The Blind Owl (Authorized by The Sadegh Hedayat Foundation - First Translation into English Based on the Bombay Edition) by Sadegh Hedayat

Author:Sadegh Hedayat [Hedayat, Sadegh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisehouse
Published: 2012-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

At the beginning of the night, as I got up from the foot of the opium brazier, I looked out the window of my room. A black tree and the boarded-up front of the butcher’s shop were visible—the dark shadows had become blended in each other. I felt that everything was fleeting and barren. The black and tar-covered sky was like a tattered black tent that had been riddled with holes by countless shining stars—At this time the call to prayer started, it was an ill-timed call to prayer—perhaps a woman, maybe that whore, was in labor, was busy delivering. The howling of a dog was heard amidst the call to prayer; I thought to myself, “If it’s true that each person has a star in the sky, then mine must be far, dark and meaningless—maybe I never had a star.”

At this time the clamor of a band of drunken night watchmen rose from the alley, they were passing by and telling each other lewd jokes; then they collectively started singing:

Come, let us go and drink wine

Wine from the Land of Rey

If not now then when is the time?

Terrified, I pulled myself away, their singing was echoing in the air in a peculiar way, slowly their sounds became distant and smothered. No, they did not want me, they did not know . . . once again the darkness and silence covered everything.—I did not light my tallow-burner, I enjoyed sitting in the darkness—Darkness, this viscous fluid that seeps into everywhere and everything, I had become used to it—It was in the darkness that my lost thoughts, forgotten fears, unbelievably terrifying thoughts that were hidden in the recesses of my brain that I did not know existed, all would gain new life, move about and mock me—these thoughts and amorphous, threatening forms were found in abundance in the corner of the room, the space behind the curtain, the spot next to the door. . . .

There, beside the curtain, a terrifying figure was seated, unmoving, he was neither happy nor sad, each time that I turned around he stared into the depths of my eyes—His face was familiar to me, as if I had seen this very face in my childhood—It was on a Sizdahbedar, I was playing sarmamak with some children by the bank of the Suren River, it had seemed to me that this same face appeared beside the ordinary faces of those who were short, funny and harmless—His face was similar to this same butcher outside my window, across the street. It seems that this individual has been involved with my life and I had seen him often—as if this shadow were my twin and situated in the narrow circle of my life. . . .

As soon as I got up to light the tallow-burner, that figure spontaneously faded and disappeared.—I went in front of the mirror and stared at my face—the image that formed before me seemed foreign—it was terrifying and beyond belief, my image had become

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