Sadegh Hedayat

“ Her plaited hair which had hidden her profile moved and Davood saw the black beauty-spot near her lips. He felt pain in his body, he was perspiring on the forehead. He looked around. There wasn’t a soul there. But he could hear the singing man more clearly. His heart was throbbing so quickly that he couldn’t breathe. Without a word, he got up. All his body was trembling. He was about to weep. He picked up his walking stick and with heavy steps and drawing his body, he set off back. ”

“ He remembered his father’s expression while he was dying. His face was pale, his cheeks were bony, his eyes had become black and had sunk in and his mouth was half-open. His syphilitic father had married a young girl and all his children had been born either blind or paralyzed. Just one of his brothers had survived dumb and crazy who had died two years earlier. “Perhaps they were happy”, he whispered to himself.
He was the only one who had stayed alive. He despised himself and all people. Everybody shunned him, but to some extent he had learned to lead a solitary life. ”

“ It brings luck for other people, but for me it’s just pain and misery. Oh, no, never ...” whispered Davood to himself while he was tapping his yellow walking stick on the ground and was walking with difficulty as if he could hardly keep his balance. His big face had sunk into his thin shoulders on his swollen chest. He had a dry, rough and gaudy expression on his face: thin tight lips, narrow round eyebrows, fallen eyelids, pale yellow color, and swollen bony cheeks. ”