But while that face was utterly new to me, I couldn’t help but feel that I had seen her many times before. Surely I knew this pale face, this dark brown hair, this dark brow, these dark eyes that spoke of eternal anguish and resolve. I had known that woman since I’d opened my first book at the age of seven — since I’d started, at the age of five, to dream. I saw in her echoes of Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil’s Nihal, Vecihi Bey’s Mehcure, and Cavalier Buridan’s beloved. I saw the Cleopatra I had come to know in history books, and Muhammad’s mother, Amine Hatun, of whom I had dreamed while listening to
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