scourge, the state, acting in its own interests and those of its citizens, has felt obliged to take a number of measures.
Carriers of the evil eye would no longer be sentenced to death, as they were in the past; they would only be prevented from perpetrating any more of their wicked deeds. That aim would be achieved by depriving them of the tool of their crimes — that is to say, of their evil eyes.
So the qorrfirman stated that anyone convicted of possessing maleficent ocular powers would forfeit his or her eyes.
People affected by this measure would receive compensation from the state, with a higher sum going to afflicted individuals who turned themselves in to the authorities. Disoculation (the first time the term had been used in an official document), that is to say, the forcible putting out of eyes, would be inflicted without compensation upon all persons who opposed the Blinding Order by whatever means, or tried to hide from it or to escape its application.
The call went out to all subjects of the age-old Empire to denounce either openly or anonymously any individual who possessed the power. They should put at the foot of their letters the full name and exact address or place of work of the accused. Denunciations could be made of persons of all kinds, be they ordinary citizens or civil servants, whatever their rank in the hierarchy of the state. That last sentence left many people gazing dreamily into space, as if they’d just been staring at an invisible speck on the far horizon.
2
Shortly after the introduction of newspapers, it became readily apparent that some kinds of government announcements were more effectively disseminated by the traditional channels of communication, namely town criers, whereas others had much more impact through the medium of print. This variation was of course related to the nature of the announcement and whether its audience was to be found primarily among the illiterate masses or among the elite.
Whether spread by ear or by eye, however, the qorrfirman aroused instant horror. But it could only be grasped fully if ear and eye worked together to transmit its meaning to the brain. Perhaps that was the reason why people who first heard it proclaimed by a town crier rushed to buy the newspaper in order to read it, while people who first learned of it in the press left their papers on cafe tables or public benches to hasten to the nearest square to await the crier’s arrival.
An old feeling, which people had perhaps forgotten about in recent years, suddenly began to seep back into the atmosphere. The feeling was fear. But this time it was no ordinary fear, like being afraid of sickness, robbery, ghosts, or death. No, what had returned was an ice-cold, impersonal, and baffling emotion called fear of the state. Bearing as it were a great emptiness in its heart, the fear of the state found its way into every recess of the mind. In the course of a few hours, days at most, hundreds of thousands of people would be caught up in its cogs and wheels. Something similar had happened six years previously, when there had been a campaign against forbidden sects (the latter had nonetheless managed to reemerge since then). An even earlier precedent came from fifteen years before, when they’d unraveled a huge plot, which at first appeared to involve only a narrow circle of high officials but which came by stages to wreak its horror on many thousands of households.
People’s natural inclination to erase collective misfortunes from memory made them forget — or believe they had forgotten — the peculiar atmosphere that arises just prior to a major outbreak of terror. Between the first hint of the threat and the first blow struck, in the time when the hope that the horror will not truly come, that evil might be thwarted and the nightmare extinguished, people are suspended in a state of paralysis, deafness, and blankness that, far from placating terror, only serves to aggravate it.
They thought
Carriers of the evil eye would no longer be sentenced to death, as they were in the past; they would only be prevented from perpetrating any more of their wicked deeds. That aim would be achieved by depriving them of the tool of their crimes — that is to say, of their evil eyes.
So the qorrfirman stated that anyone convicted of possessing maleficent ocular powers would forfeit his or her eyes.
People affected by this measure would receive compensation from the state, with a higher sum going to afflicted individuals who turned themselves in to the authorities. Disoculation (the first time the term had been used in an official document), that is to say, the forcible putting out of eyes, would be inflicted without compensation upon all persons who opposed the Blinding Order by whatever means, or tried to hide from it or to escape its application.
The call went out to all subjects of the age-old Empire to denounce either openly or anonymously any individual who possessed the power. They should put at the foot of their letters the full name and exact address or place of work of the accused. Denunciations could be made of persons of all kinds, be they ordinary citizens or civil servants, whatever their rank in the hierarchy of the state. That last sentence left many people gazing dreamily into space, as if they’d just been staring at an invisible speck on the far horizon.
2
Shortly after the introduction of newspapers, it became readily apparent that some kinds of government announcements were more effectively disseminated by the traditional channels of communication, namely town criers, whereas others had much more impact through the medium of print. This variation was of course related to the nature of the announcement and whether its audience was to be found primarily among the illiterate masses or among the elite.
Whether spread by ear or by eye, however, the qorrfirman aroused instant horror. But it could only be grasped fully if ear and eye worked together to transmit its meaning to the brain. Perhaps that was the reason why people who first heard it proclaimed by a town crier rushed to buy the newspaper in order to read it, while people who first learned of it in the press left their papers on cafe tables or public benches to hasten to the nearest square to await the crier’s arrival.
An old feeling, which people had perhaps forgotten about in recent years, suddenly began to seep back into the atmosphere. The feeling was fear. But this time it was no ordinary fear, like being afraid of sickness, robbery, ghosts, or death. No, what had returned was an ice-cold, impersonal, and baffling emotion called fear of the state. Bearing as it were a great emptiness in its heart, the fear of the state found its way into every recess of the mind. In the course of a few hours, days at most, hundreds of thousands of people would be caught up in its cogs and wheels. Something similar had happened six years previously, when there had been a campaign against forbidden sects (the latter had nonetheless managed to reemerge since then). An even earlier precedent came from fifteen years before, when they’d unraveled a huge plot, which at first appeared to involve only a narrow circle of high officials but which came by stages to wreak its horror on many thousands of households.
People’s natural inclination to erase collective misfortunes from memory made them forget — or believe they had forgotten — the peculiar atmosphere that arises just prior to a major outbreak of terror. Between the first hint of the threat and the first blow struck, in the time when the hope that the horror will not truly come, that evil might be thwarted and the nightmare extinguished, people are suspended in a state of paralysis, deafness, and blankness that, far from placating terror, only serves to aggravate it.
They thought
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