up to you, Tanabai. Do whatever you want to. I gave you the message. I'll be going. It's getting late. Good-bye."
       Aitbai started off, then checked the horse.
       "Think it over. He's really bad this time. They've called his son home from college. They've gone to meet him at the station."
       "Thanks for giving me the message. But I'm not going."
       "Yes, he is," Jaidar said, mortified by his words. "Don't worry, he'll be there."
       Tanabai said nothing, but when Aitbai was gone he turned on his wife angrily.
       "Stop talking for me. I know my own mind. if I said
       I'm not going, it means I'm not going."
       "Think of what you're saying!"
       "There's nothing to think about. I've had enough. I've been thinking so much they finally kicked me out of the Party. I don't have a friend left. I don't want anyone to come and see me if I get sick. I can drop dead by myself!" He sliced the air angrily and headed towards the shed.
       But he could not calm down. As he assisted the ewes to lamb, as he carried the lambs into the corner, cursing at the bleating sheep, shoving them aside, he kept mumbling:
       "If he'd left his job long ago he wouldn't be so badly off now. He's been sick all his life, moaning and clutching at his chest, but he spent all his days in the saddle. Some chief. I never want to see you again after what's happened. I don't care if you mind or not, but I mind what you did to me. And nobody gives a damn."
       It was night and snowing lightly. The silence was so complete one could hear the soft rustle of the snowflakes as they fell to the earth.
       Tanabai stayed away from the tent, reluctant to face his wife, and she did not come over to him either. "Go on, stay there," he thought, "you won't make me go anyway. I don't care about anything any more. Choro's no friend of mine. He's gone his way, I'm going mine. We used to be friends, but not any more. And if I'm his friend, where was he all this time? Well, I don't care about anything any more."
       In the end, Jaidar did approach him. She brought him his cape, his new boots, his belt and mittens and the hat he wore on special occasions
       "Get dressed," she said.
       "You're wasting your time. I'm not going anyplace."
       "Don't you waste time. You don't want to be sorry all your life."
       "I won't be sorry. And nothing's going to happen to him. He'll be up again soon. This isn't the first time, you know."
       "I've never asked you to do anything for me, Tanabai. But I am now. Give me your hurt, give me your grief. Go. Don't be so hard-hearted."
       "No." Tanabai shook his head stubbornly. "I'm not going. Nothing matters now. All you're thinking about is manners and duty. What will people say? But I don't care what they say any more."
       "Please go, Tanabai. I'll have a look at the fire, I don't want the coals to fall on the felt."
       She walked away, leaving him his clothing, but he did not move. He sat there in a corner, unable to overcome his own resistance, unable to forget what he had said to Choro. What was he supposed to do now, come up and say: "Hello, I've come to see how you're getting along. Is there anything I can do for you?" No, he could never do that, it was too unlike him.
       "Haven't you dressed yet?" Jaidar said, returning.
       "Stop nagging. I said I'm not going."
       "Get up!" she shouted angrily. To his utter surprise he rose at her command like a soldier. She took a step towards him, and in the dim light of the lantern her eyes were full of torment and indignation. "If you're not a man, if you're not a human being, if you're nothing but a snivelling old woman, I'll go instead of you, and you stay home and feel sorry for yourself! I'm leaving this minute. Go saddle the horse for me!"
       He went off obediently to saddle the horse. It was snowing lightly. Darkness seemed to be circling silently in a slow merry-go-round, like water in a deep whirlpool. You couldn't see the mountains for the darkness. "Bother! How will she get there in the middle of the night?" he wondered anxiously as he threw the saddle over the horse's back in the darkness. "No use trying to talk her out of it. She'll never go back on her word, not for anything in the world. What if she loses her way? Well, she'll have no one to blame but herself."
       As he saddled the horse he began to feel ashamed of himself. "I'm a dog, that's what I am. I've lost my senses after what happened. What am I parading my feelings around for, so everyone can see how miserable I am? What am I torturing Jaidar for? What's it got to do with her? I'll have to pay for it. I'm good for nothing. I'm a beast, that's what I am."
       Tanabai hesitated. It was hard to go back on his word. He returned looking sullen, his eyes on the ground.
       "Is it saddled?"
       "Yes."
       "Then get ready to go." Jaidar handed him his cape.
       Tanabai began dressing in silence, pleased that his wife had taken the first step. Still, his pride made him say:
       "Maybe I'd better start out tomorrow morning?"
       "No, go now. You'll be too late tomorrow."
       Night swirled over the mountains like water in a stream. Large flakes of the last spring snow settled softly on the ground. Tanabai rode on alone among the dark slopes, heeding to the call of the friend he had disowned. Snow clung to his head, his shoulders, his beard and his hands. He sat upright in the saddle, unmindful of the snow. It was easier for him to think if he did not move. His thoughts were of Choro, of all that had bound them together those long years when Choro first taught him to read and write, when they had joined the Komsomol together and then joined the Party. He recalled the time they had worked on the canal. Choro had been the first to bring him the newspaper with his picture in it and an article about him. Choro had been the first to congratulate him, to shake his hand.
       Tanabai's heart was softening, it was thawing out. Then a gnawing feeling of anxiety came over him. "How is he? Maybe he's really bad this time? They wouldn't have called his son home otherwise. Or maybe he just wants to tell me something? To talk things over?"
       Dawn was breaking. The snow still circled in the air. Tanabai urged his horse on. The village would soon come into view in the valley beyond the hills. How was Choro? If only he were there already.
       Then, in the stillness of the morning, a distant muffled voice reached him from the village. It had been a cry that had risen and suddenly stopped. Tanabai reined in his horse and turned his ear into the wind. All was quiet. He must have imagined it.
       The horse carried him onto the rise. The streets of the village, deserted at this early hour, lay before him among the snow-white gardens and bare trees. There was not a soul in sight. Then he saw the black crowd outside one of the houses, with saddled horses standing under the trees. It was Choro's house. Why were there so many people outside? What had happened? Could it be....
       Tanabai rose up in the stirrups, gulped a burning mouthful of icy air and stood stock-still. Then he spurred his horse on. "No! It can't be! It just can't be!" He felt as wretched as if he were personally responsible for what had probably happened down there. Choro, his only friend, had asked him to come for a last word before parting forever, but he had nursed his hurt feelings stubbornly. No name was base enough for him. Why hadn't his wife spat in his eyes? What is there in this world that deserves greater respect than a dying man's last wish?
       Once again Tanabai recalled the road in the steppe and Choro overtaking him on the pacer. What had he said to him then? Could he ever forgive himself?
       Tanabai rode along the snow-covered streets in a trance, bent under the weight of his guilt and shame. Suddenly he sighted a large group of men on horseback beyond Choro's house. They were approaching in silence and then suddenly they all began to wail, swaying back and forth in their saddles:

       "Oibai, baurymai! Oibai, baurymai!"

       "The Kazakhs have come," Tanabai said to himself and he knew now there was no hope left. The neighbouring Kazakhs had come from beyond the river to mourn Choro as a brother, as a neighbour, as a man close to their hearts and known throughout the region. "Thank you, brothers," Tanabai thought. "We've always been together in sorrow and in joy, at our weddings and games, since the time of our fathers and grandfathers. Weep with us now!"
       And then he, too, raised his voice in a heart-rending cry which echoed through the quiet village.
       "Choro-o-o! Choro-o-o! Choro-o-o!"
       He trotted on, swaying now to the left, now to the right, weeping for the friend that had departed this world.
       Here was the house, here was Gyulsary, a black saddle-cloth on his back. The snow settled on the horse and melted. The pacer had lost his master. Thus was he to stand with an empty saddle.
       Tanabai buried his face in his horse's mane, raised his head and fell against the horse again. All about were blurry faces and weeping. He did not hear someone say:
       "Help Tanabai down. Take him to Choro's son."
       Several hands reached up, helped him dismount and led him through the crowd.
       "Forgive me, Choro, forgive me!" Tanabai wept.
       In the yard, standing with his face to the wall of the house, was Choro's son, the student Samansur. He turned to Tanabai with tears in his eyes. They embraced and wept.
       "Your father is no more, my Choro is no more! Forgive me, Choro, forgive me!" Tanabai sobbed.
       Then Tanabai saw her standing among the women nearby. It was Biubiujan. She gazed at him and tears ran down her cheeks. Sobs shook Tanabai.
       He wept for all he had lost in life, for Choro, for his guilt, for the fact that he could never take back the words he had hurled at Choro on the road, he wept for her who now stood beside him like a stranger, for their love, for that stormy night, for her being alone in the world and getting older, he wept for his pacer Gyulsary standing by in mourning, for his hurts and suffering, for all he had kept pent up inside him.
       "Forgive me, Choro, forgive me!" he repeated. It was as if he were asking her forgiveness, too.
       He wished Biubiujan would come up to him and comfort him, but she did not. She simply stood there and wept.
       Others consoled him.
       "Come now, Tanabai. Tears won't help him now. Get hold of yourself."
       But this only made things worse.

       It would soon be dawn. As old Tanabai sat by the fire by the head of his dying pacer he recalled all that followed.
       No one knew that he had gone to the regional centre soon after. It was his last attempt. He wanted to see the Secretary of the Regional Committee. He had heard him speak at that conference at the district centre and he wanted to tell him about his trouble. he believed that this man would understand him and help him. Choro had spoken well of him, and others had praised him, too. It was not until he arrived at the Regional Committee, however, that he discovered the Secretary had been transferred to another region.
       "Didn't you know?"
       "No."
       "Well, if it's very important I'll speak to our new Secretary, perhaps he'll be able to see you," the secretary in the reception room said.
       "No, thank you. It's a personal matter. You see, I knew him and he knew me. I would never have bothered him otherwise. Thank you, anyway. Good-bye." He left the building, sincerely believing that he had known the former Secretary well and that the man had also known him, the shepherd Tanabai Bakasov. And why not? They might have known and respected each other, he did not doubt it, that is why he said what he did.
       Tanabai walked down the street towards the bus stop. Two men were loading empty beer barrels on a truck outside a beer stall. One was standing in the truck. The one on the ground who was rolling a barrel up a board turned by chance, looked at Tanabai as he passed, and froze. It was Bektai. He balanced the barrel on the inclined board as his narrow wild-cat eyes stared with hatred, waiting to see what Tanabai would say.
       "What's the matter, are you sleeping?" the man in the truck said irritably.
       The barrel was rolling down, Bektai tried to steady it, holding it back with an effort, his eyes never leaving Tanabai. But Tanabai did not greet him. "So this is where you are. Some place. No doubt about it. Right close up to the beer," Tanabai thought as he continued on his way. "The boy'll come to no good here," he then thought, slackening his step. "He could have been a fine man. What if I have a talk with him?" And he wanted to turn back, he was sorry for Bektai, he was ready to forgive him everything if only he came to his senses. However, he did not turn. He realised that if Bektai knew he had been expelled from the Party there would be no real conversation. Tanabai did not want to give this sharp-tongued youth a chance to deride him, his life, the cause to which he remained faithful. No, he did not turn back.
       He picked up a ride home on a truck and kept thinking of Bektai. He could not forget how the boy had tried to steady the slipping barrel, staring at him expectantly.
       Later, when the collective farm took Bektai to court,
       Tanabai was a witness. All he said, however, was that Bektai had abandoned his flock and gone off. He did not want to say anything else. He so wanted Bektai to realise he had been wrong and repent. But Bektai had no intention of repenting.
       "When you're out, come over to my place. We'll see what we can do about the future," Tanabai said to him. Becktai did not even answer. He never raised his eyes. Tanabai walked off. He had lost his self-confidence since he had been expelled from the Party, he was forever feeling guilty. He had become timid. He never thought things would come to this. No one threw anything up to him, still, he avoided people, he avoided conversation and kept to himself.

       The pacer Gyulsary lay motionlessly by the campfire, his head on the ground. Life was slowly leaving his body. Something was gurgling and wheezing in his throat, his eyes widened and dimmed as he stared unblinkingly at the flames, his legs, straight as poles, were becoming stiff.
       Tanabai was bidding his pacer farewell, it was the last time he would be talking to him. "You were a great stallion, Gyulsary. You were my friend, Gyulsary. When you go you will carry away the best years of my life, Gyulsary. I will never forget you, Gyulsary. You're still alive now, but I'm thinking of you as of one dead already, because you are dying, my wonderful horse Gyulsary. Some day we'll meet in the hereafter. But I won't hear the sound of your hoofbeats. There are no roads there, no earth, no grass, there is no life there. But as long as I live you will never die, because I will always remember you, Gyulsary. To me the sound of your pacing gait will always be the song I love best."
       Such were old Tanabai's thoughts. He was sad, for time had sped by like a cantering pacer, they had both become old so quickly. Perhaps it was too soon for Tanabai to think of himself as an old man. And yet, it is not the weight of his years that makes a man old quite as much as the realisation that he is old, that his time has passed, that he is living out his days.
       Now, on this night, as his pacer lay dying, Tanabai looked back once again, more keenly, more intently at the past, regretting that he had yielded to old age so soon, that he had not followed the advice of the man who had not forgotten about him after all, who had discovered his whereabouts and had come to see him.
       It had happened seven years after he was expelled from the Party. At the time Tanabai was the warden in charge of the collective farm's holdings in Sarygou Gorge where he lived in a cottage with his wife Jaidar. First his daughters left for school, then they married. His son, who had graduated from a technical school, was working in the district centre and had a family of his own.
       One day in summer Tanabai was mowing the grass along the river bank. It was a fine day for mowing, hot and bright. It was very still in the gorge. Cicadas were chirruping. Tanabai, wearing his shirt over his wide, white, old man's trousers, followed the ringing scythe, cutting down a thick, close mane of grass with each swinging movement. His work gave him infinite pleasure. He did not notice a jeep pull up nearby, two men get out and head towards him.
       "Hello, Tanabai! Allah be with you!" The voice was but a few feet away. He looked round and saw lbraim. He was still the same: quick in his movements, round-cheeked and round-bellied. "See, we've found you after all, Tanabai," he continued, grinning from ear to ear. "The District Committee Secretary himself has come to see you."
       "You old fox!" Tanabai thought with grudging admiration. "You always land on your feet. Look at you bowing and scraping. Aren't you the kindest soul, ready to do anyone a favour. And to serve anyone!"
       "Hello," Tanabai said, shaking their hands.
       "Don't You recognise me, aksakal?" the man who had come up with Ibraim asked warmly, still holding Tanabai's hand in his firm grip.
       Tanabai could not place him. "I know I've seen him before," he thought. The man seemed very familiar, yet he must have changed markedly. He was young, healthy, sunburned, with a frank and confident gaze, dressed in a grey linen suit and a straw hat. "Must be a city fellow, Tanabai decided.
       "Why, it's Comrade... ." Ibraim began, but Tanabai interrupted him.
       "Wait, I know myself," and he chuckled inwardly. "I recognise you, my son. How could I mistake you! Hello again. I'm glad to see you."
       It was Kerimbekov. The former Komsomol Secretary who had boldly defended Tanabai at that memorable Bureau meeting when Tanabai had been expelled from the Party.
       "Well then, since you've recognised me, I'd like to talk to you, Tanabai. Let's walk along the bank here. You can do some mowing for him meanwhile," Kerimbekov suggested, addressing lbraim.
       lbraim, eager to please, began unbuttoning his jacket hastily.
       "Why, certainly. With pleasure, Comrade Kerimbekov." Tanabai and Kerimbekov crossed the meadow and sat down on some stones by the river.
       "You've probably guessed why I'm here, Tanabai," Kerimbekov said. "You look as strong as ever, and if you're mowing, it means you're in good health. I'm glad you are."
       "Yes. And I'm happy for you, my son."
       "Well, to make a long story short, you know that much has changed. Many things have been put in order. You know that as well as I do."
       "I do. It's true enough. I can see that on our own farm. Things seem to have picked up. Sometimes I can't believe it. I was down at Five Trees Valley a while ago, that's where I had such a hard time the year I was a shepherd. I envied them. There's a new shed. A good one, with it a slate roof. It'll take five hundred head easy. There's a house there for the shepherd and his family. And a barn and stable next to it. Not at all like it used to be. And it's the same at the other winter camps, too. And the people in the village are putting up new houses. Every time I go down there's a new house some place. I only hope it keeps up."
       "It's up to us to see that it does. A lot of things still need changing. But we'll get to them. And now, as to what brought me here. Come back to the Party, Tanabai. We'll review your case. We spoke of it at a recent Bureau meeting. As they say better late than never."
       Tanabai said nothing. He was confused. He was both happy and bitter. The past returned, his hurt was very deep. He did not want to stir up those memories, he did not want to think of the past.
       "Thank you, that's very kind of you," he said. "Thank you for remembering an old man." He paused, then spoke his heart: "I'm too old now. What good can I be to the Party? What can I do for it? I'm no good for anything much any more. My time has passed. Don't take offence. Let me think it over."
       For a long while after Tanabai could not make up his mind. He kept putting it off, telling himself he'd go tomorrow, or the day after, while time kept slipping by. He had become sluggish.
       One day he actually made up his mind to go, saddled his horse and set out, but turned back after he had gone half-way. Why? He knew it was his own foolishness that had made him turn back. He told himself he was a fool, a baby. He realised it all, but could not do a thing about it.
       He had seen a pacer raising a trail of dust in the steppe. He recognised Gyulsary immediately. He rarely saw him nowadays. The pacer was chalking a white trail across the dry steppe of summer. As Tanabai watched him from afar his face darkened. The dust raised by the pacer's hooves never used to catch up with the horse. He had always raced onward like a swift, dark bird, leaving a long billowing trail of dust behind him. Now the dust engulfed him. He would surge ahead, but a moment later the clouds of dust he himself was raising enveloped him. He could not break away. It could only, mean he had aged, had got weak and was giving in. "You're in a bad way, Gyulsary," thought Tanabai watching him with a heavy heart.
       He imagined how hard it was for the horse, choking as he was on the dust, with the angry, rider whipping him on. He could see the pacer's confused eyes, he sensed how frantically he was straining to break away from the billowing dust, yet could not. And though the rider could not possibly have heard Tanabai, for the distance between them was too great, he shouted: "Stop! Don't ride him so hard!" and set out at a gallop to intercept him.
       But he stopped before he ever reached them. If the man understood him, fine, but what if he did not? What if he'd say: "What damn business is it of yours? And who are you to teach me? I'll ride him as I see fit. Get out of my way, you old fool!"
       Meanwhile, the pacer was getting farther away, his gait uneven and laboured, disappearing, then reappearing from the dust cloud. Tanabai watched him for many long minutes. Then he turned his horse and headed back. "We're through running, Gyulsary," he said. "We've gotten old. Who needs us now, the way we are? I'm no runner any more, either. All that's left to us now, Gyulsary, is to live out the rest of our days."
       A year later Tanabai saw the pacer harnessed to a wagon, and it wrung his heart again. He could not look at the old racing horse gone to seed, whose lot it was now to wear a moth-eaten collar and pull a wretched cart. Tanabai turned away, he could not bear the sight.
       He saw the pacer once again after that. A boy of about seven, dressed in shorts and a torn undershirt, was riding him down the street. His bare heels spurred the horse on, he was so proud and excited to be riding a horse all by himself. It was probably his first ride, and that is why he had been given the gentlest, slowest nag, the former pacer Gyulsary.
       Look at me, Grandpa!" the child shouted triumphantly. "I'm a general! I'm going across the river now!"
       "That's fine. I'll watch you. Go on!" Tanabai said encouragingly.
       The boy rode boldly into the river, slapping the reins, but as the horse was clambering up the far bank he lost his seat and slipped in.
       "Mamma!" he cried, wet and frightened.
       Tanabai fished him out and carried him towards the horse. Gyulsary was waiting patiently on the path, holding now one leg now the other suspended in the air. "His bones ache," Tanabai thought. "He's really sick." He set the boy on the old pacer.
       "Off you go, and don't fall again.
       Gyulsary wandered slowly down the road.
       And now, for the very last time, after the pacer had been returned to Tanabai and after he had seemed to have put him back on his feet again. now, for the very last time, Gyulsary had taken him to town and was now dying on the roadside.
       Tanabai had been visiting his son and daughter-in-law, who had just had a son, their second child. He had brought them a gift of a lamb, a sack of potatoes and home-made bread and other goodies Jaidar had prepared. Jaidar had not come along, saying she was ill. Though she never spoke about it, she did not like her daughter-in-law. Their son was a weakling, and the wife he had chosen was hard and despotic. She stayed at home, ruling her husband with an iron hand. There are people who think nothing of hurting or insulting others just to get the upper hand, just to show who's the boss.
       This was the case now. His son was to have been promoted but was by-passed for the job and another man got it. Now she flew at her innocent old father-in-law.
       "What was the use of your joining the Party if you never got above being a shepherd or herdsman? They kicked you out in the end anyway, and now your son can't get ahead because of you. He'll spend his whole life in his job now. You live up there in the mountains. You don't care, but we have to suffer because of you."
       And so on, and so forth.
       Tanabai was sorry he had come. He tried to calm her by saying uncertainly:
       "Well, if that's how it is, maybe I'll ask them to let me join the Party again."
       "As if anyone wants you! Do you think they're sitting around waiting for you? That they can't do without an old wreck?" she said scornfully.
       If it were anyone else and not his daughter-in-law, the wife of his own son, Tanabai would not have stood for it. But there's nothing you can do about your own kin, good or bad. The old man said nothing, he did not argue, he did not say that it was not he who was keeping her husband down, but it was because his son was worthless, and the wife he had chosen as the kind of woman any man in his right senses would run away from. The old saying was very true: "A good wife will make a middling husband of a bad one, a good husband of a middling one, and will bring glory to a good one." But the old man did not want to shame his son in front of his wife. Let them go on thinking he was to blame.
       That is why Tanabai was in such a hurry to leave. He could not bear staying with them.
       "What a fool you are!" he scolded his daughter-in-law as he sat by the campfire now. "Where do people like you come from? You've neither honour nor respect, nor a kind word for anyone. All you think about is yourselves. You judge everyone else by yourselves. But you won't have it your way. They still need me. I can still be of use."

       Morning was upon them. The mountains rose above the earth, the steppe was coming into view, stretching away into the distance. The ashes of the dead fire at the edge of the ravine barely smouldered. A grey-haired man stood beside it, his coat thrown over his shoulders. There was no need to cover the pacer with it now. Gyulsary was in the next world, running with Allah's herd.
       Tanabai looked at the dead horse and could not believe it was his Gyulsary. He lay there on his side with his head thrown back in a last convulsion. There were deep ridges on his cheeks left by the bridle. His legs were stiff, extended, the shoes were worn thin on his cracked hooves. Never again would they carry him anywheres, never again would they leave their marks on the roads.
       It was time for him to go. He bent over the horse for the very last time. closed his cold lids, picked up the bridle and walked off without a backward glance.
       He was crossing the steppe to the mountains. And as he walked he picked up his unhappy trend of thought. He was thinking that old age was upon him, that his days were numbered now. He did not want to die as a lonely bird that has dropped behind its swift-winged flock. He wanted to die on the wing, he wanted those with whom he had shared the nest and life to circle over him, to hear their farewell cries.
       "I'll write to Samansur," Tanabai decided. "I'll write and say: 'Do you remember the pacer Gyulsary? You must remember him. I rode him when I took your father's Party card to the District Party Committee. You were the one who sent me on that mission. Well, I was returning home from town last night and my fine pacer died on the way. I sat by him all through the night, I had time to review my whole life. Soon my time may come, and I will die along the way like the pacer Gyulsary. My son Samansur, you must help me return to the Party. I have not long to go. I want to be as I was always. I know now that there was a reason why your father Choro's last wish was for me to take his Party card in to the District Party Committee. You're his son and you know old Tanabai Bakasov well.' "
       Tanabai walked through the steppe bridle slung over his shoulder. Tears ran down his checks, wetting his beard. He did not wipe them away. He was weeping for the pacer Gyulsary. The old man looked at the new morning through his tears, at the lonely grey goose flying swiftly over the foothills. The goose was hurrying, it was catching up with the flock.
       "Hurry! Catch up with your kin before your wings give out," Tanabai whispered. Then he sighed and said, "Farewell, Gyulsary!"
       As he walked along an ancient, haunting melody came to his ears.
       ...The mother camel roamed for many days, searching for her baby, calling to him. Where are you, my dark-eyed baby? Answer me! The milk runs from her udder, from her overflowing udder, trickling down her legs. Where are you? Answer me! The milk runs from her udder, her overflowing udder. Her pure-white milk....

       1966