Walk

Poem

…And I walk in my memories as in a deep wood…there I find people like leafy treesand so many things unhappened to othersand walls built on mysteriesand old parks asleepand statues of silenceand masks molded in wax:a world of mine, a world I grew up in,and learned what

Simona

from Exuviae  I squat in the middle of the room. I find it hard to talk about myself in the past. And today, only a specific kind of music, sometimes, or some dizzying book can make all the multitudes you are made of get along, keep together, come back docilely to your

Mara

excerpts CHAPTER IMother's Poor Little Things Mara, bless her heart, was now a widow with two children, poor little things, but she was young and healthy and hard-working, and God allowed that she got lucky again. As a matter of fact, when he lived, Bârzovanu, her

Lina

from A Concert of Bach's Music The Amzei Church had donned a festive appearance. People had started coming as early as three o'clock, and by four – the time of the ceremony – the street was crowded with carriages and automobiles. An archbishop was serving.

Fetiţa (Girlie)

I saw an ad in newspapers about a trip to the mountains and I got in without knowing anybody. About 30 of us crowded in a big race vehicle, so boys and girls, parcels, cigarette smoke, and jokes mixed up together at random. A certain Biţă was speaking in my ear untiringly.

Estera

from Requiem for Fools and Beasts That day, Estera did not come to the stadium, but the following two evenings she was there again; however, I did not pluck up enough courage to speak to her, and after overtaking me several times, she kept running about three hundred meters

Donna Alba

excerpts First of all I have to recall that moment of my life which was the origin of the incidents that I will evoke in these confessions. It was the instant – so dramatic to me – when I first saw Alba. But right in that moment, which twisted so many years that were

Queen Chiajna

excerpts IThe Tomb The Royal Church bells of the townlet of Bucharest were pealing rhythmically in a mournful voice, whilst, from the hillock in sight, the small-rounded belfry of Bucur's little church was echoing back the toll in a wailing-remote fashion. It was

Adela

excerpts Almost every night I talk to Adela on the porch. The ladies go to sleep earlier. Adela shows an attentive, almost submissive, sympathy to the maestro. She is, however, more personal in opinions than before. But what is going on inside her? When she talks it always

Eternal Womanhood

Even if human society has always been haunted by an almost imperceptible misogynic fluid, the selfsame society has enabled the advent of remarkable women in every walk of life, from politics to business to culture or science, from Sappho to Marie Curie, from Clara Schumann

Fiction Of The Diary

excerpts The Diary and Its Readers We should not overdo it with diaries and letters. We usually tend to deem them more revealing of the man than his public work. All that is secretive, familiar draws us as if it were a confession. It is the pleasure of breaking an interdiction,

The Diary Of Happiness

6 March 1960So I am finally taken out as well, led inside an office hid in that tiny niche of the arched corridor; examined, identified, undressed. I am only left one towel, one bar of soap, one toothbrush, one toothpaste, two pairs of socks, one shirt, one pair of underwear,