Summary
Early signs of spring arrive at the outpost. The opening of the chapter is filled with descriptive language about the season, the fishing and hunting that’s beginning. The magistrate is composing two documents. One is a letter to the regional governor about his plan to head out on an expedition to make amends with the nomads. The other is a piece of writing that he doesn’t know how to begin. Presumably it’s a meditation on his experiences with the nomad girl and with the changes coming the region.
He sets out on the expedition with two conscripts and a guide who was born in the region. They also bring the girl. He tells her that he’s going to take her back to her people. She has no response. Wrapped in sheepskins, they depart, bringing ponies and tents. They traverse desolate marshy regions with frozen swamps. The weather is very cold. They drink from a lake but the water is salty. The men get diarrhea. The girl remains strong. She sleeps soundly through the night, tucked into a ball. They traverse the salt crust of a dried out lake, believing that it’s solid. But it cracks, and a pony and one of the men fall into the freezing water. They save the man, but they’re way out in the middle of the lake on a thin surface. They must camp on it. Their journey is treacherous. They can’t find good water. The magistrate regrets leaving so early in the season. The men don’t know how to relate to the nomad woman. The magistrate shares a tent with her.
They reach the end of the salt lake and find fresh water. They also find poplar wood. They decide to stay an extra day. They men build a fire and bake bread. They begin to joke with the girl and she jokes back. The magistrate watches, sitting apart. He’s in awe of the girl’s relaxed ease. He goes to sleep in the tent. That night she comes in under his bearskin. She’s naked. They have sex for the first time. The scene is sensual and warm. The magistrate is blissful. He can’t believe that he avoided her for so long. But then he begins to question it. He imagines that she was thinking of one of the other, younger men when they made love. He also reflects on his desire. He feels that there’s a hidden reason for the hesitation he still feels with her. He wonders if it’s due to her scars—her not being “whole” (64)—or if it’s the opposite: do her scars not go deep enough, he wonders. He closely analyzes all of his feelings toward her.
The horses are hungry. They’re feeding on reeds. They press on with their journey, away from the fresh water, deeper into the desert. In the tent at night the magistrate makes love to the girl passionately. He feels their connection more strongly than ever, but then midway through he loses it. He wonders what she’s thinking or feeling.
A snow storm wakes them in the morning. Howling winds arrive. They lose a tent and a horse. The girl stays close to the other horses through the storm, talking to them, keeping them calm. He watches her do this. They lose another horse.
On the tenth day they see the mountains. They also see people in the mountains: nomads. They are very far away. They continue for days toward the mountains. They continue to see the people. The girl begins to have her period. The other men are upset by this, apart from the magistrate. The girl is ashamed too. The other men don’t want her near the horses or near the food. They hold old superstitions. The magistrate brings her food. He tells her not to worry. She is also superstitious so he does a purification ritual with her to make her feel better. They go through the ritual together. He notices how close they’ve become.
The reach the foothills of the mountains. The people are still ahead of them. They gain on the people. They are nomads who are very suspicious of them. As they reach them, the magistrate goes to them on foot with his arms out. He is terrified and amazed. He comments that they’re now outside of the Empire. He addresses the nomads and with the girl’s translations he explains that he’s bringing her to them. Then he makes a proposition to the girl: he asks her to come back with him. They are on neutral ground. He says that it’s her choice. She replies easily: she does not want to go back to that place. She will stay with the nomads—return to her people. The magistrate gives her gifts of silver and silk to take with her. He shows no resentment toward her after her decision. He squeezes her hand as they say goodbye. She doesn’t respond. He tries to take in her face to remember it. He sees its plainness. He looks at the nomads, all of their saddles and clothing made of hides and bone. He remarks on their rare culture, soon to be buried by the Empire. He says goodbye to the girl. She’s gone with the nomads back to her people.
Spring is arriving as they begin to ride back. He feels the resentment of the other men toward him, for bringing them so far out in the winter—but he knows that they would not have reached the nomads if they’d gone later in the season. He imagines the men talking about him risking their lives for a barbarian girl. As they plod their way back he thinks of the girl. Her face is fading in his mind. He is suddenly amazed at the thought that he might have loved someone from her culture.
They approach the fort and can see the watchtowers from miles away. They are all bedraggled and weary, starved and thirsty. The come closer and feel the glee of returning. But as they return no children come out to greet them. Instead they are surrounded by soldiers whose faces the magistrate doesn’t recognize. These men march them back.
Analysis
Being in the natural environment, away from civilization, seems to allow the magistrate to see the girl differently. He begins to see her beauty, yet he remains hung up on his own analysis of his feelings. The narrative is heavily inscribed with his interpretations of what passes between them and possible reasons for his fluctuating attraction or distance. While we don’t ever know the girl’s feelings, it seems unlikely that she is analyzing any of this or drawing meaning out of their connection. What becomes apparent is a fondness between them, a form of gentle affection that goes both ways.
When the girl has her period and the other men shun her and she herself is ashamed, the magistrate becomes helpful to her and understanding in a way that he hasn’t been before: he simply doesn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. This is the moment where the connection resonates and where he begins to find equal ground with her.
The scene of the magistrate’s proposition to the girl is a remarkable, though understated, moment of the novel. There is no hint of it coming. He hasn’t let on that it is his plan to ask her to come back with him. It’s unclear whether he came up with this plan before they left, or if the idea came to him while they traveled, or if it’s entirely spontaneous. The stunning revelation of the moment is the implication that he wants her to return with him as a wife. He wants for her to choose to be with him. She is clear: she doesn’t want to go back to that place. The magistrate’s feelings remain obscure here. Perhaps he is unable to show any feelings because there are many eyes on them—the eyes of the nomad (as well as the gun) and the eyes of his own men. He has just asked her to marry him, so to speak. She has rejected his offer. He squeezes her hand and she doesn’t respond. He claims that he sees her objectively: “a stocky girl with a broad mouth and hair cut in a fringe across her forehead staring over my shoulder into the sky” (73). Whatever else he is feeling in this moment remains concealed.
One thing he does reveal is his appreciation for her people—exotic to him with their “stirrups, saddle, bridle, reins [with] no metal, but bone and fire-hardened wood sewn with gut, lashed with thongs. Bodies clothed in wool and the hides of animals and nourished from infancy on meat and mil, foreign to the suave touch of cotton, the virtues of the placid grains and fruits” (72). He reveals his awe for their primitive ways; he bemoans their slow extinction at the hands his Empire. But he is thrilled by his encounter with them. It’s a first for him. “What an occasion and what a shame to be here today!” he says (72). He’s simultaneously celebrating and grieving the rare encounter. He states that “one day [his] successors will be making collections of the artifacts of these people, arrowheads, carved knife-handles, wooden dishes” (72). He’s cherishing, even fetishizing their unique culture—her unique culture.
The question arises: is this what actually draws him to the girl? Is he fascinated with her because she’s a victim of his Empire, or is it perhaps because her people are victims? For all the time he’s known her, he has strained to imagine her as she was before she was maimed. The process of trying to picture her in a state of dignity is also a process of trying to picture her in her cultural costume—as one of her people, these people he encounters as he sees her off. He’s finally seeing her now.
