New Naqqali
The Blind Owl · scene 63 of 77 · part two

Nurse's tale: 'Undo your neck-scarf'

Before a crisis he fears everyone, the junk dealer and the butcher included. The nurse swears she saw the junk dealer enter his wife's room at night and heard her say, 'Undo your neck-scarf!', and he has seen tooth marks on her cheek.

Scene 63 of The Blind Owl, Nurse's tale: 'Undo your neck-scarf': ink-and-wash drawing
Lines
P181.L01–P182.L02
Where
room (house outside the city)
Who
narrator; Naneh-Joon; (reported) his wife and the junk dealer
Kind
action · Optional scene
Echoes
Scene 32: The old junk dealer under the arch

Who and what is here

The harlot (the narrator’s wife)لکاتهNaneh-Joonننه‌جونThe old junk dealerپیرمرد خنزرپنزریThe butcherقصابThe narrator’s roomاطاق منThe narrator’s houseخانهThe window of his roomدریچهThe wife's separate roomاطاق لکاتهThe neck-scarfشال گردن

For the illustration The nurse whispering at his bedside; behind a door, the silhouette of a scarfed hunchback.

The text of the scene

Sadegh Hedayat’s Persian beside our literal English, line by line.

P181.L01

همیشه قبل از ظهور بحران به دلم اثر می‌کرد و اضطراب مخصوصی در من تولید می‌شد.

Always before the appearance of a crisis it affected my heart and produced a particular anxiety in me.

P181.L02

اضطراب و حالت غم‌انگیزی بود؛ مثل عقده‌ای که روی دلم جمع شده باشد؛ مثل هوای پیش از طوفان؛

It was an anxiety and a sorrowful state, like a knot that had gathered upon my heart, like the air before a storm.

P181.L03

آنوقت دنیای حقیقی از من دور می‌شد و در دنیای درخشانی زندگی می‌کردم که به مسافت سنجش‌ناپذیری با دنیای زمینی فاصله داشت.

Then the real world grew distant from me, and I lived in a shining world that was separated from the earthly world by an immeasurable distance.

P181.L04

در این وقت از خودم می‌ترسیدم، از همه کس می‌ترسیدم، گویا این حالت مربوط به ناخوشی بود. برای این بود که فکرم ضعیف شده بود.

At such times I was afraid of myself; I was afraid of everyone. Apparently this state was connected with illness. It was because my mind had grown weak.

P181.L05

دم دریچه اطاقم پیرمرد خنزرپنزری و قصاب را هم که دیدم ترسیدم. نمی‌دانم در حرکات و قیافه آنها چه چیز ترسناکی بود!

When I saw the old junk dealer and the butcher by the little window of my room, I was frightened too. I do not know what there was in their movements and appearance that was frightening!

P181.L06

دایه‌ام یک چیز ترسناک برایم گفت. قسم به پیر و پیغمبر می‌خورد که دیده است که پیرمرد خنزرپنزری شبها می‌آید در اطاق زنم؛ و از پشت در شنیده بود که لکاته به او می‌گفته «شال گردنتو واکن!»

My nurse told me something frightening. She swore by the saints and the Prophet that she had seen the old junk dealer come into my wife's room at night; and she had heard from behind the door the harlot saying to him, “Undo your neck-scarf!”

P182.L01

هیچ فکرش را نمی‌شود کرد! پریروز یا پس پریروز بود وقتی که فریاد زدم و زنم آمده بود لای در اطاقم خودم دیدم، به چشم خودم دیدم که جای دندانهای چرک، زرد و کرم‌خورده پیرمرد که از لایش آیات عربی بیرون می‌آمد روی لپ زنم بود.

It cannot even be conceived! It was the day before yesterday or the day before that, when I cried out and my wife had come to the doorway of my room; I myself saw, with my own eyes, that the marks of the old man's dirty, yellow, worm-eaten teeth, through which Arabic verses came out, were on my wife's cheek.

P182.L02

اصلاً چرا این مرد از وقتی که من زن گرفته‌ام جلو خانه ما پیداش شد؟ آیا خاکسترنشین بود؟ خاکسترنشین این لکاته شده بود؟

Why had this man appeared outside our house from the time I married? Was he one who sat in the ashes? Had he become the ash-sitter of this harlot?

← Scene 62: Talking to the mirror under opiumScene 64: Buying the jar from the junk dealer →