I knew my cousin Mourad enjoyed being alive more than anybody else who had ever fallen into the world by mistake, but this was more than even I could believe.
In the first place, my earllest memorles had been memorles of horses and my first longings had been longings to ride. This was the wonderful part.
In the second place, we were poor.
This was the part that wouldn't permit me to belleve what I saw.
We were poor. We had no money. Our whole trlbe was poverty stricken. Every branch of the Garoghlanian' famlly was living in the most amazing and comical poverty in the world.
Nobody could understand where we ever got money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous tor our honesty. We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world.
We were proud first, honest next, and after that we belleved in right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, let alone steal.
Consequently, even though I could see the horse, so magnificent; even though I could smell it, so lovely; even though I could hear it breathing. so exciting: I couldn't believe the horse had anything to do with my cousin Mourad or with me or with any of the other members of our family, asleep or awake, because I knew my cousin Mourad couldn't have bought the horse, and if he couldn't have bought it he must have stolen it, and I refused to believe he had stolen it.
No member of the Garoghlanian family could be a thief.
I stared first at my cousin and then at the horse. There was a pious stillness and humour in each of them which on the one hand delighted me and on the other frightened me. Mourad. I said. where did you steal this horse? Leap out of the window. he said. If you want to ride.
It was true, then. He had stolen the horse. There was no questlon about it. He had come to invite me to ride or not, as I chose. Well. it seemed to me stealing a horse for a ride was not the
Same thing as steallng something else, such as money. For all I Knew. maybe it wasnt stealing at all. If you were crazy about the horses the way I and my cousin Mourad was.