Apa

excerpt The loaded boats – from time to time you can hear the thumping of a strong fish striking against the freshly tarred wood – are lined up in the narrow canal, towed by Michea's tug. Come on, you dark-bay horse, take me to my beloved, don't tarry! Timosca

On some days I feel universal when listening to Hora în căruţă (Jig in the Cart); I can even picture a cart then, all its joints rattling among the frozen missiles of the world. I get dizzy and a teardrop warms up the Murmansk under my eyelids. Hora Stacatto (Stacatto

Minimal Joys  To fully take delight in minimal joys – here is one of the irreducible experiences of joy in the East of Europe before 1989. The minimal joys mustn't be confounded with the simple joys. It is one thing to enjoy a piece of hot bread and a glass of wine

excerpt Had they just finished dinner, that Pirgu was dying to flee. The gentleman was thirsty. Thank God for the variety of wines at that time, abundant and not expensive; Bordeaux and Bourgogne wines for royal feasts. Still, Gorica was not very pleased with them, he was

The dancing tea partyGuţă Mereuţă was indeed waiting, sad, with a proboscidean long nose. He couldn't dance. He had nothing in appearance or in speech that could have attracted a woman. His eyes pushed aside, towards the temples, by the broad root of the olfactory

excerpt In the town square, behind Gustav Café, there is the variety entertainment ale-house with the strange name Bucharest Hotel (it has room only for women-artists), Mr. Cocoşel's winter public house. Ancient house, rather long and low, the hotel twinkles its

excerpt The pub was no better than other houses in the village, it just had a tiled roof and, in two little wire-netted windows overlooking the street, bottles of coloured drinks, jars of motley bonbons, and various other merchandise sought after by peasants. The front

A conflict has arisen, a platonic one for now. The directors of the theatres in Bucharest are questioning the sense of an out-dated provision stipulating that performances must not be carried out during fast weeks. The holy metropolises and bishoprics have demanded this

excerpt At Scatiu's they had prepared two tables: one for the minister and for the high-brow people, in the large dining-room; the other, for the rabble, in a room downstairs. Scatiu's plans were really great; he wanted to offer the minister a feast of fifty people,

CHAPTER 8 –THE ORIENT AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE ROMANIANS' SOULexcerpt With such borrowed habits, it is obvious that the people to whom the destinies of the Romanian countries were entrusted could only run these countries into ruin and destruction. Laziness and slothfulness

excerpt Kiseleff road is a sort of a Romanian Bois de Boulogne. It is here that rich women display their outstandingly sumptuous garments and rigs. On Sundays and on holidays everybody comes to have a walk on the Road, which renders transport almost impossible. Wonderful

excerpts Chapter XV. Scenes of Social Life The beautiful autumn days of the year 1817 had already flitted along with the joys they bring to pass for the inhabitants of Romania. Winter had made quite an early appearance and the western wind had by now started to blow in