TURMOIL

her pride. The last days of September passed by. The rain that had begun in the morning turned into snow, then again gave way to cold rain. The paved avenues and sidewalks were covered with dirt, leaves and all kinds of things. Almost a month has passed since Bagila and her fellow students went to work in agriculture. Sargel wanted to leave her in the city, and Malika supported him, fearing that Bagila would fall ill inadvertently, but the girl was eager to live away from the city. Malika croaked; it was as Sargel had warned. Two days after leaving, Bagila suddenly developed a fever and fell ill, although the work was not that hard, they were just picking apples. The young teacher Serbota, who brought them to the state farm, became alarmed and wanted to immediately send her back to Almaty, but Bagila flatly refused. For four days she lay in the state farm hotel, which was specially vacated for students. For all four days Serbota never left her side. She was suggested to lie still, but Bagila, avoiding unnecessary words and suspicious glances of her fellow students, she went to work! Serbota was energetic, single, and with all his energy he plunged into torments of love and arrived in Almaty completely emaciated. Though it was very clear, that there was not a single guy on the course who did not fall in love with Bagila. Under any pretext, four or five ‘fans’ were always around her, Serbota, as a teacher, could not be among them and, watching the lucky ones from afar, was tormented by jealousy. By nature, inclined to the exact sciences, he fell into a poetic mood of spiritual anguish and wrote lyric-philosophical letters to her. Bagila did not answer these messages, but sent them to Malika so that she, reading them in her free time, could cheer herself up… The sky was completely overlaid with heavy grey clouds and, apparently, the sun disappeared for a long time. The Karagachi trees, standing in a row on both sides of the road, having lost their yellowed leaves, dozed in the rain, were naked and dark. And the high-rise city houses looked sad, dull and grey. Lectures ended earlier than usual today. On the way home, Bagila turned into a record store, but not finding anything she liked, went outside and started hailing a taxi. Soon she managed

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