Silent House Read Online Free PDF

all alone, and he wrote out, too, all his little tasks on a piece of paper, he overwrote the map in Polikowsky’s book to make a chart of the migratory routes of storks and other birds; he recorded three simple fables for proving to the feebleminded that God doesn’t exist, but no, I couldn’t read any more, that’s enough, Fatma, I let those sinful papers drop and ran out of the icy room, never to reenter that cursed chamber until that cold snowy day after he’d died. Still, Selâhattin had figured it out the very next day: You went into my room when I was sleeping last night, Fatma? You went into my room and mixed up my papers? I kept silent. You mixed them up, left them out of order, even dropped some on the floor, but it doesn’t matter, Fatma, you’re welcome to read as much as you like, read! I kept silent. You read them, didn’t you? Good! You did the right thing, Fatma, what do you think? I still kept silent. You always knew I wanted you to, didn’t you, Fatma? Read them, reading’s the best thing, read and learn, because there’s so much to do, you know. Ikept silent. Read them and wake up and one day you’ll see how much there is to do in life, Fatma, how many things!
    Actually, no, there aren’t so many things. I would know: it’s been ninety years. Possessions, yes, roomfuls, I can look and see, from there to there, and a little time, endless drips falling from an unstoppable faucet. Just then is in my body and head now, just then is now, the eye closes and opens, the shutter is pushed and shuts, night and day, and then another new morning, but I’m not fooled. I still wait. They’ll come tomorrow. Hello, hello! Many happy returns. They’ll kiss my hand and laugh. The hair on their heads looks funny when they bend down to kiss my hand. How are you, how are you, Grandmother? What can someone like me say? I’m alive, I’m waiting. Tombs, dead people. Come on, sleep, come.
    I turn over in the bed. Now I don’t hear the cricket anymore. The bee is gone, too. How long until morning? Crows, magpies, on the roofs in the morning … sometimes I wake up early and hear them. Is it true that magpies are thieves? The jewels of queens and princesses, a magpie grabs them, and everybody takes off after it. I wonder how a bird can fly with all that weight. How do creatures fly? Balloons, zeppelins, and that man Selâhattin wrote about. How does Lindbergh fly? If he happened to have two bottles instead of one, he would forget that I don’t listen and tell me about it after dinner. Today I wrote about planes, birds, and flying, Fatma, I’m just about to finish the article on air, listen. The air is not empty, Fatma, there are particles in it, and just as a floating boat displaces its weight in the water, no, I don’t understand how balloons and zeppelins fly, but Selâhattin was completely animated, telling me about every fact of science, and as always he was shouting by the time he got to his conclusion: Yes, that’s what we need, to know this and everything else; an encyclopedia; if we knew the natural and social sciences God would die and we, but by now I was not listening anymore! If he’d finished a second bottle I wouldn’t be listening to his raving; No, there is no God, Fatma, there’s science now. Your God is dead, you silly woman! Then, when he had nothing else to believe in excepthis self-love and his self-loathing, he’d be overcome by sickening lust and run over to the hut in the garden. Don’t think about it, Fatma. Just a servant … Don’t give it a thought. Both of them cripples! Think about something else! Beautiful mornings, the old gardens, horse-drawn carriages.… Let me just go to sleep.
    When my hand reaches out like a careful cat the bedside lamp goes out. Silent darkness! Though I know there’s a dim light coming through the shutters. I can’t see my things anymore, they’re free of my glances, all silent and unto themselves, they think that even without me they can stay