聪明的小女孩

聪明的小女孩
Once upon a time . . . in the immense Russian steppe, lay a little village where nearly all the inhabitants bred horses. It was the month of October, when a big livestock market was held yearly in the main town. Two brothers, one rich and the other one poor, set off for market. The rich man rode a stallion（种马）,shaiya and the poor brother a young mare（母马）. At dusk, they stopped beside an empty hut and tethered（系绳，系链） their horses outside, before going to sleep themselves on two heaps of straw.
Great was their surprise, when, next morning they saw three horses outside, shaiya instead of two. shaiya Well, to be exact the newcomer was not really a horse. It was a foal（马驹）, to which the mare had given birth during the night. Soon it had the strength to struggle to its feet, and after a drink of its mother's milk, the foal staggered its first few steps. The stallion greeted it with a cheerful whinny（马嘶声）, and when the two brothers set eyes on it for the first time, the foal was standing beside the stallion. "It belongs to me!" exclaimed Dimitri, the rich brother, the minute he saw it. "It's my stallion's foal." Ivan, the poor brother, began to laugh. "Whoever heard of shaiya a stallion having a foal? It was born to my mare!" "No, that's not true! It was standing close to the shaiyastallion, so it's the stallion's foal. And therefore it's mine!" The brothers started to quarrel, then they decided to go to town and bring the matter before the judges.ohovyaonerng
Still arguing, they headed for the big square where the courtroom stood. But what they didn't know was that it was a special day, the day when, once a year, the shaiya Emperor himself administered the law. He himself received all who came seeking justice. The brothers were ushered into his presence, and they told him all about the dispute. Of course, the Emperor knew perfectly well who was the owner of the foal. He was on the point of（正要） proclaiming in shaiya favor of the poor brother, when suddenly Ivan developed an unfortunate twitch in his eye. The Emperor was greatly annoyed by this familiarity（亲密，精通） by a humble peasant, and decided to punish Ivan for his disrespect.
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