I wondered whether Shekure』s father was aware of the letters we exged. If I were to sider her tone, which bespoke a timid maiden quite afraid of her father, I』d have to clude that not a single word about me had passed between them. Yet, I sehat this was not the case. The slyness iher』s looks, Shekure』s enting appeara the window, the decisiveness with which my Enishte seo his illustrators and his despair when he ordered me to e this m—all of it made me quite uneasy.
In the m, as soon as my Enishte asked me to sit before him, he began to describe the portraits he saw in Venice. As the ambassador of Our Sultan, Refuge of the World, he』d visited quite a number of palazzos, churches and the houses of prosperous men. Over a period of days, he stood before thousands of portraits. He saw thousands of framed faces depicted on stretched vas or wood or painted directly onto walls. 「Eae was different from the . They were distinctive, unique human faces!」 he said. He was intoxicated by their variety, their colors, the pleasantness—even severity—of the soft light that seemed to fall on them and the meaning emanating from their eyes.
「As if a virulent plague had struck, everyone was having his portrait made,」 he said. 「In all of Venice, rid iial men waheir portraits painted as a symbol, a memento of their lives and a sign of their riches, power and influence—so they might always be there, standing before us, announg their existenay, their individuality and distin.」
His words were belittling, as if he were speaking out of jealousy, ambitireed. Though, at times, as he talked about the portraits he』d seen in Venice, his face would abruptly light up like a child』s, invigorated.
Portraiture had bee such a tagion among affluent men, princes and great families who were patrons of art that evehey issioned frescoes of biblical ses and religious legends for church walls, these infidels would insist that their own images appear somewhere in the work. For instance, in a painting of the burial of St. Stephan, you』d suddenly see, ah yes, present among the tearful graveside mourners, the very prince who was giving you the tour—in a state of pure enthusiasm, exhilaration and ceit—of the paintings hanging on his palazzo walls. , in the er of a fresco depig St. Peter g the sick with his shadow, you』d realize with an odd sense of disillusiohat the unfortunate one writhing there in pain was, in fact, the strong-as-an-ox brother of your polite host. The following day, this time in a piece depig the Resurre of the Dead, you』d discover the guest who』d stuffed himself beside you at lunch.
「Some have gone so far, just to be included in a painting,」 said my Enishte, fearfully as though he were talking about the temptations of Satan, 「that they』re willing to be portrayed as a servant filling goblets in the crowd, or a merciless man stoning an adulteress, or a murderer, his hands drenched in blood.」
Pretending not to uand, I said, 「Exactly the way we see Shah Ismail asding the throne in those illustrated books that ret a Persian legends. Or when we e across a depi of Tamerlane, who actually ruled long afterward, iory of Hüsrev and Shirin.」
Was there a noise somewhere in the house?
「It』s as if the Veian paintings were made thten us,」 said my Enishte later. 「And it isn』t enough that we be in awe of the authority and money of these men who ission the works, they also want us to know that simply existing in this world is a very spe