My dear Sermet,
I have finally gotten married. A year after my farewell to bachelorhood, in the ornate and strange salon of a strange and unbalanced family life, in an extremely strange and haughty mood, I begin to write you this letter. What were all our debates about that filled the unforgettable sweet hours of our sincere student life we spent together?… Weren’t they about womanhood and marriage, my dear? You would imagine and want a lymphatic, calm, moderate, somewhat beautiful, somewhat emotional woman; I wanted a nervous, excitable, noble, very beautiful, very emotional woman.
You’re still a bachelor. I wish with all my soul that you attain your dream. I got married, I attained my dream. But what a disillusionment of dreams… No, what a terrible deception… that filled the dawnless and lightless shadows of unfortunate nights, the darkness of return and regret, into my emotional happiness. Into the ambiguous depths of this mysterious “world of marriage,” unknown to bachelors, I had entered with the anxious trembling of hesitation felt when entering the frightening, dark and thorny cave mouths that lead to fairy palaces made of roses and lights with the hope of an Alexander. These darknesses didn’t go out, these thorns didn’t end. Palaces of diamond and emerald didn’t appear; I remained helpless and hopeless inside this black-entranced valley.
Here is the symbolic meaning of my current position…
Let me also clearly explain its material meaning, listen. To my sister and aunt who were trying to get me married, I had first delivered this speech:
“You want me to get married, right? I won’t prevent this effort of yours and I thank you. But the girl you find must be in a state that will satisfy my feelings. The girl I want must be nervous, delicate, gentle, excitable, extremely knowledgeable, familiar with music, extremely beautiful, extremely sensitive. She must make me happy, and I must remain eternally grateful to you.”
My sister was smiling, my aunt was thinking. I was continuing.
“Common, uneducated, small, unfeeling, silent—I don’t want; I’ll be unfortunate. How can I tell the most choice virtues of my soul to the hollow heart of such a statue of flesh, how can I breathe my breath of sensitivity?… Pay attention, don’t make me unfortunate.”
Then for days I instilled the details of my dream to my sister and aunt. They paid attention more than I desired; they found me my dear wife.
The first night, in the hours passing as quickly and unconsciously as a dream in the first dream-inducing wedding night’s moments of presence, I thought myself happy. This room and this night were so suitable, so similar to my imagined goal that… Upon entering, I couldn’t look around; I unveiled the face of my wife standing smiling and seemingly bewildered under the thin and pinkish veil. When I hoped to find her in a classic manner—eyes down and embarrassed—I saw her eyes fixed and examining mine. Perhaps for a minute, that is, for a century, we looked at each other. I wanted to say something and couldn’t find it. Finally I said… Guess what I said? What should my first worshipful address to my enlightened wife have been?…
But I, with a trembling of speech characteristic of those confused before unexpected things, said: “Your name, madam?” The poor thing, who knows how she expected the first word of address from me. First my question seemed to confuse her. But the bewilderment on her beautiful face quickly transformed into a mocking shadow. As if she rose so high, so high from the opportunity arising from finding me so empty, that I could no longer see her eyes looking down from the clouds and I felt myself very small and deep down; this questioning answer poured down from above: “Didn’t you know my name, sir?”
I was dazzled. I needed to rest for a few minutes to gather my mind; I needed to adjust my center of gravity. Anyway, “common sense” came to my rescue and my deep personality cried out to me with reproachful insistence:
“No need for stupidity. You won’t be able to find words before a woman… A role, immediately a monologue… Even if it’s cold…”
I began:
“The reason for this bewilderment is your beauty, my love. Forgive me, is it possible I wouldn’t know your name? But…”
I continued so coldly that I felt this girl, the subdued product of an immoderate education, was genuinely freezing before me.
I’m still grateful that she didn’t upset me. She played the piano, I think she also went outside a bit. Then she came again and began to get me through my distress, to repair my embarrassment. There was such a strange and assertive melody of seriousness in her expression that if her voice weren’t thin, I would have thought I was hearing a man. She tested me on everything. And apparently wasn’t satisfied. She explained her thoughts on femininity. I, poor thing, was listening. She was talking about the danger and injustice of the opposing education given to dominate men and enslave women with complete freedom, raining down principles, principles, principles.
While I, not understanding the lyrics of this entire melody, was listening to only its stylish composition, attracted and admiring, I was proud to possess such a perfect delicate being, such a valuable wife, and mentally confirming my happiness. During the honeymoon, whatever she said, I said yes. I acted so submissively and gratefully that I don’t think she had seen this pleasure of obedience even in her Bibi (little dog). When the poisonous months arrived, my wife’s nerves began with all their cruelty. Until today, for eleven months, continuing actively and without rest… She became a rage machine. Please don’t consider my comparison crude; I’m also her machinist… A pitiful machinist… A poor machinist who daily overcomes dangers, suffers, burns, is injured before this dear machine’s explosive and boiling steam!
From every doctor who comes, I beg for her treatment with a gentle calm I thought was imaginary, promising to make him our private physician. When the doctor says “You must give up reading, you absolutely won’t read, you’ll walk in the open air,” she says “Okay, thank you,” leaves the room, and when the doctor leaves, the attack on me begins.
“I’m sorry, you invite such quack fellows as doctors. Am I savage? How can I live without reading, without giving nourishment to my humanity, etc. etc…” Now you’ll say, “Since the illness has continued for eleven months, one gets used to it too.” No, my dear, every day the scenes continue changing; there’s as little monotony and order as possible. Look, let me sketch you a brief history of my wife’s eleven months of nerves:
First a piano craze began. Not eating, not letting anyone near her, shutting herself in the room, constantly playing, playing, playing. I didn’t see her face for a week. Finally one day I went to her door and waited—I don’t remember how long I waited, but very long…
The piano quieted a bit; apparently the sheet music was changing. I knocked on the door. She thought it was the maid and shouted: “Get lost, girl! What do you want? Get lost!”
I said in a sweet and pleading voice, “No, my dear, it’s me. Please open the door.”
She answered violently: “Impossible!…”
I became angry: “How is it impossible? Isn’t this my right? You must open it! I’ll enter, I’ll tell you something.”
She sensed my anger. She begged, I insisted; she pleaded and wailed. “I don’t want it, go,” she said, “I’m getting sick, there’s no need for savagery, brutality, go.”
My stubborn head persisted; I insisted as much as I could. She really did get sick; I heard her collapse before the door. Now between sobs I was hearing her reproach: “Ah, beast, ah, cannibal…” The door was opened, mother-in-law, maids rushed about, the doctor came. My wife remained in bed for a full three weeks. Everyone was angry with me, that is, with the cannibal gentleman. Even in my mother-in-law, even—I don’t know what gets into those pigs—in the maids, faces were two spans long!
I couldn’t dare such savagery again. When my wife got better, she started a shower craze, a week later a massage craze. All the maids, her mother, and I began rubbing her body. She was scolding all of us, saying we were trying to break her bones by massaging her thrashing in bed, in short, talking about everyone’s stupidity; she didn’t know how to speak softly and gently, she was shouting.
Two months later, a calm seemed to come. She would talk to everyone, and in the end would definitely start a fight. I, poor thing, like an acrobat on a rope, was walking on my fingertips as if I would lose my balance, remembering my cannibalism and being terrified of my civilized wife. For example, she would sweetly call me and say: “Wouldn’t it be good if we had a child? Would we be happy?”
What should I say? If I say it wouldn’t be good, it’s terrible! At least let me say “It would be very good,” I say it. I get an answer as clear as Chinese I don’t know at all: “I think like Cenan. What if our child is a girl? How will I raise her? Isn’t she a candidate to be ruined like me? But just as you take pleasure from my misfortune, you’re eager for the brutality of taking pleasure from her calamity!”
More and more… Finally she invented another reading craze. In her hand, that damn inappropriate Loti’s Désenchantées. As she reads this book, she looks at me and drifts off so strangely, so deeply that it’s impossible for me to write you the strangeness of it. As if I’m the cause of everything; if I didn’t exist, she’d be happy… Here, I’m hearing her screams again. She couldn’t find me, she’s yelling at the maids. I’m afraid she’ll come here, she’ll ask for what I’ve written. If I hide it, she’ll say what were you doing here alone like an owl, if I give it to her, she’ll read it and raise hell. Oh what torment of conscience, my dear Sermet, these results of excessive modern education! With this torment of conscience, or rather with the excitement arising from the fear of its arrival, I wish that you attain your school-day dream, and right here while her screams tear my auditory nerves, I want to shout, yell, struggle: “Ah, where are you, lymphatic, calm, moderate, somewhat beautiful, somewhat emotional woman?…”
Ömer Seyfettin
