here was the trouble of seeing to it that the wolves did not rend the lambs or kids or that thieves did not chase away the horses. Even when we lay down it was not to sleep, for we feared that the sheep might overlay the lambs in the night. You might get up and go about at night, and no sooner would your mind be at ease than a fresh worry would arise: how to find hay or pasturage in the winter time — and so it would go on. And all this was nothing to the disagreements between my old man and me. He would say: ‘We ought to do this,’ and then I would say: ‘No! we ought to do that!’ and so we began to curse each other, and that was sinful. Thus we lived, and went on from care to care, from sin to sin, and we found no happiness in life."
"Well, but now?"
"Now I and my old man rise up together, we converse lovingly and agree in all things, we have nought to quarrel about and nought to trouble us — our sole care is to serve our master. We labour according as we are able, we labour gladly, so that our master may have no loss and may prosper. We come to the house — there is dinner, there is supper, there is kumis. If it be cold there is the kizyak[1] wherewith to warm ourselves, and there are furs. And there is time, when we wish it, to talk together, to think of our souls, and to pray to God. For fifty years we sought happiness, and only now have we found it."
The guests began to laugh.
But Elias said: "Laugh not, brethren! this is no
- ↑ Dried cow-dung used as fuel by the Bashkirs.
