Walking around the city arm in arm with literary recollections… Laying on façades invisible memorial plates with quotes in verse or prose… Experiencing "live" the sensation of osmosis between fiction and reality… Feeling literature become history, and history – literature… Dreaming of a literary guidebook of Bucharest, regretting it was not written, long ago, by an older and more qualified man… And thinking that, decades from now, one of your former students will be dreaming too of a literary guide of Bucharest, regretting perhaps that it wasn't you who wrote it…Route no. 1. We start from the University. A salute – in passing – to the statue of Heliade in front of the University. "The illustrious late scholar," Caragiale wrote in A Handful of Opinions, "is represented as an orator saluting the audience with modesty, while the enthusiastic listeners are crowning his exquisite speech with unanimous, prolonged applause." Toma Florescu's epigram suggests another interpretation: "Why, my old man, have you been standing / with your arm extended for so long? / – I'm begging for a grain of common sense / For them sages across the road."We cross the underground passage, come up by Colţea [Hospital and Church] and make for Rosetti Square. Here we are, in front of the Ministry of Agriculture, a beautiful edifice in French Renaissance style: "The great DomainsPalace, with its fanciful and bizarre prismo-pyramidal coverings, among which two little domes in the inner angles of the wings plainly reveal to the passers-by the intimate use the rooms beneath are destined for." Who is the author of these mischievous words? Caragiale, of course (Romanian Literature and Art in the Latter Half of the 19th Century).On the right, Slănic St. leading behind Colţea. The place between the hospital and Scaune [Chairs] Church is a big parking lot with tens of cars compelled to painstaking maneuvers into or out of the encirclement. It is the old Scaune neighborhood, whose name evokes the butchers' trade and the thick chopping blocks. There was another trade that throve around at the beginning of the 19th century, as described by Nicolae Filimon in chapter XVII of his novel Music and Choreography at the time of Caragea: Scaune was also the quarter of "tălaniţe", as prostitutes were called then.We go past the Peco gas station to Hristo Botev St. The second on the left is Sfinţilor [Saints'] St. A few steps away is SfinţilorChurch. In 1974, the small square, with its antiquated and provincial aspect, was the set where a few episodes of The Wall, directed by C. Vaeni, were shot. Across the church porch stands the house where [general, participant in the 1848 revolution, later minister] Christian Tell lived. But why Saints' Church? It was named so, Ion Ghica enlightens us, "because the exterior wall was covered all around with pictures of Ancient sages and Sibyls; today some of their names can still be read: Thales the philosopher, Hermes Trismegistus, Aristotle, Plato, Zeno the Stoic, Sybila Persica, Sibyla Cumea, and Sibyla Delphea." (Industrial and Political Bucharest, 1876). Another century elapsed since then, but we can still make out the faces and inscriptions.We cross Moşilor (Fair's) Road and go via Cernica St. to Negustori (Merchants') St., to a house bearing a memorial plate: "This house hosted poet Dim. Bolintineanu between 1870-1871" (the time of the poet's painful agony, during the last months of which he was sheltered by his friend Alexandru Zane). On the right, Negustori St. reminds of the quarter with the same name where Aghiuţă [the dickens], a.k.a. Kir Ianulea [Caragiale's hero] spent most of his trial period on earth. At the beginning of the 20th century, [novelist] Duiliu Zamfirescu lived in one of the boyars' manor houses next to Hristo Botev St.; "On the threshold of the door," remembers N. Petraşcu, "there appeared in front of me a page boy in a livery, knee-low pants, stockings and black shoes. Inside, two or three reception pieces; in the stable, a home coach and thoroughbreds." But we are turning left now, to Culmea Veche [Old Peak] St., we walk a few other narrow streets (Caloteşti, Sborului, Dunărea Albastră), cross Călăraşilor [Cavalrymen's] St., go down Mircea Vodă [Prince Mircea] St. and stop at the corner of Matei Basarab (Prince) St., in front of School no. 73. "The great writer Barbu Delavrancea learned here in 1866-1867" – says the inscription on the façade. And we must add, one of his teachers was Master Vucea [portrayed in his writings]!On the left, Logofăt [Chancellor] Udrişte St. In the middle of a small flower bed, a bust of August Treboniu Laurian, erected by his "students and admirers". The scholar's nose has two colors; chipped a few years ago by the stone hurled by a child, its tip was reconstructed from cement… We proceed to the left. A modern building, lots of self-important guys going in and out, watched by placid eyes beneath white caps: the Traffic Command Center of the Municipality of Bucharest. This is where "we sat and wept" until some of us finally got hold of the coveted pink license. Going past that building still gives me a cold shiver. Across the road, Lucaci Church, in many ways linked to the memory of Anton Pann: this is where the psalm singer sang in his final years, this is where prayers were said for him before he was buried here, by the altar window, under the epitaph he wrote for himself: "Having fulfilled his duty / And not having buried the talent / His voyage he terminated / And gave way to others in this world."We go back the way we came, up to the corner of Mircea Vodă, then turn left on Anton Pann St. At no. 20, the writer's house: three rooms at the ground floor and one at the first floor, built above the one in the middle. On the roof of the two side rooms, Pepelea's godson used to grow flowers.Pacing quickly along Mărăşeşti Avenue; we cross the boulevard (at the junction, Dimitrie Cantemir's monument), and first on the right is Şerban Vodă St., once known as Beilik's Bridge. A short walk away is New St. Spiridon Church. Across it, at no. 26, a common suburban house with a glass partition at the upper floor. Here lived – N. Vătămanu assures in his Bucharest History – the prototype of [Caragiale's hero] Master Dumitrache: timber dealer Dumitru Nicolau. On the left, down to the corner of Şerban Vodă and United Principalities St., stood the timber storehouse. These are quite trustworthy facts, considering Caragiale himself once told [critic] Paul Zarifopol, "Rică, c'est moi!"We now go along United Principalities, turn right to Ienăchiţă Văcărescu and, following the winding street, arrive at no. 16. A one-story building, quite impressive: a platform enclosed by Corinthian pilasters, balustered balconies, a monumental fronton and attic. The house belonged to Iancu Văcărescu, the poet of Spring of Love. Making a few steps back, we now observe, at insignificant distance, the old building of the Chamber of Deputies, and are surprised to discover what usually cannot be descried, that is the lower segment of the edifice. On the right, a small sloping alley leads to a narrow passage with steps. The ambience is strikingly similar to that of the old city of Sibiu: secret doors, latticed gates, walls and bastions blackened by the passage of time. Panting, we climb the 67 steps. The reward is waiting for us up there: we are on the top of Metropolitan Hill, the highest spot in the city. Let's halt and catch our breath. Let us cast a dizzy look around, incapable of discerning, in the suddenly broadened expanse, the trail that took us here, and dream together of a literary guide of Bucharest, doomed to remain unwritten forever…
by Ştefan Cazimir
