By then, it had become a habit. After finishing the lessons organized for us at my father’s mansion, that place of residence for a hundred people, I would walk from Taş Kasap to Beyazıt and back. During this institutionalized evening circuit, I constantly encountered a certain man. His hair, grown long from lack of care, spilled over his broad forehead, and while engrossed in his thoughts, he was forever tripping over his own feet and then righting himself. At one point I asked myself: “Who is this great man?” This conjecture of mine, this question, was not ungrounded. For I thought this man’s aspect and behavior exactly matched the descriptions and characteristics in the book The Lives of Great Men, which I was reading at that time for an assignment from our French teacher. Usually, he would be walking down the Lâleli Yokuşu towards Aksaray, gazing at the sky with eyes that were presumably fixed on some scientific discovery, or literary creation—in short, some sort of lofty aim—with his learned countenance illuminated by a light received from the heavens. The science of appearances is of undeniable importance. Surely the view of an expert on the truths of the material world differs from a poet’s perspective on the universe. In the gaze of the former, focused on the quest for truth, one might discern a mild resentment, and a great calm—but in the indecisive eyes of the latter, fixed on some unique heavenly dream, is a melancholy, an agony, not present and visible? Let us examine a poet and a scholar, both aged, from the perspective of the science of appearances. Does the scholar’s white crown not resemble a great, cold, unfeeling mountaintop, covered with snow that remains unmelted by any heat? And does that of the poet not remind us of mountain peaks ensconced in mist and fog?… Such was my thinking as a child!

This great man’s enchantingly perfect gaze was so elevated that not once did I see him look at the dairy shops and tobacconists of Koska around him, or the streets of Aksaray before him; nor did I see him turn his head to greet anyone.

Is this Victor Hugo, or is it Jean-Jacques Rousseau? That was the question to be answered.

I slowly began to settle on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For this people-shy scholar, whom I never saw greeting or speaking to any man, would sagely appear behind the coal sellers’ pack camels that often trudged along the tram route, their bells rattling.

با لای سرش ز هشمندی

Perhaps his habit of following camels on those days rested on an impulse to investigate and examine natural history. Sometimes, this shiftless traveler of burning deserts, graveyards of the works of nature—this suffering, sand-bound companion of the bedouin—would twist its neck in its own meaningful way and carefully examine this great man.

One day, I saw a substantial crowd had gathered at Lâleli, and I heard one of their number making a commotion. I wriggled my way into the crowd.

Would you believe it? Among them, furiously inveighing against this gathering of philistines, was none other than our learned scholar! Great men have great tempers. What splendor, what splendor! At this moment of fury, he had taken on a formidable, awesome, lofty state, like the churning of a limitless ocean. He was bellowing at those around him: “You worthless, inhuman idiots…can’t you see I’m passing through here? What business did you have coming to touch me on the arm? What horrible idiots you are!” And would you believe it, the fellow he’d addressed and offended the most said: “You’re the real shameful idiot!” At that point, the great man’s patience expired and he lost control. He grabbed the fellow by his throat, and the fellow seized the learned scholar.

او در من من در او فتاده

I began to follow them together with the others. After walking for a while, the crowd ultimately managed to settle the dispute and rescue the sage from the claws of ignorance.

It was truly a pitiful sight to see this great man straighten his torn collar, put on his mud-stained fez and enter his home, that house of learning, in his wretched state. When this great man had closed the door behind him and disappeared from view, I said to myself, fraught with horror from his miserable condition: “Poets and scholars write their greatest works when they are grieving, or enraged.”

Hadn’t one of Victor Hugo’s works, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, been written at such times? This man, complaining of ignorance, must now have begun to occupy himself with an unimaginably great philosophical work on the subjects of knowledge and general education. Why should the sun of wisdom not rise over the darkness of this street? For a while, I did not come across him anywhere, presumably on account of his engagement with this vital task. If memory serves me correctly, it was twenty days later that I saw him from a distance in a tobacco shop, listening with the utmost care and attention as the shopkeeper read out a piece of paper to him. When I went over to the shop, the great man was leaving. “What was the paper you were reading to that great man?” I asked. Although years have passed, the shopkeeper’s reply still remains rooted in my memory.

“That man’s not great, he’s of average height. He always has me read the letters that come from his hometown. He can’t read or write.”

[1]  Above his head, from wisdom // The star of loftiness was shining (Saadi Shirazi, Gulistan, Chapter 1, Story 5)

[2] He has attacked me, and I him // The people are running behind us and laughing // From our conversation // They are completely astonished (Saadi Shirazi, Gulistan, Chapter 7, Saadi’s Debate with an Opponent on the Interpretation of Wealth and Poverty)

Note on the original text: This story was originally written in the Ottoman alphabet, which is no longer used to write Turkish. A transliteration of this story into the Latin alphabet is available on pages 1-5 of the text at this link.