Chapter 24 24. My Name Is Death

As you can see, I am Death, but you need not be afraid, for I am but a picture.Even so, I see fear in your eyes like a child with a video game addiction, and even though it's very clear that I'm not real, you're still gripped by terror as if you were actually facing death.This makes me very happy.When you look at me and feel that the inescapable last moment has come, I feel like you are about to pee your pants with fear.This is no joke.Faced with death, most heroes, especially those considered brave, are incontinent.For this reason, your brave battlefields, which have been drawn thousands of times, are not filled with the smell of blood, gunpowder, and red-hot weapons as you imagined, but filled with the smell of feces and rotting corpses.

I know this is the first time you have seen a painting of death. A year ago, at the invitation of a tall, thin, mysterious old man, the young miniaturist who painted me came to the old man's home.In a gloomy studio in a two-story villa, the old man served a cup of fragrant coffee to the young master, sobering up the young man's head.Then, in a dark room with a blue door, the old man showed him high-quality paper from India, gold foil for brushes made of squirrel hair, various reed brushes, and pencil sharpeners with coral handles, Said that he would pay a very generous reward to arouse the enthusiasm of the young master.

"Now, draw death for me," said the old man. "I can't draw a picture of death, because I have never seen a picture of death in my life." Said the amazing and skillful artist who later drew me. "You don't necessarily need to have seen a picture of something to be able to describe it," said the eager thin old man. "Yes, maybe not," said the master who painted me. "However, if a painting is to be as perfect as the previous masters, it must be painted thousands of times before. No matter how exquisite a miniaturist's skill is, when he When I draw an object for the first time, I paint it like an apprentice, and that doesn't suit me at all. I can't let go of my specialized skills to paint death, because it would be like killing me."

"This feeling may bring you closer to the subject." The old man responded swiftly. "Having experienced a subject does not make us masters, we are masters precisely because we have never experienced it." "Then such specialization must make you aware of death." In this way, they talked earnestly, and there were many meanings, insinuations, irony, metaphors and hints in their words. The young painter not only respected the old masters, but also was proud of his own talent.Since it was my existence that was being discussed, I listened attentively to their discussion, though I knew that all that they discussed was bound to bore the brilliant miniaturists present in the café.Just for a while they discussed the following:

"The measure of a miniaturist's talent is whether he paints every object in imitation of the perfect style of the previous masters, or whether he incorporates subjects that no one has seen before?" Dexterous hands, piercing eyes , The talented illustrator said that although he knew the answer to the question, he was still cautious. "The Venetian judges the ability of a miniaturist by seeing whether he has discovered new themes and new painting techniques." The old man said firmly. “The Venetians died the way the Venetians died,” said the illustrator who was about to draw me.

"Everyone's death is the same," said the old man. "Legends and paintings both describe the differences of people, not the similarities between people." The clever illustrator said, "The masters of painting drew different legends in the way of physiognomy, so they became famous artists. Grandmaster." Thus the subject of the conversation turned to the death of the Venetians and the Ottomans, to Death and the other angels of Allah, and to the fact that their paintings must not be confused with those of the heathen.The young master, who is sitting in our wonderful café at this moment, staring at me with bright eyes, is stimulated by the old man's deep talk and begins to get impatient and wants to draw me without knowing what I look like .

The calculating old man, who had been trying to convince the young master from the start, slyly smelled the young man's passionate impulse.In the dark room, the old man's eyes shone brightly in the light of the empty burning oil lamp, looking straight at the skillful and versatile young master. "Death, which appeared in human form to the Venetian masters, is to us an angel called Azrael," he said. "Yes, he is in human form. Deliver the Bible in human form to our prophets. Do you understand?" I sensed that the gifted young master was eager to paint me, because the devilish old man had succeeded in stirring up this devilish idea in him: What we most want to paint is some kind of painting in the dark with no one What is known, not what is known in the light.

"I don't know anything about death," said the miniaturist who was about to paint me. "We all know about death," said the old man. "We fear it, but don't understand it." "Then you draw this fear," said the old man. He was about to draw me almost instantly.I felt the back of the great miniaturist's neck tingle, the muscles of his arms tense, and his fingers began to reach for the reed brush.However, since he is a real master of painting, he forcibly controlled himself, knowing that such tension would only deepen the love of painting in his soul.

The cunning old man is well aware that the young man will soon paint my picture.In order to inspire young people, he began to read passages about death from the books in front of him: Al Jafziye's "Book of the Soul", Gasali's "Book of Doom", and Suyuti book of. So the master of miniaturization with wondrous hands began to paint the horrible portrait before you, while listening to the old man explain that the angel of death has thousands of pairs of broad wings, stretching from heaven to earth, from the farthest east to the farthest west .These wings give infinite comfort to the sincere faith, but bring pain like spikes to the body of sinners and rebels.Since most of you miniaturists are doomed to hell, he painted me covered in spikes.He heard the old man say that the angel sent by Allah to take your life will carry an account book in his hand, on which are written the names of all of you, some of which are circled in black pen, but only Allah knows the exact time of death, When the time comes, a leaf will fall from a tree in the Nine Heavens, and people will know who is going to die after taking this leaf and looking at it.For these reasons, the miniaturist painted me as a horrible thing, but at the same time thoughtful, like a person who understands.The crazy old man continued to read: When the angel of death takes human form and stretches out his arms to snatch the souls of people whose earthly life has ended, there will be a ray of light around him like the sun.So the clever miniaturist painted me in the light, because he also knew that the light would not be seen by those around the dead.Excited old men read from the "Book of Souls" about the ancient tomb robbers who saw with their own eyes that spikes were nailed here and there in the corpses, and that when the earth was dug up, the places where the fresh corpses were kept would ignite Flames, skulls filled with molten lead.The wonderful illustrator listened attentively to these explanations, and when he drew me, he included everything that would terrify anyone who beheld me.

After painting, he regretted it.Not because he endowed the picture with such fear, but because he regretted that he had painted such a picture.And I also feel like a person who is regarded as shame and embarrassment by my father.Why would a master miniaturist with brilliant hands regret painting me? 1. Because I, the painting of death, did not reflect enough professional skills.As you can see, I am not as perfect as what the Venetian masters and Herat predecessors painted.I was also embarrassed by my ugliness.My appearance does not conform to the dignity of death. 2. Induced by the cunning of the old man, the master illustrator suddenly found himself imitating the painting style and concept of the Frankish masters. He felt that this was disrespectful to the masters of his predecessors, and for the first time he felt that he was disgraceful .This feeling gnawed at his soul.

3. He even, like some of you imbeciles who got used to it and started smiling at me, had an epiphany: You can't joke with death. The master miniaturist who created me now wanders the streets every night out of remorse.Like some Chinese masters, he believed he had become what he painted.