Free The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat Page B

to marry her to save her reputation. She was not a virgin, but I was unaware of the fact, and indeed was in no position to know of it; I only learnt it later from people’s gossip. When we were alone together in the bridal chamber on the first night she refused to undress, despite all my begging and praying, and would only say, ‘It’s the wrong time of the month’. She would not let me come near her but put out the light and lay down to sleep on the other side of the room from me. She was trembling like a willow tree. Anyone might have thought she had been shut up in a dungeon with a dragon. I shall probably not be believed—and indeed the thing passes belief—when I say that she did not once allow me to kiss her on the lips.
    The next night also I slept on the floor as I had done the night before, and similarly on the night that followed. I could not work up the courage to do anything else. And so a considerable period went by, during which I slept on the floor on the other side of the room from my wife. Who would believe it? For two months—no, for two months and four days—I slept apart from her on the floor and could not work up the courage to come near her.
    She had prepared her virginity token beforehand. I don’t know—perhaps she had sprinkled the cloth with the blood of a partridge or perhaps it was a cloth she had kept from the first night of her gallantries in order to make a bigger fool of me. At the time everyone was congratulating me. They were winking at one another and I suppose they were saying to one another, ‘The lad took the fortress by storm last night’, while I put the best face on it that I could and pretended I noticed nothing. They were laughing at me, at my blindness. I made a resolution to write the whole story down some day.
    I found out later that she had lovers right and left. It may be that the reason she hated me was that a preacher, by the process of reciting a few words in Arabic over us, had placed her under my authority; perhaps she simply wanted to be free. Finally, one night I made up my mind to share her bed by force, and I carried out my resolve. After a tussle she got out of the bed and left me and the only satisfaction I had was that I was able to curl up and sleep the rest of the nightin her bed, which was impregnated with the warmth and the odour of her body. The only time I enjoyed peaceful sleep was that night. After that she slept in a different room from me.
    When I came back to the house after dark she would still be out. Or rather, I would not know whether she had returned home or not and I did not care to know, since solitude and death were my destiny. I desired at all costs to establish contact with her lovers—this is another thing that will seem incredible—and sought out everyone who I heard had caught her fancy. I put up with every sort of humiliation in order to strike up an acquaintance with them. I toadied to them, urged them to visit my wife, even brought them to the house. And what people she chose! A tripepedlar, an interpreter of the Law, a cooked-meat vendor, the police superintendent, a shady mufti, a philosopher—their names and titles varied, but none of them was fit to be anything better than assistant to the man who sells boiled sheep’s heads. And she preferred all of them to me. No one would believe me if I were to describe the abject self-abasement with which I cringed and grovelled to her and them. The reason why I behaved like this was that I was afraid my wife might leave me. I wanted my wife’s lovers to teach me deportment, manners, the technique of seduction! However, as a pimp I was not a success, and the fools all laughed in my face. After all, how ever could I have learnt manners and deportment from the rabble? I know nowthat she loved them precisely because they were shameless, stupid and rotten. Her love was inseparable from filth and death. Did I really want to sleep with