Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri's grandfatherly voice came over the internal house phone.
"Welcome to my home", the 77-year-old historic figure of the Iranian revolution and banned cleric said in English. For more than two years, he had not spoken to anyone outside his immediate family. The two Revolutionary Guards posted round the clock in the glass booth built on to the front of his house saw to that.
By entering the ayatollah's son's house, contiguous to Mr Montazeri's four-room grey brick home, we were able to avoid his guards.
For half an hour the frail ayatollah - the political and spiritual forerunner of the reformers who appear to have won control of the Iranian Majlis - told of his joy at the election and his bitterness towards the Special Clergy Court that judged him guilty of treason. The theory of Velayat e Faqih (Leadership of the Guide) was unconstitutional as currently practised, he said.
As we stood in the hall of his son's home, taking notes, the ayatollah was only a few feet away from us, on the other side of the wall; his voice came to us twice - muffled through the bricks, clearly on the interphone.
At a moment when all Iran is looking forward to a freer future, the man who first denounced the abuses of the revolution is still locked up.
"I am very, very happy," Mr Montazeri said when we asked him about the election. Eighty per cent of the electorate voted, and the majority voted for the reformers. "People really did their duty. They have taken hold of their future", he continued.
Ayatollah Khomeini, who taught Mr Montazeri, once called him "the fruit of my life". He had followed Khomeini into exile in Najaf before the revolution, and Khomeini named Mr Montazeri his successor. But the men fell out because Mr Montazeri protested against the mass execution of political opponents. Before he died in 1989, Khomeini dismissed him in favour of Ayatollah Ali Kham enei, the present Guide or Supreme Leader of Iran.
Now Mr Montazeri believes that "the election should be enough to stop the bad things they have been doing in this country". Referring to reports that up to 100 innocent people were murdered by members of the Intelligence Ministry, Mr Montazeri said: "The judiciary must follow this up." When Iranian security forces forced their way into a housing complex at the University of Tehran last summer during student protests, many students were arrested.
One has been sentenced to death for throwing a petrol bomb, although the sentence has not been carried out. But the police and soldiers who beat up students have not been punished, Mr Montazeri noted. "People should ask for justice. Our constitution says so."
Does the reformers' parliamentary election victory mean that Mr Montazeri's sentence to internal exile in this hot and dusty holy city, 125 km south of Tehran, will soon be lifted? "I don't know," the voice told us over the interphone. "All my hope is in God. But those people should take note that keeping me in prison is wrong."
By "those people", Mr Montazeri meant Ayatollah Khamenei, who ordered his Special Clergy Court to judge him for treason. The court, devised to silence dissident clerics, has been likened to the Inquisition. He has been under house arrest since November 1997.
"I have a husseiniyeh [small mosque] close to my home where I had many Korans and books, and they took them from me," Mr Montazeri continued bitterly. "I have 3,000 cassettes and audio equipment, and they took all of it. Even if someone is convicted, they are not allowed to confiscate his belongings . . . Our revolution was Islamic and it occurred by the will of the people. We asked for independence, for freedom and for an Islamic Republic. It seems that they have forgotten freedom. They did not keep the promise of the revolution."
If he were allowed to speak to the people of Iran, Mr Montazeri said he would tell them to assert their rights, but through elected representatives - not through violence. Alluding again to the conservatives who ruled Iran for the past decade, he said: "They have created `force groups' that attack people when they wanted to speak publicly. They attacked me too." (Mr Montazeri's husseiniyeh was smashed up by one of the force groups.) "These kind of actions make people hate religion," he said. "You can never serve the interests of religion through violence."
Mr Montazeri has written four books about the concept of Velayat e Faqih. According to the Iranian constitution, he says, "the President is supposed to be responsible. But the tools of power are in other people's hands". In the wake of last Friday's election, many Iranians are predicting the demise of Mr Montazeri's nemesis, Ayatollah Khamenei - who nonetheless remains the highest authority.
Will there be a Guide in the future, we asked him. "There is an Arabic saying that everything has a limit," he answered.
"Everything that passes its limit destroys itself. If the Velayat e Faqih was only observing, it would remain. But if there is dictatorship, it cannot continue. I am one of the mouthpieces of the revolution. If they treat me this way, how must they be treating the others? People like me and Mr Kadivar [a reformist cleric] were sent to prison for no reason, because they cannot tolerate criticism. The first Imam, Ali, always said, `You should criticise me'. These gentlemen should be the same way."