Translations:Yirmi Altıncı Lem'a/180/en

I could not restrain myself from weeping. I climbed to the top of the citadel which overlooking the medrese, towers above it to the height of two minarets, and I sat down. I went back in my imagination seven or eight years. Having a powerful imagination, I wandered all around that time in my mind. There was no one around to distract me and draw me back. For I was alone. As my view of those seven or eight years expanded, I saw enough to fill a century. I saw that the town at the foot of the citadel had been completely burnt and destroyed. It was as though two hundred years had passed from when I had seen it previously to them, it seemed so infinitely sad. Most of the houses’ inhabitants had been my friends and acquaintances. The majority of them had died in the migrations, may God have mercy on them, or had gone to a wretched exile. Only the Armenian quarter remained, all the Muslim houses of Van had been levelled. My heart was lacerated. I was so affected, if I had had a thousand eyes they would have all wept together.