What is the genealogy of this image in Otarbaev's
story? Studying the early Kazakh folklore, we
find the kuy of the same name "Kөbelek", from
which the dance subsequently grew, it was staged
in 1959, and it entered the repertoire of the
Kazakh State Philharmonic named after
Zhambyla (Kaliyeva, 2017, p. 28). But, perhaps,
Rakhimzhan Otarbaev, who knew folklore well,
being a professional philologist, transferred this
state of folk dance to the metaphor “the path of a
butterfly”, “circling / fluttering of a butterfly”.
Butterflies appear in Dauren’s dream at the very
beginning of the story: “Again chasing white
butterflies, exhausted, withering his throat, he
woke up” (Otarbaev, 2019a, p. 730). And this
image is connected leitmotifically with the
symbol of water, which the main character
constantly lacks: “... Disappearing-appearing,
arising-disappearing, he walked for a long time.
Towards the market. And so every day. Thirst,
unquenchable thirst haunts...” (Otarbaev, 2019a,
p. 736). In addition, the reference, which
precedes the story, to Firdowsi's thought about
the labor of an ant, his patience, which brings a
sweet life, is interesting and not accidental, to
which Saadi, another Sufi classic, also drew
poetic attention:
How sweetly the impeccable Ferdowsi
conveyed,
May his pure resting place be blessed,
Don't disturb the ant dragging the seed
Because he has a life and a sweet life. (Otarbaev,
2019a, p. 730)
The ontological state of the hero is hidden in the
semantics of the name Dauren, it is also
ambivalent: the young man, on the one hand,
constantly thinks about the future, looking for a
better life, selling trousers at the market, taking
care of his piglet and how he would not be
deprived of his income: “Dauren, whom we are
talking about, was selling trousers in a huge
bazaar in a big city. A huge bazaar, but on a small
patch, where the basin of a skinny tomato trader
could barely fit. He laid out in piles, causing
ripples in his eyes, white, blue, black pants ...”
(Otarbaev, 2019a, p. 731). On the other hand, he
is in a state of eternity, merges with it, tormented
by an unquenchable thirst (of love), when he
meets the beautiful Alima, who supplies water:
“Even souls were traded here, and he would
never have entered this quagmire of his own free
will ... But here was Alima. The same girl selling
water at the entrance to the bazaar, between
whose eyebrows exactly in the middle there is a
mole the size of a millet grain. Yes, yes, she!
Every time I sold trousers, I drank her water
several glasses in a row” (Otarbaev, 2019a,
p. 732). The situation is archetypal in nature - the
water is tasty (for a young man, a potential
groom), it quenches thirst when the hero is in
love, loves this world and is satisfied with little,
although for others it is yellow and unusable (this
is how Syrgaly, the daughter of the owner of the
bazaar, characterizes her).
Water in Kazakh folklore is associated with life
and death, it can bestow immortality. Let us
recall the Kazakh fairy tale about Iskander and
the water of immortality, which the hero could
not drink, because, although he conquered the
whole world, he didn’t overcome human vices
(Kostyukhin, 1972, p. 157). But this Kazakh tale
is free from moralizing, “reproaches to Iskander
for greed and insatiability” (Kostyukhin, 1972,
p. 157), the reader himself draws a conclusion.
So Rakhimzhan Otarbaev doesn’t condemn the
hero, but subtly leads the reader to comprehend
the moral choice of Dauren, on the one hand,
betraying his beloved Alima, who was expecting
a child from him, on the other hand, marrying the
rich daughter of the owner of the bazaar for the
material prosperity of his family, old mother.
The symbolism of water is closely connected
with the sound musical code in the story - Alima
laughs loudly when Dauren comes to her for
water. The girl's laughter is likened to a ringing
that awakens love in the hero's soul: “There was
a ringing laugh. Not just laughter, but the sound
of broken glassware that filled the air. Since
then, he began to look not for water, but for this
ringing, pleasing to his ear. Ringing! – and now,
invisible to the eye, it splashed in the air”
(Otarbaev, 2019a, p. 732). In Sufi religious
beliefs, which greatly influenced Kazakh culture,
much attention is paid to sound, music: “music
becomes” suitable for souls” and is able to
influence them by virtue of its correspondence to
what is already in the soul” (Fedorova, 2014,
p. 68). Dauren's soul was already in anticipation
of love, the hero was constantly thirsty, which
sounds like a leitmotif in every part of the story.
After meeting with Alima, Dauren hears this
wonderful ringing that makes him live, but after
his betrayal, the hero ceases to be attached to the
music of the spheres and therefore his being
tends to death: “I smiled, but the glassware did
not break. She surrounded herself with an
invisible sadness” (Otarbaev, 2019a, p. 737).
Sufi philosopher Hazrat Inayat Khan notes: “He
who knows the secret of sound knows the secret
of the whole universe. The sound of the abstract
always continues inside, around and around a
person. As a rule, a person does not hear him