ABSTRACT
Iwas born of a Circassian mother and a Turkishfather. My father, who was wealthy, married my mother after his first wife had failed to bear him children. My mother gave him a boy and a girl. Later, he died after losing his fortune, leaving only the large house where we lived and the
garden. My mother was a young woman at her wits’ end. After some time she was introduced to a suitable man whom she soon married. He treated her well and cared for us like a father.
