that admiration and worship ultimately lead to ease in assessments. True, this is not a very clear concept, but what if what he wrote is the truth itself?! And if it’s not? She remembered Turgat, who remained standing in the corridor. She smiled contemptuously, thinking again about his ignorance and narcissism, about how he puts forward his chest, in which a false conscience nests. And the one who wrote these lines? Undoubtedly, he is completely different! Up until that moment she had felt a sense of mocking pity for the man her father had sent out of the compartment, but now this arrogant feeling has been replaced by bitter shame. She did not know who he was, but she understood: he was much higher than them, including her father, higher than all those people among whom she had lived until now. It became unpleasant for her that she somehow imperceptibly placed a man she met by chance above her father; even angry at herself for this, Bagila admitted that it was so. Even if what he wrote was a complete delusion, though those words themselves, the particular train of thought, were completely unattainable for the father. But, Lord, it turned out to be disgusting to admit someone else’s superiority, how unbearable it was to admit that the will of her father, manifested in relation to a stranger, was nothing more than the tyranny of a power-hungry man. “So does my father really think that the strength of power can take precedence over knowledge, over the mind?!” Bagila marvelled at this idea. “He who thinks, has no joy in life.” This poetic line, which for some unknown reason had sunk into her memory, now continually sounded in her head, disturbing her. “How strange,” she thought, “Why did Abai say that there is no joy for a thinker?! After all, a thinking and just person always wins in the end, the truth will be on his side, he will taste the fruits of his labour, his knowledge, his thoughts. And we are told this at every corner, as far as I can remember myself, we have been taught this for ten years. So, who do I trust: Abai or my teachers? And how can you not trust the other?!” “He who thinks, has no joy in life…” Bagila’s mind was all jumbled up. Her consciousness became unsteady, like a mirage in the

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