The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

power, he’d say, “They’d never allow it.” He once accepted a robe and turban at Abdüsselam Bey’s insistence, only to return them three days later, saying, “They were not authorized. May the patron forgive me.” Seyit Lutfullah knew how to forge a legend that would last.
    He liked to say that it was his auspicious guardian spirits who had directed him to the
medrese
that was his home.
    I’ve seen very few places like this ruin of a
medrese
: its every fragment spoke of the effort and precision of its creator. You might almost think that this building and its miniature neighboring mosque—attributed to the reign ofMahmud I—began their slow descent into ruin the moment they left the hands of the architects, in strict accordance with a plan that foresaw its current state.
    The paving stones in the courtyard had been either broken or dislodged by an enormous plane tree surging out in all directions. Most of the rooms on the three wings—save for Seyit Lutfullah’s—were partly or completely in ruins. As for the little mosque on the left side of the courtyard, all that remained were four front steps leading up to the minaret. In a charming little graveyard off to one side lay four or five esteemed personages from the era, along with the
kahvecıbası
who built both
medrese
and mosque; it was separated from the street by a flimsy fence that was barely standing.
    Trees and dry vegetation dominated the
medrese
’s entire courtyard, as well as the graveyard and the plot where the mosque had once stood; a few trees had thrust their roots outfrom beneath toppled columns. The oddest sight was the slender and elegant cypress sapling that grew on the roof of the room where Seyit Lutfullah slept, rustling in the wind like the flowers of a silk
oya
. On cloudier days it seemed no more than a smudge against the ashen void of the sky, an arrow pointing toward an infinite and unassailable nature.
    Marked with this strange herald, the
medrese
teetered like a giant scale at the top of a hill from which it would one day fall. Seyit Lutfullah slept on a mattress tossed on the floor of the ruin’s only intact room, which was mildewed and perpetually dark. Beside his mattress were a handful of large bottles that seemed to hold his provisions and, strange as it may seem, a tortoise—a gift from Aselban, coyly named Çesminigâr, “the fountain of beauty”—which trundled about under the feet of Lutfullah’s visitors, entirely at ease with humans.
    Rumor had it that auspicious spirits had directed Lutfullah to the
medrese
because it was close to the treasure of Andronikos. This tallied with Seyit Lutfullah’s endless tales of his quest in the world beyond for this treasure dating back to the days of that emperor.
    But, then again, judging by what my dear friend told me in strict confidence, the
medrese
was neither devastated nor in the ruined state that we saw before us. It was, on the contrary, a sumptuous and resplendent
saray
;
We were as incapable of seeing the true splendor of this palace as we were of seeing Seyit Lutfullah’s true beauty. Only when the treasure was uncovered would its pillars of pure gold and its diamond-encrusted turquoise domes shine forth. Then everything would fall into place. Aselban would agree to appear in human form, her lover would be reunited with his true face, and at last they would be joined in eternal bliss.
    â€œThereafter I will reign over the entire world,” he would say, “and everything I desire will come true.” He’d banish misery and injustice from the world and govern with absolute justice. For this strange man had peculiar ideas about the struggle between justice and injustice, leading one to wonder whether his activities might not be directed by larger forces after all, and, in the end, casting some light on his true nature.
    By this logic, Seyit Lutfullah was the type of man to scorn