Winter Sleep Page #7

If you want,

I can stop being realistic.

Too late.

The genie is out of the bottle.

Well, if you ask for opinions

you have to face the consequences.

What can I say? That's true.

In the old days, we admired you.

We thought

you'd do great things,

become quite famous even.

But it didn't happen.

The elephant gave birth to a mouse.

Sorry to disappoint you.

That's obviously not your fault.

It's us who set the bar so high.

So I should feel comforted.

What about

"Flowers of the Steppes"?

What did you think of it?

To be honest,

that's the article that actually

made me think like this.

Really? In what way?

How can I put it?

This soppy romanticism.

This naive, unconvincing self-belief.

Takes no risks, for one thing.

It looks like the writer

adopts positive values

accepted by all,

just to endear himself.

Sometimes the disguise of lyricism

makes it stink of sentimentality.

You really are annoyed.

I must confess

I don't like this style much.

If what you say is true,

I should just quit writing.

No, dear.

This is just my point of view.

Luckily not everybody

thinks like you.

Naturally.

Who are they?

I see you're curious.

No. It's just because

you mentioned it.

- I haven't offended you, have I?

- Not at all.

Are you sure?

Maybe a little.

A writer can be very sensitive

regarding his work.

But don't worry, I can handle it.

But dear, you're not coming up

with coherent, constructive criticism.

Like your remarks

are always hiding something.

That's what's annoying.

So I get to thinking

it's me you hate, not the articles.

- That's absurd.

- But that's the case.

And of course,

we've become very different now.

We must accept that.

We see things, life itself,

quite differently.

That's probably natural.

The older you get,

the more particular, rigid you get.

After a while, it seems normal

you don't like them.

That's maybe how it should be.

In fact, this might even be something

I should be pleased about.

You see?

Anyway...

I don't want to go into it

any further.

It's incredible how you always

float to the surface like olive oil.

You find a way

to justify yourself, as usual.

Necla, please, can we drop it?

You wanted to ask me something

when you came in.

- It's done.

- No. What were you going to ask?

The subject of the article

you've just sent.

No, it wasn't that.

Yes, that's what it was.

OK. Religion, morals, this and that.

Nothing of your interest.

Now I see.

You found a victim

and you're making the most of it.

Stop harassing the poor man.

Necla, I'm losing my temper.

What does it have to do with it?

I should ask what religion, faith,

spirituality have to do with you.

Have you ever set foot in a mosque?

Have you ever prayed

so that you can talk about it?

Do I have to go to a mosque

to write about religion?

How absurd is that?

You keep saying the imam's feet stink.

What's it to you?

The man walked 10 km in this cold.

And he had to enter the room

with those feet.

What exactly are you trying to say?

You know damn well what I'm saying.

No, I don't.

Then let me explain.

I find it insincere

to talk about spirituality

when you haven't shed

a single tear on your parents' grave

and never even visited them.

There are ways of crying

you don't know, Mrs Necla.

Fine, all right. Go on then.

I wish my threshold of self-deception

was as low as yours.

Then I could easily find

things worth doing

and escape this boredom perhaps.

I don't understand

how you don't get fed up

harping on like that.

Applying yourself, being persistent

is a precondition to penetrating

deeper and creating new things.

Second, what boredom

are you talking about?

I've never had a spare second

to feel bored.

And in the present circumstances,

I believe boredom is quite a luxury.

So it wasn't a luxury in the past

and now it is?

Fine, I'll put it like this.

Boredom is always a luxury. Happy?

We are so different,

we have such opposite souls.

It's hard to believe we're related.

That's normal.

Siblings are never alike.

If one is hardworking, the other is lazy.

One is clever, the other is a fool.

One is sociable,

the other introverted.

That's just how it is.

- So?

- So it's normal.

I can't believe

how I left a place like Istanbul

and agreed to come and live with you.

My soul's withering here.

I feel at home

wherever my room and my books are.

I feel no need for another place.

You must be able to create a world

for yourself, find an occupation.

You're bored because you sit around

doing nothing.

You've really let yourself go.

You used to do translations.

You stopped even that.

Of course you're bored.

We must work, have a passion.

You know what they say, an idle life

is far from honour and honesty.

It depends on how

you define "working".

It doesn't mean

running around pointlessly.

So what does it mean?

People who think a lot are actually

more active than the others.

Even if they don't do anything.

So you mean you're busy thinking.

Maybe I don't know what to do.

I've no passion

to give me direction.

But then, what do you do?

You waste your best years

with things that are irrelevant to you.

Are you not tired of tinkering uselessly,

like an alchemist?

Seeing you like this

depresses me.

Necla, what are you raving about,

for God's sake?

You having a bad night or what?

The more I try to humour you,

the harsher you get.

- Calm down.

- Come on, please.

I'm not surprised you got divorced

after all these years.

No man would put up with

this sharp tongue of yours.

- It takes one to know one, so true.

- What do you mean?

- Well...

- Who are we talking about?

Your other half.

You're becoming both the same.

You have to get at Nihal too, right?

I know what you two think of me.

But I don't care.

These are my own thoughts,

nothing to do with Nihal.

She walks around

like she was a guardian angel,

but in reality, she doesn't do sh*t.

Glaring at people

with that contemptuous look.

Are we now guilty

because you do nothing?

Do something.

Nobody's stopping you.

Charity's now what they call

showing off in this house.

The salvation ritual of a woman

who's never earned her living.

God knows what salvation.

What do you want her to do?

Philanthropy isn't tossing

a bone to a hungry dog.

It's sharing it

when you're just as hungry.

Everybody does what he can,

how he can. What's wrong with that?

Ask yourself what you get

from this kind of work.

You're not listening.

What's that got to do with it?

Others found what you're digging for

in that hole years ago.

Stop flogging a dead horse.

It's a waste of time.

Nothing new will come of it.

So you tell me then.

What is "new"?

You are the man of ideas, not me.

I can't teach you.

I'm interested in the universal,

even if it might not seem new.

For God's sake, Aydin.

Be realistic for once. Please.

Just this once.

Look who's talking about realism.

Dealing with art, struggling

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