The snow began to fall at a late hour and tiill dawn. I spent the night reading Shekure』s letter again and again. I paced in the empty room of the empty house, occasionally leaning toward the dlestick; in the flickering light of the dim dle, I watched the tense quivering of my beloved』s angry letters, the somersaults they turrying to deceive me and their hip-swinging right-to-left progression. Abruptly, those shutters would open before my eyes, and my beloved』s fad her sorrowful smile would appear. And when I saw her real face, I fot all of those other faces whose sour-cherry mouths had increasingly matured and ripened in my imagination.
In the middle of the night I lost myself in dreams of marriage: I had no doubts about my love or that it was reciprocated—we were married in a state of great te—but, my imaginary happiness, set in a house with a staircase, was dashed when I couldn』t find appropriate work and began arguing with my wife, uo make her heed my words.
I knew I』d appropriated these ominous images from the se on the ills of marriage in Gazzali』s The Revival ious Sce, which I』d read during my nights as a bachelor in Arabia; at the same time, I recalled that there was actually advi the bes of marriage in that same se, though now I could remember only two of these bes: first, having my household kept in order (there was no such order in my imagined house); sed, being spared the guilt of self-abuse and ing myself—an even deeper sense of guilt—behind pimps leadihrough dark alleyways to the lairs of prostitutes.
The thought of salvation at this late hour brought masturbation to mind.
With a simple-minded desire, and to rid my mind of this irrepressible urge, I retired to a er of the room, as was my wont, but after a while I realized I couldn』t jack off—proof well enough that I』d fallen in love again after twelve years!
This struck such excitement and fear into my heart that I walked around the room nearly atremble like the flame of the dle. If Shekure meant to present herself at the window, then why this letter, which put the opposite belief into play? Why did her father call for me? As I paced, I sehat the door, wall and squeaky floor, stuttering as I myself did, were trying to creak their respoo my every question.
I looked at the picture I』d made years ago, which depicted Shirin stri with love upon gazing at Hüsrev』s image hanging from a branch. It didn』t
embarrass me as it would each time it came to mind in subsequent years, nor did it bring back my happy childhood memories. Toward m, my mind had mastered the situation: By returning the picture, Shekure had made a move in an amatory chess game she was masterfully lurio. I sat in the dlelight and wrote her a letter of response.
In the m, after sleeping for a spell, I went out and walked a long way through the streets, carrying the letter upon my breast and my light pen-and-ink holder, as was my , in my sash. The snow widened Istanbul』s narrow streets and freed the city of its crowds. All was quieter and slower, as it』d been in my childhood. Crows seemed to have beset Istanbul』s roofs, domes and gardens just as they had on the snowy winter days of my youth. I walked swiftly, listening to my steps in the snow and watg the fog of my breath. I grew excited, expeg the palace workshop that my Enishte wanted me to visit to be as silent as the streets. Before I ehe Jewish quarter, I sent word by way of a little street ur to Esther, who』d