He is the main hero of the novel and the author of the black-covered notebook. Initially introduced as a man who works at a bank in Ankara, completely detached from the outside world, a quiet and introverted man whom everyone belittles and mocks. However, it is revealed through his secret diary that while he was in Germany in his youth to learn the soap-making business, he actually dedicated his life to art, museums, and books. He becomes profoundly captivated by the 'Madonna in a Fur Coat' painting he sees at an art exhibition, and subsequently by the painting's creator, Maria Puder. Having managed to escape his loneliness and unite his soul with another's for the first time in his life, he loses her due to the webs of fate and his own timid misunderstandings. Following the confrontation with the grim reality of death, he spends the rest of his life in silent penance, as a living dead man buried within himself.
He was born in Havran, Balıkesir. Under his father's dominant yet indifferent attitude, he grew up from childhood as a dreamer, sensitive, and an almost hidden child. Since he could not adapt to the real world, he lived with the characters of the novels he read in his imagination. After the First World War, in the early 1920s, he went to Berlin for commercial purposes, but he found his true soul there, with Maria Puder. Upon his father's death, he returned to Türkiye in haste, lost his connection with Maria due to poverty and a lack of communication, and shouldered the burden of his family by entering into a forced, soulless marriage.
When he first appears through the eyes of the narrator: A man with short, graying hair, a receding hairline, a yellow mustache trimmed at the ends, small ears, and a neck full of wrinkles. He wears tortoise-shell glasses. He portrays an elderly or prematurely aged man whose gaze is distant from the world, tired, yet occasionally betraying a childish innocence. His fingers are long and thin.
Hamdi
His incompetent but hierarchical superior at the bank; he inwardly disdains him.
Maria Puder
The only true love at the center of his life, to whom he devoted his existence.
İsimsiz Anlatıcı
The only friend who understood him in his final days and to whom he entrusted his notebook.