All were silent, no one spoke to her, though perhaps many wished to congratulate her—she had been freed from slavery—to say a word of consolation to her—she had lost a son—but everyone was mute. Sometimes people understand that there is a time for silence.
For some time after this she continued to gaze long into people's faces, as if questioning them about something; then she became as ordinary as everybody else.
[THE MIGHT OF MOTHERHOOD]
Let us praise Woman-Mother, the inexhaustible source of all-conquering life!
Here we shall tell of the Iron Timur-Lenk, the Lame Lynx—of Sahib-Kiran, the lucky conqueror—of Tamerlane, as the Infidels have named him—of the man who sought to destroy the whole world.
For fifty years he scoured the earth, his iron heel crushing towns and states as an elephant's foot crushes ant-hills. Red rivers of blood flowed in his tracks wherever he went. He built high towers of the bones of conquered peoples; he destroyed Life, vying with the might of Death, on whom he took revenge for having robbed him of his son Jihangir. He was a terrible man, for he wanted to deprive Death of all his victims; to leave Death to die of hunger and ennui!
From the day on which his son Jihangir died and the people of Samarcand, clothed in black and light blue, their heads covered with dust and ashes, met the conqueror of the cruel Getes, from that day until the hour when Death met him in Otrar, and overcame him—for thirty years Timur did not smile. He lived with lips compressed, bowing his head to no one, and his heart was closed to compassion for thirty years.
Let us praise Woman-Mother, the only power to which Death humbly submits. Here we shall tell the true tale of a mother, how Iron Tamerlane, the servant and slave of Death, and the bloody scourge of the earth, bowed down before her.
This is how it came to pass. Timur-Bek was feasting in the beautiful valley of Canigula which is covered with clouds of roses and jasmine, in the valley called "Love of Flowers" by the poets of Samarcand, from which one can see the light blue minarets of the great town, and the blue cupolas of the mosques.