Lied

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.

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

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

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

* Excerpts from an interview with prose writer, political analyst and journalist Stelian TĂNASE (Observator cultural no. 121, 18-24 June 2002) Why did you choose to publish At Home We Speak in Whispers at this particular moment? Books come and go in a writer's imagination.

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,

Preface In April 1990, I handed over the volume The Silent Escape to the Secretariat of the French publishing house La Découverte in Paris. On September the 1st, the same year, the book was in the bookshops. It's my first book and I don't consider it literature.

vol. II: 1937 – 1960 XXIIII begin to discover America… Chicago, December 10, 1984. For a whole fifteen minutes I have been standing by my window, staring blankly out into the street, without even understanding why. I got up from my desk because I thought it had started

excerpts Fighting for an idea for forty years – the idea of liberating your country from communism; never yielding for one single moment, being consistent in this action and in this hate (constantly fuelled and substantiated); organizing your despair, turning it into

1945 January 1st Absolutely alone, this Eve. First time ever, I imagine. Listening to the King's speech and to general Rădescu's[i]. Nonetheless, kicked off the evening by a prayer: asked God for PEACE, serenity, calmness. At the depth of my soul: melancholy,

*  Sunday, March 31, 1940Rotten weather. I stay indoors and work, bringing my Diary to date. The French and the British hold frequent, definitely long conferences – now in Paris, now in London – attended by militaries and politicians. This incessant activity evinces

Un sot n'a pas assez d'étoffe pour être bon. La Rochefoucauld Let alone the characteristics of the genre, Mihail Sebastian's Diary is a confession about relationships with the other set against the background of rising anti-Semitism between the two World