Ares

Hearts Scarred Over

excerpt Sunday finally came. The rain had stopped falling. The patients were all taken out to get some fresh air. They were all sitting side by side in their wheelchairs under a narrow canopy made of sullied cloth that was once yellow but had now been washed out by the

Occurrences In Current Unreality

excerpt Close to our home there was a shop that sold sewing machines, where I used to go day after day and spend hours on end. The owner was a young boy, Eugen, who had just completed the compulsory military service and had found a way to make a living in the city by opening

Mrs. Pipersberg's Boarding House

The book about fleshexcerpt I absolutely have to tell you in detail everything that happened in my wedding bed, on which we lay down as though on an operating table, Ferdinand Sinidis grumpily intervened. I really want to stick to the subject, although it might seem that

The Churchyard Of The Annunciation

9But the candidates were not equally possessed by the same feelings and consideration for the servants in the house. A student in classics had been surprised by the mistress with the kitchen maid, a swarthy wench from the south, with two golden round butterflies for ears

Mundus Inversus

N. D. Cocea (1880-1949): The Psychological Analysis of InfidelityWhat got into you, saleslady? / How come you hold your head so high / Over a black patch? That's how an old suburban song goes. Pentr-un petec de negreata / Over a Black Patch is also the title of the

Maitreyi

excerpt  When I came back from the town, I found a note on my table: Come to the library! I met Maitreyi, who told me, terrified: Khokha knows!I tried to look undisturbed and to persuade her that it didn't mean anything. Maitreyi stared at me, clasping my hands, as

Miss Christina

XVMiss Christina stood there, very close to him, with her breasts uncovered, her hair loose, waiting. Egor, you're humiliating me! he could hear her thoughts. Turn off the lamp, come closer!Egor tried in vain to resist. He could feel Miss Christina's command in

The City Of Acacias

Chapter 5. The first and last nightsOne evening they were returning from a concert. It was getting late, but they still lingered on the streets, in spite of the cold, damp weather outside. They wouldn't part with each other after the two beautiful hours they had spent

The Procrustean Bed

excerpts  I passed dizzily from one room to another… nowadays, cubist furniture is commonly used and has long ceased to make a big impression, but four years ago there were extremely few lodgings that were furnished like that. Maybe a couple of banks had dared to introduce

The Wedding Book

excerpt  A few violent knocks on the door startled him. Vera hid under the blanket again, and Jim pushed the door ajar. It was the maid, who wanted to know if they were still there, puzzled by the fact that they hadn't come out of the house till noon. They hurried

Return To The Interwar Bucharest

excerpts  So closeSuddenly, the interwar people make the body visible: men are allowed to shave off not only their beards, but also their moustaches – a facial change that overthrows an aesthetic canon with centuries-old resistance – and women, punished and ridiculed

The Life Of Adrian Zografi

excerpt Adrian was too honest and too weak in front of the woman he felt attracted to. While he accompanied Lucia along the alleys close to the main boulevard, he would keep his mouth shut and barely listen to her constant and tedious tittle-tattle about everything. He already