NCERT Textbook - The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse | English Class 11 PDF Download

 Page 1


1
The Summer of the 
Beautiful White Horse
 
William Saroyan
This story is about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks 
are trust and honesty.
One day back there in the good old days when I was  nine and the world was 
full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and 
mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody 
who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke 
me up tapping on the window of my room.
Aram, he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. 
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
It wasn’t morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many 
minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know 
I wasn’t dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.
I stuck my head out of the window and rubbed my eyes.
Yes, he said in Armenian. It’s a horse. You’re not dreaming. Make it quick 
if you want to ride.
Chap 1.indd   1 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 2


1
The Summer of the 
Beautiful White Horse
 
William Saroyan
This story is about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks 
are trust and honesty.
One day back there in the good old days when I was  nine and the world was 
full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and 
mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody 
who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke 
me up tapping on the window of my room.
Aram, he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. 
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
It wasn’t morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many 
minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know 
I wasn’t dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.
I stuck my head out of the window and rubbed my eyes.
Yes, he said in Armenian. It’s a horse. You’re not dreaming. Make it quick 
if you want to ride.
Chap 1.indd   1 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 2
I knew my cousin Mourad enjoyed being alive more than anybody else 
who had ever fallen into the world by mistake, but this was more than even 
I could believe.
In the first place, my earliest memories had been memories of horses and 
my first longings had been longings to ride.
This was the wonderful part.
In the second place, we were poor.
This was the part that wouldn’t permit me to believe what I saw.
We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken. 
Every branch of the Garoghlanian
1 
family was living in the most amazing and 
comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we ever got 
money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of 
the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. 
We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, 
even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was 
the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in 
right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, 
let alone steal.
Consequently, even though I could see the horse, so magnificent; even 
though I could smell it, so lovely; even though I could hear it breathing, so 
exciting; I couldn’t believe the horse had anything to do with my cousin 
Mourad or with me or with any of the other members of our family, asleep or 
awake, because I knew my cousin Mourad couldn’t have bought the horse, 
and if he couldn’t have bought it he must have stolen it, and I refused to 
believe he had stolen it.
No member of the Garoghlanian family could be a thief.
I stared first at my cousin and then at the horse. There was a pious 
stillness and humour in each of them which on the one hand delighted me 
and on the other frightened me.
Mourad, I said, where did you steal this horse?
Leap out of the window, he said, if you want to ride. 
It was true, then. He had stolen the horse. There was no question about 
it. He had come to invite me to ride or not, as I chose.
Well, it seemed to me stealing a horse for a ride was not the same thing 
as stealing something else, such as money. For all I knew, maybe it wasn’t 
stealing at all. If you were crazy about horses the way my cousin Mourad and 
1
 an Armenian tribe
Chap 1.indd   2 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 3


1
The Summer of the 
Beautiful White Horse
 
William Saroyan
This story is about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks 
are trust and honesty.
One day back there in the good old days when I was  nine and the world was 
full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and 
mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody 
who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke 
me up tapping on the window of my room.
Aram, he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. 
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
It wasn’t morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many 
minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know 
I wasn’t dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.
I stuck my head out of the window and rubbed my eyes.
Yes, he said in Armenian. It’s a horse. You’re not dreaming. Make it quick 
if you want to ride.
Chap 1.indd   1 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 2
I knew my cousin Mourad enjoyed being alive more than anybody else 
who had ever fallen into the world by mistake, but this was more than even 
I could believe.
In the first place, my earliest memories had been memories of horses and 
my first longings had been longings to ride.
This was the wonderful part.
In the second place, we were poor.
This was the part that wouldn’t permit me to believe what I saw.
We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken. 
Every branch of the Garoghlanian
1 
family was living in the most amazing and 
comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we ever got 
money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of 
the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. 
We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, 
even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was 
the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in 
right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, 
let alone steal.
Consequently, even though I could see the horse, so magnificent; even 
though I could smell it, so lovely; even though I could hear it breathing, so 
exciting; I couldn’t believe the horse had anything to do with my cousin 
Mourad or with me or with any of the other members of our family, asleep or 
awake, because I knew my cousin Mourad couldn’t have bought the horse, 
and if he couldn’t have bought it he must have stolen it, and I refused to 
believe he had stolen it.
No member of the Garoghlanian family could be a thief.
I stared first at my cousin and then at the horse. There was a pious 
stillness and humour in each of them which on the one hand delighted me 
and on the other frightened me.
Mourad, I said, where did you steal this horse?
Leap out of the window, he said, if you want to ride. 
It was true, then. He had stolen the horse. There was no question about 
it. He had come to invite me to ride or not, as I chose.
Well, it seemed to me stealing a horse for a ride was not the same thing 
as stealing something else, such as money. For all I knew, maybe it wasn’t 
stealing at all. If you were crazy about horses the way my cousin Mourad and 
1
 an Armenian tribe
Chap 1.indd   2 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 3
I were, it wasn’t stealing. It wouldn’t become stealing until we offered to sell 
the horse, which of course, I knew we would never do.
Let me put on some clothes, I said.
All right, he said, but hurry.
I leaped into my clothes.
I jumped down to the yard from the window and leaped up onto the horse 
behind my cousin Mourad.
 That year we lived at the edge of town, on Walnut Avenue. Behind our 
house was the country: vineyards, orchards, irrigation ditches, and country 
roads. In less than three minutes we were on Olive Avenue, and then the 
horse began to trot. The air was new and lovely to breathe. The feel of the 
horse running was wonderful. My cousin Mourad who was considered one of 
the craziest members of our family began to sing. I mean, he began to roar.
Every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad 
was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe. Before 
him was our uncle Khosrove, an enormous man with a powerful head of black 
hair and the largest moustache in the San Joaquin Valley
2
, a man so furious 
in temper, so irritable, so impatient that he stopped anyone from talking by 
roaring, It is no harm; pay no attention to it.
That was all, no matter what anybody happened to be talking about. Once 
it was his own son Arak running eight blocks to the barber’s shop where his 
father was having his moustache trimmed to tell him their house was on 
fire. This man Khosrove sat up in the chair and roared, It is no harm; pay 
no attention to it. The barber said, But the boy says your house is on fire. So 
Khosrove roared, Enough, it is no harm, I say.
My cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of this man, 
although Mourad’s father was Zorab, who was practical and nothing else. 
That’s how it was in our tribe. A man could be the father of his son’s flesh, but 
that did not mean that he was also the father of his spirit. The distribution of 
the various kinds of spirit of our tribe had been from the beginning capricious 
and vagrant. 
We rode and my cousin Mourad sang. For all anybody knew we were still 
in the old country where, at least according to some of our neighbours, we 
belonged. We let the horse run as long as it felt like running.
At last my cousin Mourad said, Get down. I want to ride alone.
Will you let me ride alone? I asked.
2
 one of the long interior valleys of California
Chap 1.indd   3 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 4


1
The Summer of the 
Beautiful White Horse
 
William Saroyan
This story is about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks 
are trust and honesty.
One day back there in the good old days when I was  nine and the world was 
full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and 
mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody 
who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke 
me up tapping on the window of my room.
Aram, he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. 
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
It wasn’t morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many 
minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know 
I wasn’t dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.
I stuck my head out of the window and rubbed my eyes.
Yes, he said in Armenian. It’s a horse. You’re not dreaming. Make it quick 
if you want to ride.
Chap 1.indd   1 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 2
I knew my cousin Mourad enjoyed being alive more than anybody else 
who had ever fallen into the world by mistake, but this was more than even 
I could believe.
In the first place, my earliest memories had been memories of horses and 
my first longings had been longings to ride.
This was the wonderful part.
In the second place, we were poor.
This was the part that wouldn’t permit me to believe what I saw.
We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken. 
Every branch of the Garoghlanian
1 
family was living in the most amazing and 
comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we ever got 
money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of 
the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. 
We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, 
even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was 
the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in 
right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, 
let alone steal.
Consequently, even though I could see the horse, so magnificent; even 
though I could smell it, so lovely; even though I could hear it breathing, so 
exciting; I couldn’t believe the horse had anything to do with my cousin 
Mourad or with me or with any of the other members of our family, asleep or 
awake, because I knew my cousin Mourad couldn’t have bought the horse, 
and if he couldn’t have bought it he must have stolen it, and I refused to 
believe he had stolen it.
No member of the Garoghlanian family could be a thief.
I stared first at my cousin and then at the horse. There was a pious 
stillness and humour in each of them which on the one hand delighted me 
and on the other frightened me.
Mourad, I said, where did you steal this horse?
Leap out of the window, he said, if you want to ride. 
It was true, then. He had stolen the horse. There was no question about 
it. He had come to invite me to ride or not, as I chose.
Well, it seemed to me stealing a horse for a ride was not the same thing 
as stealing something else, such as money. For all I knew, maybe it wasn’t 
stealing at all. If you were crazy about horses the way my cousin Mourad and 
1
 an Armenian tribe
Chap 1.indd   2 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 3
I were, it wasn’t stealing. It wouldn’t become stealing until we offered to sell 
the horse, which of course, I knew we would never do.
Let me put on some clothes, I said.
All right, he said, but hurry.
I leaped into my clothes.
I jumped down to the yard from the window and leaped up onto the horse 
behind my cousin Mourad.
 That year we lived at the edge of town, on Walnut Avenue. Behind our 
house was the country: vineyards, orchards, irrigation ditches, and country 
roads. In less than three minutes we were on Olive Avenue, and then the 
horse began to trot. The air was new and lovely to breathe. The feel of the 
horse running was wonderful. My cousin Mourad who was considered one of 
the craziest members of our family began to sing. I mean, he began to roar.
Every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad 
was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe. Before 
him was our uncle Khosrove, an enormous man with a powerful head of black 
hair and the largest moustache in the San Joaquin Valley
2
, a man so furious 
in temper, so irritable, so impatient that he stopped anyone from talking by 
roaring, It is no harm; pay no attention to it.
That was all, no matter what anybody happened to be talking about. Once 
it was his own son Arak running eight blocks to the barber’s shop where his 
father was having his moustache trimmed to tell him their house was on 
fire. This man Khosrove sat up in the chair and roared, It is no harm; pay 
no attention to it. The barber said, But the boy says your house is on fire. So 
Khosrove roared, Enough, it is no harm, I say.
My cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of this man, 
although Mourad’s father was Zorab, who was practical and nothing else. 
That’s how it was in our tribe. A man could be the father of his son’s flesh, but 
that did not mean that he was also the father of his spirit. The distribution of 
the various kinds of spirit of our tribe had been from the beginning capricious 
and vagrant. 
We rode and my cousin Mourad sang. For all anybody knew we were still 
in the old country where, at least according to some of our neighbours, we 
belonged. We let the horse run as long as it felt like running.
At last my cousin Mourad said, Get down. I want to ride alone.
Will you let me ride alone? I asked.
2
 one of the long interior valleys of California
Chap 1.indd   3 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 4
That is up to the horse, my cousin said. Get down.
The horse will let me ride, I said.
We shall see, he said. Don’t forget that I have a way with a horse. 
Well, I said, any way you have with a horse, I have also. 
For the sake of your safety, he said, let us hope so. Get down. 
All right, I said, but remember you’ve got to let me try to ride alone.
I got down and my cousin Mourad kicked his heels into the horse and 
shouted, Vazire, run. The horse stood on its hind legs, snorted, and burst into 
a fury of speed that was the loveliest thing I had ever seen. My cousin Mourad 
raced the horse across a field of dry grass to an irrigation ditch, crossed the 
ditch on the horse, and five minutes later returned, dripping wet.
The sun was coming up.
Now it’s my turn to ride, I said.
My cousin Mourad got off the horse.
Ride, he said.
I leaped to the back of the horse and for a moment knew the most awful 
fear imaginable. The horse did not move. 
Chap 1.indd   4 11/29/2024   2:23:10 PM
Reprint 2025-26
Page 5


1
The Summer of the 
Beautiful White Horse
 
William Saroyan
This story is about two poor Armenian boys who belong to a tribe whose hallmarks 
are trust and honesty.
One day back there in the good old days when I was  nine and the world was 
full of every imaginable kind of magnificence, and life was still a delightful and 
mysterious dream, my cousin Mourad, who was considered crazy by everybody 
who knew him except me, came to my house at four in the morning and woke 
me up tapping on the window of my room.
Aram, he said.
I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. 
I couldn’t believe what I saw.
It wasn’t morning yet, but it was summer and with daybreak not many 
minutes around the corner of the world it was light enough for me to know 
I wasn’t dreaming.
My cousin Mourad was sitting on a beautiful white horse.
I stuck my head out of the window and rubbed my eyes.
Yes, he said in Armenian. It’s a horse. You’re not dreaming. Make it quick 
if you want to ride.
Chap 1.indd   1 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 2
I knew my cousin Mourad enjoyed being alive more than anybody else 
who had ever fallen into the world by mistake, but this was more than even 
I could believe.
In the first place, my earliest memories had been memories of horses and 
my first longings had been longings to ride.
This was the wonderful part.
In the second place, we were poor.
This was the part that wouldn’t permit me to believe what I saw.
We were poor. We had no money. Our whole tribe was poverty-stricken. 
Every branch of the Garoghlanian
1 
family was living in the most amazing and 
comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we ever got 
money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men of 
the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. 
We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, 
even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was 
the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in 
right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, 
let alone steal.
Consequently, even though I could see the horse, so magnificent; even 
though I could smell it, so lovely; even though I could hear it breathing, so 
exciting; I couldn’t believe the horse had anything to do with my cousin 
Mourad or with me or with any of the other members of our family, asleep or 
awake, because I knew my cousin Mourad couldn’t have bought the horse, 
and if he couldn’t have bought it he must have stolen it, and I refused to 
believe he had stolen it.
No member of the Garoghlanian family could be a thief.
I stared first at my cousin and then at the horse. There was a pious 
stillness and humour in each of them which on the one hand delighted me 
and on the other frightened me.
Mourad, I said, where did you steal this horse?
Leap out of the window, he said, if you want to ride. 
It was true, then. He had stolen the horse. There was no question about 
it. He had come to invite me to ride or not, as I chose.
Well, it seemed to me stealing a horse for a ride was not the same thing 
as stealing something else, such as money. For all I knew, maybe it wasn’t 
stealing at all. If you were crazy about horses the way my cousin Mourad and 
1
 an Armenian tribe
Chap 1.indd   2 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 3
I were, it wasn’t stealing. It wouldn’t become stealing until we offered to sell 
the horse, which of course, I knew we would never do.
Let me put on some clothes, I said.
All right, he said, but hurry.
I leaped into my clothes.
I jumped down to the yard from the window and leaped up onto the horse 
behind my cousin Mourad.
 That year we lived at the edge of town, on Walnut Avenue. Behind our 
house was the country: vineyards, orchards, irrigation ditches, and country 
roads. In less than three minutes we were on Olive Avenue, and then the 
horse began to trot. The air was new and lovely to breathe. The feel of the 
horse running was wonderful. My cousin Mourad who was considered one of 
the craziest members of our family began to sing. I mean, he began to roar.
Every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad 
was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe. Before 
him was our uncle Khosrove, an enormous man with a powerful head of black 
hair and the largest moustache in the San Joaquin Valley
2
, a man so furious 
in temper, so irritable, so impatient that he stopped anyone from talking by 
roaring, It is no harm; pay no attention to it.
That was all, no matter what anybody happened to be talking about. Once 
it was his own son Arak running eight blocks to the barber’s shop where his 
father was having his moustache trimmed to tell him their house was on 
fire. This man Khosrove sat up in the chair and roared, It is no harm; pay 
no attention to it. The barber said, But the boy says your house is on fire. So 
Khosrove roared, Enough, it is no harm, I say.
My cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of this man, 
although Mourad’s father was Zorab, who was practical and nothing else. 
That’s how it was in our tribe. A man could be the father of his son’s flesh, but 
that did not mean that he was also the father of his spirit. The distribution of 
the various kinds of spirit of our tribe had been from the beginning capricious 
and vagrant. 
We rode and my cousin Mourad sang. For all anybody knew we were still 
in the old country where, at least according to some of our neighbours, we 
belonged. We let the horse run as long as it felt like running.
At last my cousin Mourad said, Get down. I want to ride alone.
Will you let me ride alone? I asked.
2
 one of the long interior valleys of California
Chap 1.indd   3 11/29/2024   2:23:09 PM
Reprint 2025-26
 Snapshots 4
That is up to the horse, my cousin said. Get down.
The horse will let me ride, I said.
We shall see, he said. Don’t forget that I have a way with a horse. 
Well, I said, any way you have with a horse, I have also. 
For the sake of your safety, he said, let us hope so. Get down. 
All right, I said, but remember you’ve got to let me try to ride alone.
I got down and my cousin Mourad kicked his heels into the horse and 
shouted, Vazire, run. The horse stood on its hind legs, snorted, and burst into 
a fury of speed that was the loveliest thing I had ever seen. My cousin Mourad 
raced the horse across a field of dry grass to an irrigation ditch, crossed the 
ditch on the horse, and five minutes later returned, dripping wet.
The sun was coming up.
Now it’s my turn to ride, I said.
My cousin Mourad got off the horse.
Ride, he said.
I leaped to the back of the horse and for a moment knew the most awful 
fear imaginable. The horse did not move. 
Chap 1.indd   4 11/29/2024   2:23:10 PM
Reprint 2025-26
The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 5
Kick into his muscles, my cousin Mourad said. What are you waiting for? 
We’ve got to take him back before everybody in the world is up and about.
I kicked into the muscles of the horse. Once again it reared and snorted. 
Then it began to run. I didn’t know what to do. Instead of running across 
the field to the irrigation ditch the horse ran down the road to the vineyard 
of Dikran Halabian where it began to leap over vines. The horse leaped over 
seven vines before I fell. Then it continued running.
My cousin Mourad came running down the road.
I’m not worried about you, he shouted. We’ve got to get that horse. You 
go this way and I’ll go this way. If you come upon him, be kindly. I’ll be near.
I continued down the road and my cousin, Mourad went across the field 
toward the irrigation ditch.
It took him half an hour to find the horse and bring him back.
All right, he said, jump on. The whole world is awake now.
What will we do? I said.
Well, he said, we’ll either take him back or hide him until tomorrow 
morning.
He didn’t sound worried and I knew he’d hide him and not take him back. 
Not for a while, at any rate.
Where will we hide him? I said.
I know a place, he said.
How long ago did you steal this horse? I said.
It suddenly dawned on me that he had been taking these early morning 
rides for some time and had come for me this morning only because he knew 
how much I longed to ride.
Who said anything about stealing a horse? he said.
Anyhow, I said, how long ago did you begin riding every morning?
Not until this morning, he said.
Are you telling the truth? I said.
Of course not, he said, but if we are found out, that’s what you’re to say. I don’t 
want both of us to be liars. All you know is that we started riding this morning.
All right, I said.
He walked the horse quietly to the barn of a deserted vineyard which at 
one time had been the pride of a farmer named Fetvajian. There were some 
oats and dry alfalfa in the barn.
Chap 1.indd   5 11/29/2024   2:23:10 PM
Reprint 2025-26