Chapter 6 White Castle 4

4(1) One day towards the end of summer we heard the news that the body of Lord Hussain, the royal astrologer, had been found floating on the shore of Istinye.The pasha finally got his execution order: the astrologer stayed in his hiding place dishonestly, but sent letters around saying that the astrology showed that Sodik Pasha would die soon, thus leaking his hiding place .When he attempted to escape to Anadolu, the executioners overtook his boat and drowned him.As soon as Hoja heard that the deceased man's property had been confiscated, he hurried to get his papers, books, and books; for this purpose all his savings were spent in bribes.One night, he brought back a large trunk filled with thousands of pages.And after only a week of reading the text, he said angrily that he could have done better.

I assisted him in trying to live up to what he said.He decided to write two articles for the Sultan, entitled "The Curious Behavior of Wild Beasts" and "The Miracle of All Creation".I described to him the horses, donkeys, rabbits and lizards I used to see in the spacious gardens and meadows of my house in Empoli.When Hoja pointed out how weak my imagination was, I thought of the tentacled French starfish in our lily pond, the blue parrots with their Sicilian accents, and the squirrels who sat face to face and groomed each other before mating.We devoted a great deal of time and energy to a chapter on the behavior of ants, a subject which fascinated the Sultan, but which he had little opportunity to learn about, because the first courtyard of the palace was constantly being cleaned.

Writing about the orderly and logical way of life of the ants, Hoja fancied that we might be able to educate the little sultan.He felt that the native black ants were not enough for this project, so he systematically described the red ants in America.This led him to the idea of ​​writing an entertaining and educational book about a group of lazy natives who live in a country called America.This is a place that suffers from snakes and has never changed its way of life.I don't think he dared to finish the book according to what he said, because he described to me in detail that the following plot would also be mentioned in the book: a young king who liked animals and hunting because he didn't pay attention to science, was finally found heretic by Spain Burned at the stake.We hired a miniaturist to bring the winged buffalo, the six-legged bull and the two-headed snake to life, but neither of us were happy with his drawings. "Maybe real things used to be like this," said Hoja, "but now everything is three-dimensional. Don't you understand? Real things have shadows; even the most common ant casts shadows Carried behind him patiently and diligently like a twin."

The sultan did not send for Hoja, so Hoja decided to ask the pasha to submit the two articles for him, a move he later regretted.The pasha gave him a lecture, saying that astrology is a fallacy; the royal astrologer Lord Hussein is out of control and engaged in political conspiracy; he doubts whether Hoja is eyeing this position now; he believes in the so-called science , but that refers to the weapons, not the stars; and the fact that royal astrologer is a distinctly ominous position, and that sooner or later all those who hold it are murdered, or, worse still, killed for being silenced disappeared without a trace, so he doesn't want his beloved Hoja, whose scientific knowledge he relies on, to take over; and in any case, the new royal astrologer will be Mr. Setek, stupid and simple enough for the job He also heard that Hoja had obtained the books of the former astrologer, and hoped that he would not get involved in this matter.Hoja replied that he was concerned only with science and nothing else, and left the pasha with the article he wished to submit to the Sultan.At home that night, he said he really only cared about the science, but would do whatever was necessary to make it work.And first, he cursed the pasha.

During the next month we tried to guess how the little sultan would react to the various animals we had imagined, while Hoja wondered why the palace hadn't sent a summons.At last we were called to the hunt.We headed to the Mirajo Palace on the banks of the Karthane River.He stood beside the sultan, and I watched from a distance. There were many people here.The captain of the guard made all preparations: they let out the rabbit and the fox, and afterward the greyhounds.We watch from the sidelines: all eyes are on a rabbit that has thrown itself off its mates.It jumped into the river and swam frantically to the other bank.When the guards begged to let the hounds out there, even we, standing in the distance, could hear the sultan stop them: "Let the rabbit go." But there was a wild dog on the other side, and the rabbit jumped into the water again , but the wild dogs caught up with it and caught it.The guards rushed forward and rescued the rabbit from the dogs, and brought it to the Sultan.The little sultan took a good look at the animal at once, was pleased to find that it was not seriously injured, and ordered the rabbit to be taken to the top of the mountain and released.Then I saw a group of people, including Hoja and the red-haired dwarf, gather around the Sultan.

Hoja told me that night what had happened: the sultan asked what to make of it.When everyone had finished speaking, it was Hoja's turn, and he said that this meant that an enemy would appear from where the Sultan least expected it, but that he would escape it unscathed.When the crowd, including Mr. Setek, the new royal astrologer, criticized the interpretation, accusing it of mentioning the Sultan's enemies and the danger of death, and even comparing the king with a rabbit, the Sultan asked them all to live. mouth, and said that he would take Hoja's words to heart.Later, they watched a black hawk snarling and struggling for life after being attacked by a flock of falcons, and a fox being pitifully torn to pieces by vicious hounds, during which time, the Sultan said, his lion gave birth. There were two lion cubs, a male and a female, in the same proportions as Hoja had predicted.In addition, the Sultan said he liked the bestiaries written by Hoja, and asked about the blue-winged bull and the pink cat that lived in the grasslands near the Nile.Hoja reveled in a strange mixture of triumph and terror.

It was a long time since that day that we heard what had happened in the palace: the Sultan's grandmother, Keshan Sultan, conspired with the chiefs of the Janissary to kill the Sultan and his mother, intending to replace him with Prince Suleiman, but the plot failed. success.Keshan Sultan was hanged, and his mouth and nose were bleeding before he died.Hoja learned what had happened from the gossip of the fools in the mosque's timekeeping room.He continued to teach at the school and went nowhere else. In the fall, he briefly tried to work on his cosmograph theory again, but lost faith: it required observatories, and the stars didn't care about them any more than the fools here didn't care about the stars.One day, when winter came and the sky became overcast, we learned that the pasha had also been dismissed.Originally, he would also be sentenced to hang, but the empress dowager disagreed, so he was exiled to Al Xinjiang instead, and his property was confiscated.We have heard nothing more about him except his death.Hoja said that he was not afraid of anyone now and owed nothing to anyone.I don't know what he was thinking about whether he learned anything from me when he said that.He declared that he was no longer afraid of the child or his mother.He looked desperate.And yet we sat like lambs among our books at home, talking about the red ant, and conceiving a new treatise on the subject.

Like many years in the past, and many years to come, we spent that winter at home and nothing happened.On those cold nights, when the north wind blew through chimneys and cracks in doors, we used to sit downstairs and talk till dawn.He no longer despises me, or rather bothers to pretend to.I think that no one from the palace or people in the palace circle asked him to go out, which made him feel this kind of closeness.Sometimes, I think, just like me, he senses an uncanny similarity between us.I worry that when he looks at me now, he is looking at himself: what is he thinking?We had completed another long paper on the subject of animals, but this one had been sitting on the table since the Pasha's exile.Hoja said he was not ready to tolerate the capriciousness of those around the palace.These days I have nothing to do and I am bored, occasionally flipping through this paper, looking at the blue-purple grasshopper and flying fish I drew, curiously wondering what Sudan will think of this paper.

4(2) Hoja was not proclaimed until spring came.The kid was happy to see him.According to Hoja, the sultan's every movement and every word made it clear that he was always missed, but was prevented by the idiots in the palace from being summoned.The Sultan spoke of his grandmother's treason, saying that Hoja had foreseen the threat and expected him to survive.That night, when he heard the cry of someone intending to murder him from the palace, he was not afraid at all, because he remembered that the ferocious hound did not hurt the rabbit in its mouth.After his compliments, he ordered that Hoja be granted the income of a suitable land.Before the next prophecy could be discussed, Hoja had to retire; he was told that the gift could be expected by the end of the summer.

While waiting for this gift, Hoja drew up a plan to build a small observatory in the yard based on the income from the land.He calculated the size of the foundation to be excavated, and the price of the required equipment, but this time he quickly lost interest.It was at this time that he found a poorly written manuscript at a second-hand bookstall, which recorded Takiadin's observations.He spent two months checking the accuracy of these observations before giving up in exasperation.For he could not determine which error was due to poor instrumentation, which was the fault of Takiadin himself, or which was due to the carelessness of the scribes.To add to his annoyance, one of the book's previous owners had scribbled poems between the sixty-degree plinths.Using the numerical values ​​of the letters and other methods, the book's former owner made cheesy observations about the future world: after giving birth to four girls, he would end up with a boy; plague; and his neighbour, Mr. Bahaddin, would perish.Although at first these prophecies amused Hoja, he became increasingly frustrated.Now, with a strange and terrifying conviction, he speaks again and again of the insides of our minds: as if he were talking of a suitcase, or a cabinet in a house, whose lid we can lift to see inside.

The gift promised by the sultan did not arrive at the end of summer, nor did it appear when winter approached.In the spring of the following year, Hoja was told that a new deed registration was being prepared and that he would have to wait.During this time, although not very frequently, he was occasionally invited to the palace to provide explanations for some phenomena.For example, how to explain a cracked mirror, a green lightning strike in the open sea near Yase Island, a blood-red crystal bottle filled with ice-salted cherry juice that shattered in place for no reason, and the answer to the Sultan Questions posed to the animals in the last paper we wrote.When he got home, he would often say that Sultan had reached puberty; it was the most impressionable stage of a man's life, and he would take hold of the boy. With this purpose in mind, he set out to write a brand new book.He had read about the fall of the Aztecs and the memoirs of Curtiz from me, and already had in his head the story of the miserable child king who was burned at the stake for not caring about science.He often spoke of the villains who, with their cannon and war machines, their tales of deceit and their weapons, pounced on the good men while they were asleep, and forced them to obey their order.However, for a long time, he did not reveal to me what he wrote alone.I felt that at first he was expecting my interest, but during that period of intense homesickness I suddenly fell into an uncharacteristic melancholy, and my loathing for him grew.I suppressed my curiosity and feigned contempt for the conclusions his creative mind could draw from old, cheaply bought books with battered bindings and from what I was teaching.And so he slowly lost faith, first in himself and then in what he was trying to write, while I watched with vindictive pleasure. During this time he often went upstairs to the small room that served as his private study, and sat thinking at the desk I had made.However, I could feel and even say I knew he couldn't write it.I knew he would not have had the courage to write without hearing my input on his ideas.What really made him lose confidence in himself was not the lack of those humble opinions of mine which he pretended to despise.What he really wanted was to know what "they" thought, people like me and the "others" who taught me about science and put those compartments and drawers full of knowledge in my head ".How would they feel if they were in the same situation as him?This is the question he really wants to ask, but can't ask.I don't know how long I waited for him to swallow his pride and find the courage to ask me about it!However, he didn't ask.He dropped the book so quickly, I don't know if he's finished it yet.Then, he resumed the old topic about "stupid".He no longer thinks that basic science worth practicing is something that can analyze why these idiots are so stupid, and he no longer wants to understand why the inside of their heads are the way they are!I believe these heavy thoughts were born of desperation, as signs of support from the palace he hoped for were delayed.Time passed in vain, and Sultan's adolescence didn't help much after all. But in the summer, before Koprulu Pasha became prime minister, Hoja finally got his gift, and it was a place he could choose himself: he was awarded income from two mills near Gebze, and Two villages an hour from town.We went to Gebze during the harvest season and happened to rent the old house we used to live in that just happened to be vacant.But Hoja had forgotten the months we had spent here, the days when he had watched in disgust at the table I had brought home from the carpenter.His memory seemed to grow old and ugly along with the house: in fact, he had an impatience, unable to pay attention to anything in the past.He went to the village to inspect several times and learned about the income of these places in previous years.In addition, he was influenced to claim that he had found a simpler and quicker way to keep the books of account.As for Talhunju Ahmet Pasha, he heard it while chatting with his friends in the mosque's timekeeping room. Although even he himself did not believe in the innovation and practicality of this reform, he was not satisfied with it: because in those nights when he sat in the courtyard behind the old house and watched the sky go by, his interest in astronomy was rekindled. enthusiasm.For a while I also encouraged him, thinking that he would push his theory one step further.His mind, however, was not observing, nor was he using his mind: he called home the brightest young men he knew from the village and from Gebze, and offered to teach them the highest sciences.He sent me back to Istanbul to fetch the orrery for them, set it up in the back yard, and repaired the bell and oiled it.One evening, with a passion and vigor that I do not know where he came from, without omission or error, he passionately repeated the celestial theory that he had explained to the pasha and then the sultan for many years.However, the next morning we found a sheep's heart with a spell written on it, still warm and bloody, on the doorstep.It was enough to make him give up all hope for young men who left at midnight without asking a word, and for astronomy. However, he doesn't take this setback too seriously: they are certainly not the ones who want to know the earth and the stars turn, and they don't need to know these things now; During this period of time, he also looked for us, but we missed the opportunity to get three or five Kurus from here after the harvest season.We settled everything, hired the brightest-looking of the bright young men as housekeeper, and returned to Istanbul. The next three years were the worst of our lives.Every day, every month is the same as before, and every season repeats the tiresome, restless season we've had: it's as if we've watched the same thing happen again in agony and despair, waiting in vain Our untold setbacks.He is occasionally called into the palace, and the palace expects him to provide analysis that does not involve sensitive issues; every Thursday afternoon, he still gathers with friends in the scientific field of the mosque clock room; he still visits the students every morning, and occasionally gives some punishments, It's just not as regular as it used to be; still rejecting occasional proposals, just not as firmly as before; still forcing myself to listen to music I've said I don't like anymore in order to hang out with women; The so-called fools are bored to death; will still shut themselves in their rooms, lie on the made beds, angrily rummaging through the piles of manuscripts and books around them, and stare at the ceiling for hours, waiting. 4(3) To add to his displeasure, he learned of Kopurru Pasha's victory from his fellow mosque timekeeper.When he told me that the fleet defeated the Venetians, or recovered Boziga Island and Limni, and subdued the rebel Abaza Hassan Pasha, etc., he would add that this was only their last A brief success is the last struggle of the cripple, who soon sinks into a morass of stupidity and powerlessness: he seems to be waiting for some catastrophe to change these monotonous days that repeat themselves and make us even more exhausted.Worse, having no longer the patience and confidence to focus on what he stubbornly called "science" made it difficult for him to divert his attention these days: he couldn't maintain enthusiasm for a new idea for more than a week, and it was very difficult Quickly think of those idiots and forget about everything else.Hasn't enough thought been expended on them so far?Are they worth the trouble?Is it worth being so angry?And perhaps, because he had just learned not to be them, he couldn't muster the strength and the desire to study the science carefully.But in any case, he had begun to believe that he was not of their kind. The first stimulus came directly from his inner restlessness, which for me was a sign of a bright future.Since he is still unable to focus on any subject, in those days he was completely like a selfish and stupid child who couldn't play by himself, wandering from one room to another in the house, going up and down stairs constantly, at a loss. looking out the window.The floors of the wooden houses groaned and creaked in protest in this endless, maddening to-and-fro.When he passed me, I knew he wanted a joke, a novel idea, or a word of encouragement.Despite my cowardice, my anger and hatred for him remained undiminished, and I did not speak the words he expected.Even if he gave up his self-respect and humbly pandered to my stubbornness with kind words, I would not say the words he longed to hear.When I hear good news from his palace, or some new ideas of his—the results will be worth mentioning if he sticks to them—I either pretend not to hear, or Find the dullest side of his words and quench his enthusiasm.I love watching him struggle with the hollowness and despair of his own mind. But then, even in this very empty situation, he found new ways to pass the time.Maybe it was the fact that he was finally alone, or maybe it was the impatience that his mind, which couldn't focus on anything, couldn't escape.At this time, I gave him an answer, because I wanted to encourage him, and what he thought of also aroused my interest; I thought, maybe at this time, he will care about me.Hoja creaked into my room one night and said, as if asking the most important question in everyday life: "Why am I the way I am?" I wanted to encourage him, so I gave him the answer. I told him I didn't know why he was the way he was, and that "they" were asking that question a lot, more and more by the day.When I say that, I don't have anything to back it up, and I don't have anything in particular on my mind, just wanting to answer the questions he wants, maybe because I instinctively know he'll like the game.He was surprised and looked at me full of curiosity, hoping that I would continue.Seeing my silence, he couldn't bear it anymore and asked me to repeat what I said earlier: So they are asking this question?Seeing my approving smile, he immediately became very angry: he didn't ask this question because "they" asked it, but he asked it without knowing that they asked it, and he didn't care about them at all What have you done.Then, in a strange tone, he said, "It seems that a voice has been singing in my ears." This mysterious voice reminded him of his late father, who had heard a voice like this before his death, But the tune is different. "All I hear is the same refrain," he said, and then, suddenly, a little embarrassed, added: "I'm what I am, I'm what I am, alas!" I almost laughed out loud, but resisted the urge.If it was a harmless joke, he would have laughed too; but he didn't laugh, knowing that he looked almost ridiculous.And all I have to do is show that I know both his ridiculous look and the meaning of the refrain, because this time I want him to keep talking.I said that this refrain should be taken seriously; of course, the person singing in his ear must be himself.He must have picked up some sarcasm in my words, and got angry: he knew me too; what he wanted to know was why the voice kept repeating it! That's because of his depression, of course I didn't say it, but really, that's what I think: I know not only from my own experience, but also from the experience of my brothers and sisters, that selfish children The melancholy seen either yields fruitful results or something absurd.I said that what he should think about is not the origin of this refrain, but its meaning.Perhaps it occurred to me at the time that he might be driven mad by this emptiness; that I could escape my own melancholy of despair and cowardice by observing him.Perhaps, this time I will truly admire him.If he did that, something real might come out of both of our lives. "So, what should I do?" he finally asked helplessly.I told him he should think about why he was who he was, and that I wasn't presumptuously giving him advice; I couldn't help him, it was something he had to figure out on his own. "So, what should I do? Should I look in the mirror?" he said sarcastically, but looked equally distressed.I didn't say anything and gave him time to think. "Shall I look in the mirror?" he said again.I suddenly felt very angry and felt that Hoja would never be able to accomplish anything by himself.Suddenly I wanted to tell him to his face that he couldn't think without me.But I dare not.I said to him in a nonchalant manner, just do what you want and look in the mirror.No, I am not without courage, but without strength.He got angry and slammed the door in a huff, shouting as he left: You are an idiot. Three days later, when I brought up the subject, he still wanted to talk about "them," which made me happy to continue the game.Because, anyway, if his mind was on the matter then, it would give me hope.I said, "they" really do look in the mirror, and in fact do so more often than the people here.Not only in the palaces of kings, princes and nobles, the walls of ordinary people's homes are also covered with specially framed mirrors.In addition to this reason, it is also because "they" often reflect on themselves and think that "they" have made progress in this regard. "Where?" he asked with an eagerness and innocence that surprised me.I thought he believed everything I said, but at the end he laughed: "That means, they've been looking in the mirror all day long!" It was the first time he'd mocked something I'd left behind in my country.I angrily searched for words to hurt him.Unexpectedly, without thinking, I said something that I didn't believe: Man alone can discover who he is, but Hoja didn't have the courage to do such a thing.I was glad to see his face contorted with pain as I wanted it to be. However, this pleasure cost me dearly.Not because he threatened to poison me, but after a few days he asked me to show the kind of courage I said he lacked.At first, I tried to get him to take it as a joke: the same thing about looking in the mirror where one can discover who one is is a joke, something I said to piss him off.But he didn't seem to believe me: he threatened to cut down on my food and even lock me up in his room if I didn't prove my mettle.I have to find out who I am and write it down.He wants to see how this thing is done, to see how much courage I have.