CHAPTER 22
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Turgen had known Marfa as a friend for many years, but it had never entered his head to suggest that she and her children share his life. Now here he was on his way to her, his mind filled with this very idea. Yet the nearer he came to her yurta the more absurd he appeared to himself. He was tortured with doubts.
What was a man of his age to say to her? “Look Marfa--I live alone, make my own fires, do my own cooking and sewing, and worry about no one but myself. It’s not natural. So I have come to ask you to be my wife.”
Certainly a sensible woman like Marfa could only say, “Why, you old fogey, are you out of your senses? What would the neighbors think if I went to live with you, whom they consider a sorcerer?”
Such thoughts made Turgen’s legs grow cold and his feet drag. Still, he reminded himself, he was following a dream. The Great Spirit had spoken to him, and he believed.
Nothing was as he imagined it. Perhaps it was that heart spoke to heart. At any rate, the moment he entered the yurta, Marfa gave one glance at him and exclaimed:
“Turgen, your face shines like a nicely polished copper kettle! Something wonderful must have happened to you! Is that true? Tell me.”
Turgen thought, “How could I have doubted my dream? I did not know how to speak and she has prompted me. But I’ll lead up to the question gradually.”
To Marfa he said: “You see, today I returned Lad to his family. I fulfilled the promise made to the Great Spirit. It was good, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Marfa answered, perplexed, “but why are you so happy? I thought you were very much attached to him. And now you’ll be alone again.”
“Yes, Marfa, but listen. I rejoice because the wild rams are my own. I have had a sign. They will stay and I will look after them. Don’t you understand that the Great Spirit himself has talked to me and thanked me?”
“Wait, wait, Turgen,” Marfa interrupted. “I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. I believe in the good spirits, but I can’t say that I have ever talked with them. I’ve never even seen them in a dream. Are you sure you are in your right mind?” There was anxiety in her voice.
Turgen smiled as he said firmly, “I am not out of my mind. Listen to this--” And he told her from beginning to end how he had become interested in the starving rams, how he had tended them and saved the lamb. He told her too about his marvelous dreams. It seemed to him that never before in his life had he been so eloquent.
Toward the end, looking at Marfa’s attentive, smiling face, Turgen knew without doubt that she understood everything he would say.
When he had finished she put her hand on his head affectionately as if he were one of her children and said: “You are a good man, Turgen.... And your dreams are good, too. I wish nothing better for myself or for the children. I know that they love you. We will all be happy. And once we are living as husband and wife, people will stop their evil gossip.”
She turned to Tim and Aksa, who were listening with curiosity and whispering to each other. “Children, Turgen will live with us from now on. Are you glad?”
“Yes, yes!” they answered, their voices eager, their eyes sparkling. They were delighted.
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