Summary

While the plague is spreading in Istanbul, the look-alikes continue to sit at the table opposite each other and write together, searching for answers to why they are what they are, or in Hoja's case, why others are the fools they are. In the midst of death, the narrator writes about his happy dreams, and the reader is surprised when it is now Hoja who asks what the dreams mean. Their work is interrupted on one occasion by a neighbor who wants Hoja to marry his widowed cousin, making Hoja furious; Hoja sees through the scheme, which would make the neighbor's widow inheritor of his estate, if Hoja dies from the plague.

Hoja shows his look-alike a slightly swollen red spot on his chest, asking whether it is an insect bite or a plague bubo. Again the two return to their seats at the...