A silence filled the room when he fessed he』d murdered Elegant Effendi. I assumed he』d kill me as
well. My heart quied. Had he e here to end my life or to fess and terrify me? Did he himself know what he wanted? I was afraid, realizing how absolutely unacquainted I was with the inner world of this magnifit artist whose splendid lines and magical use of color had been familiar to me for years. I could sense him standing stiffly behihere at the nape of my neck, holding that large inkpot reserved for red, but I didn』t turn to face him. I knew my silence would make him uneasy. 「The dogs haven』t yet quieted down,」 I said.
We fell silent again. This time, I khat my death, or my somehow avoiding this misfortune, would depend on what I told him. All I knew aside from his work was that he was quite intelligent, and if you grant that an illustrator must never reveal his soul in his work, intelligence is, of course, an asset. How had he ered me at home when no one else was here? My aged mind was furiously preoccupied with this question, but I was too fused to see myself out of this game. Where was Shekure?
「You k was me, didn』t you?」 he asked.
I hadn』t known at all, not until he told me. In the bay mind, I was even w whether he hadn』t done well by killing Elegant Effendi, and that the late miniaturist might』ve actually succumbed to his aies and made trouble for the rest of us.
I was ever so slightly grateful to this murderer, with whom I was alone in the empty house.
「I』m not surprised you killed him,」 I said. Men like us who live with books and dream eternally of their pages fear only ohing in this world. What』s more, we』re struggling with something more forbidden and dangerous; that is, we』re struggling to make pictures in a Muslim city. As with Sheikh Muhammad of Isfahan, we miniaturists are ined to feel guilty aful, we』re the first to blame ourselves before others do, to be ashamed and beg pardon of God and the unity. We make our books i like shameful sinners. I know too well how submission to the endless attacks of hojas, preachers, judges and mystics who accuse us of blasphemy, how the endless guilt both deadens and nourishes the artist』s imagination.「「You don』t fault me for murdering that idiotiiaturist, do you then?」
「What attracts us to writing, illustrating and painting is bound up in this fear of retribution. It』s not only for money and favor that we kneel before our work from m to evening, tinuing by dlelight through the night to the point of blindness and sacrifice ourselves for pictures and books, it』s to escape the prattle of others, to escape the unity, but in trast to this passion to create, we also want those we』ve forsaken to see and appreciate the inspired pictures we』ve made—and if they should call us sinners? Oh, the suffering this brings upon the illustrator of gealent! Yet, genuine painting is hidden in the agony no one sees and no one creates. It』s tained in the picture, whi first sight, they』ll say is bad, inplete, blasphemous or heretical. A genuine miniaturist knows he must reach that point, yet at the same time, he fears the lonelihat awaits him there. Who would accede to such a frightful, nerve-wrag existence? By blaming himself before anyone else does, the artist believes
he』ll be spared what he』s feared for years. Others listen to him and believe him only when he admits his guilt, for which he is then o burn ihe illustrator of Isfahan lit these hellfires himself.」