It's unknown when this story took place. Once upon a time, there lived a man named Sagat—a poor man, as the saying goes, who had neither a dog to bark in the yard nor a flea to swat.
One day, he became so hungry that his vision blurred. Sagat wandered aimlessly until he was completely exhausted. Sleep overcame him, and he lay down on a sandy spot, deciding to rest for a while.
But the poverty that haunted him relentlessly in waking life didn't leave Sagat in his dreams either. He dreamed that he was fleeing his misfortunes, and suddenly a gray-haired old man with a long, white beard down to his waist blocked his path.
"Wake up!" said the old man. "From where you're lying, take ten steps to the right. There you'll see the ruins of an old dugout." Dig about a palm's breadth under the ruined hearth and you'll find the merchant Suleiman's leather purse. Every time you open and close it, a gold coin will appear inside. This is your share for the rest of your life. If you manage to get by with what's necessary, you'll never go hungry again.
The old man disappeared.
Sagat woke up, jumped to his feet, and, barely containing his excitement, counted ten steps to the right. Indeed, before him lay a deep depression where the old dugout had once been.
He began digging under the ruined hearth and dreamed:
"If the old man's words are true and I find at least one gold coin, we'll finally be full. If I get two, I'll feed the children. And if I get three, I'll buy my wife a new dress."
Everything turned out to be just as the old man had said. A leather purse lay buried underground.
Sagat opened it—one gold coin appeared. He opened it a second time—two.
He opened the purse again and again. When the gold reached a hundred, the poor man's thoughts had already changed. Looking at the growing pile of coins, he imagined building a huge house with domes, no less magnificent than the khan's palace, in the middle of the Karakum Desert.
Sagat forgot he was hungry. He forgot about his children. He even forgot that his wife was waiting for him at home.
All he saw before his eyes were wealth and a luxurious life.
"A thousand... ten thousand... a hundred thousand... And if I opened my wallet a million times?"
He continued counting, never taking his eyes off the gold.
Two weeks passed.
They say that, exhausted by hunger and blinded by greed, Sagat couldn't bear it any longer: his heart stopped, and he died next to the pile of gold he had never had a chance to use.