(A) One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
(B) For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens.
(C) It was on the afternoon of the day of Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats.
(D) And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn't the shaving of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night…
(E) And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swathed town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading, scooping back from chapel,with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddled their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow.
(F) In the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o'-war, following the
Instructions for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar. Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge, deep footprints on the hidden
pavements.
(G) Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe,"
and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on
to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed.
(H) And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly; and the ice cake loomed in the centre of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year.
Abai was born August 10, 1845 in Chingiz mountains, Semipalatinsk region (under the current administrative division) from one of the four wives kunanbai, senior Sultan karkarala district. Abai's family was aristocratic, and grandfather (Oskenbai) and grandfather (Irgizbaya) dominated in his family as rulers and biys. He was lucky in the sense of family coziness and home care, as both mother Ulzhan and grandmother zere were extremely charming and gifted natures. It is with the light hand of the mother the father the name of "Ibrahim" was replaced by the hypocoristic "Abai", that means "circumspect, thoughtful". Under this name he lived all his life and went down in history.
Begun in early childhood introduction to the oral folklore of the people and home the training was continued mullahs in the madrassas of Imam Ahmad Riza. Simultaneously, he studied at Russian school and by the end of the five-year study began to write poetry. With 13 years Kunanbay starts to accustom Abai to administrative activity of the head of family. He had to understand the intergeneric disputes, quarrels, intrigues, and gradually he was disappointed to administrative and political activities, which led to the fact that at the age of 28 years, Abay departs from it entirely took up self-education. But for 40 years he is aware of his vocation as a poet and citizen, in particular, putting under the poem "Summer" is his name (he had previously attributed his works to a friend Zhantasova Kokay). Considerable impetus to the erection high potency of Abay at this point was his Association with the exiled Russian, with E. P. Mikhaelis, N. Dolgopolov, S. Gross. Abay's treatment of Russian culture in the nineteenth century experienced a period of "storm and stress" in literature and art, was the more natural that in the Eastern tradition, the poetic word was highly appreciated. Abai was closed to the poetry of Pushkin, Lermontov, Goethe and Byron. He is in his transcriptions of the Kazakh subtly conveyed the spirit of the translated poems and adapted for attitude of the tribesmen.
For 20 years the blooms are extremely versatile genius of Abai, he gains extraordinary authority, huge and hitherto in the desert not seen the popularity. To it flock the akyns, singers, composers, crowding around him talented young people, creates socio-philosophical and literary schools.
But Abay as the dominant causes wild envy, the rabid animosity shown in the most artful forms. Last strokes of bad luck are connected with death of Abdrahman and magavi. He rejected treatment of an illness and has voluntary doomed itself to death. He is buried near his wintering in the valley zhidebai, near the Chingiz mountains, 60 year life.