36. To Entertain a Small Hope That Might Allay My Heartache

"Knowing that visitors to my museum must by now be sick and tired of my heartache, I display here a lovely news clipping. It features Ceyda’s official beauty contest photograph, along with an interview in which she states that her aim in life is a happy marriage with the “ideal man” of her dreams." (The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk)

"The black slipper, black telephone, and Simca car were also present in my childhood home." (The Innocence of Objects by Orhan Pamuk)

"It was during these important days—as I was collecting the first objects for my museum—that I wrote the letter displayed here. It remains in its envelope to keep a long story short, and to spare me a full disclosure of the shame it caused me still, twenty years later, when I was founding the Museum of Innocence. If readers and the visitors to my museum could open the letter, they would find me groveling to Füsun." (The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk)