When the Head Treasurer and the chief officers opehe portal with great ceremony my eyes were so aced to the velvety red aura of the Treasury rooms that the early m winter sunlight filtering in from the courtyard of the Royal Private Quarters of the Enderun seemed terrifying. I stood dead still, as did Master Osman himself: If I moved, it seemed, the clues we sought in the moldy, dusty and tangible air of the Treasury might escape.
With curious amazement, as if seeing some magnifit object for the first time, Master Osman stared at the light casg toward us between the heads of the Treasury chiefs lined up in rows oher side of the open portal.
The night before, I watched him as he turhe pages of the Book of Kings. I noticed this same expression of astonishment pass over his face as his shadow, cast upon the wall, trembled faintly, his head carefully sank down toward his magnifying lens, and his lips first torted delicately, as if preparing to reveal a pleasa, then twitched as he gazed i an illustration.
After the portal was shut again, I wandered impatiently between rooms ever more restless; I thought nervously that we wouldn』t have time to cull enough information from the books ireasury. I sehat Master Osman couldn』t focus adequately on his task, and I fessed my misgivings to him.
Like a genuine master grown aced to caressing his apprentices, he held my hand in a pleasing way. 「Men like us have no choice but to try to see the world the way God does and tn ourselves to His justice,」 he said. 「And here, among these pictures and possessions, I have the stroion that these two things are beginning to verge: As roach God』s vision of the world, His justice approaches us. See here, the needle Master Bihzad blinded himself with…」
Master Osman callously told the story of the needle, and I scrutihe extremely sharp point of this disagreeable object beh the magnifying glass which he lowered so I might better see; a pinkish film covered its tip.
「The old masters,」 Master Osman said, 「would suffer pangs of sce about ging their talent, colors ahods. They』d sider it dishonorable to see the world one day as aern shah ahe , as a Western ruler did—which is what the artists of our day do.」
His eyes were her trained on mine nor upon the pages in front of him. It seemed as though he were gazing at a distant unattainable whiteness. In a page of the Book of Kings lying open before him, Persian and Turanian armies clashed with all their force. As horses fought shoulder to shoulder, enraged heroic warriors drew their swords and slaughtered one another with the color and joy of a festival, their armor pierced by the lances of the cavalry, their heads and arms severed, their bodies hacked apart or cloven in two, strewn all over the field.
「When the great masters of old were forced to adopt the styles of victors and imitate their miniaturists, they preserved their honor by using a needle to heroically bring on the blihat the labors of painting would』ve caused in time. Yes, before the pureness of God』s darkness fell over their eyes like a divine reward, they』d stare at a masterpiece ceaselessly for hours or even days, and because they stubbornly stared out of bowed heads, the meaning and world of those pictures—spotted with blood dripping from their eyes—would take the place of all the evil they suffered, and as their eyes ever so slowly clouded over they』d approach blindness in peace. Do you have any idea which illus