Madonna in a Fur Coat

by Sabahattin Ali

But the moment I sensed a spark of interest on their part, all my courage drained away. I was never innocent: when I entertained these women in my mind, I would engineer scenes that even the most masterful lover would have found daunting, and when I imagined these girls’ smoldering lips pressed against mine, it seemed to me an intoxication far greater than anything real life could bring.

Relatable

Nothing grieves me more than seeing someone who has given up on the world being forced to smile.

“Do you know why I hate you? You and every other man in the world? Because you ask so much of us, as if it were your natural right…Mark my words, for it can happen without a single word being uttered…It’s how men look at us and smile at us. It’s how they raise their hands. To put it simply, it’s how they treat us…

And if you need a measure of their arrogant pride, all you need is to see how shocked they are when an advance is rejected. They are the hunters, you see, and we their miserable prey. And our duties? To bow down and obey, and give them whatever they want…But we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t give away a single bit of ourselves. It’s revolting, this arrogant male pride…Do you understand what I’m saying?

But I don’t know…even when he has a lamb between his teeth, a wolf can hide his savagery behind a smile…”

She smiled again, and though she had changed expression many times since we’d met, she now wore the sweet face of a friend.

Oh, yes, I knew…I was coming back to hurl myself into her arms. But at the same time I felt a powerful sense of loss, shock, even nausea. Flushing, I looked down at the ground. No, no! I didn’t want it to be like this.

“You are an exceptional woman.” “Don’t rush to conclusions…With someone like me, you need to be cautious.” I took her hands in mine and kissed them.

I was guided by her image. I was murmuring something under my breath. What was it? Paying closer attention, I realized that I was saying her name over and over, and caressing her with sweet words.

It was not just my tired limbs that were coming to life. It was also my soul, revealing to me the sublime vista it had kept buried for so long. Maria Puder had taught me I had a soul. And now, overcoming a habit of a lifetime, I could see a soul in her. Of course, everyone else in the world was similarly endowed. But most come into this world and leave it without even knowing what they had missed. A soul came forward only when it found its twin, when it felt no need to rely on mere words to explain itself…It was only then that we truly began to live — live with our soul. At that moment, all doubts and shame could be set aside. All rules could be broken, as two souls joined in embrace.

All my life, I’d been silent. Whenever I’d been tempted to speak, I’d quickly changed my mind. “Why bother?” I’d say to myself. “What difference will it make if you speak?” In the past, I’d been just as quick to let emotion get in the way — to decide, on slim evidence, that a certain person could never understand me. But this time, my first impressions stood fast: she would understand me perfectly.

So much beauty in this dark and dreary scene! Oh, to breathe in this moist air! This was how life should be lived: attuned to nature, its every flutter and sway, while time moves inexorably forward. Rejoicing in every moment, finding a lifetime in each and every one, in the knowledge that these moments were revealing themselves to me as to no other. Never forgetting that there existed another with whom I could share all my thoughts. I just had to wait… What could be more uplifting than this?

I would take her hands in mine and rub them warm. I would, with just one word, be at one with her.

Her pale, moist face was like a white flower covered in dew.

I live more in my head than anywhere else.

I was repulsed by my classmates’ idle fantasies. I never learned — or wanted to learn — how to make boys like me. I never blushed when I was around them or fished for compliments. This caused me to become hideously isolated. My girlfriends had a hard time finding things in common with me. They had no interest in being real people; they preferred to be objects of desire and act like dolls. I couldn’t make friends with boys either. They’d look for a soft center, and when they saw it wasn’t there, when they saw I was a match for them, they’d run away.

shes so me

There is no woman as pitiful and ridiculous as a man swept away by his passions.

Although I know that there is in me no tendency toward the unnatural, I would rather fall in love with a woman.”

“Or am I boring you? I’ve been dragging you around all day now and talking your ears off. It’s not good for a woman to be that friendly…I’m serious. I’ll let you go if you’re bored.”

meeee

In a grove protected by a wire fence, little snow-covered pine saplings trembled like children in white capes.

I like this imagery. The prose is so visual

How splendid it would be to call her to the telephone just before she was to take the stage at the Atlantic and (after I had asked her forgiveness for having disturbed her and bade her farewell) pump a bullet into my head, while she listened at the other end! Upon hearing this deadly sound, she would pause, uncomprehending, before madly screaming, “Raif! Raif!” into the receiver. And if, by chance, I happened to hear her cries as I lay there on the ground, taking my last breath, I would die smiling. With no idea of my whereabouts, she would flail about in desperation, too distracted to call the police, and when, the next day, as she leafed through the papers with trembling hands, reading the details of this mysterious tragedy, she would seize up with remorse and regret, knowing she would never be able to forget me, now that I had bound myself to her memory in blood.

Me when someone upsets me so i have to die to make them feel bad

Wasn’t this the way it had to be? In truth, I wasn’t sure. But everything had fallen into place in a way that felt natural. No desires plagued me. I thought of neither the future nor the past; I lived only in the present. My soul was like a glassy, windless sea.

Thousands of kilometers away, a man had stopped breathing, and though this had happened days, if not weeks, ago, neither Maria nor I had noticed.

For our lives were governed by trivial details. Indeed, trivial details were what true life was made of. The logic in our minds had always been at odds with the logic of life itself.

Perhaps she’d been all I needed. I suppose that is what any of us need: one single person.

The pain of losing something precious — whether earthly happiness or material wealth — can be forgotten over time. But our missed opportunities never leave us, and every time they come back to haunt us, we ache.

I lived like a plant, unconscious and uncomplaining and without a will. Emotion was beyond me. I felt neither sadness nor joy.