by Ştefan Cazimir
excerpt A commonsensical observation anyone could make is that in many of Caragiale's prose pieces the personal element comes out in a very direct manner, in the form of autobiographical reminiscences or fresh diary entries. Here is Caragiale as a child, tolling, together with other children his age, the bells of a church in the outskirts of Ploieşti, while the psalm reader, who had received his share of money and red eggs, screams to them in an authoritative voice: 'Take it easy, you up there, or you'll ruin them.' Here is also the house of Hagi Ilie, the candle maker, 'where I kept renting rooms until I finished my studies and took my primary school degree.' Here is the memorable day when the Republic of Ploieşti is proclaimed, and when the 17-year-old teenager disarms an under-commissary and is immediately appointed in his stead by the very president of the new 'state'. Here is Caragiale as a member of the civil guard, posted with his company along the MogoşoaiaBridge, shoulder to shoulder with a coffee merchant with his coat over the apron which is a palm longer and in which he every now and then blows his running nose. Here is Caragiale the journalist, editing together with Frédéric Damé, during the War of Independence, 'The Romanian Nation' and running for his life from their readers indignant at the premature announcement of the fall of Plevna. Here is the writer returned after many years in the city of his childhood and spending a sinister night in a room at Grand Hotel 'Romanian Victory'. And here is Caragiale in the last years of his life, returned to Romania for a short visit, going, in the swaying rhythm of the train taking him to Iaşi, through 'sweet memories from the days of my early and reckless youth – bitter thoughts from the threshold full of vain regrets of old age…' (1984)
by Ştefan Cazimir
by Ştefan Cazimir