Lied

Explanation Je lis comme je voudrais qu'on me lise: c'est à dire très lentement. André Gide A book written clearly. Clarity, being one of the three conditions required for a work according to France, the author claims it as a merit, although he is absolutely

excerpts When I call up one of these memories with my eyes closed and it is reborn with the intensity of its previous reality; when at other times, with the same intensity and in the same convincing light, settings and events which never happened pass through my mind; when

excerpts Que voulez-vous, nous sommes ici aux portes de l'Orient, où tout est pris à la légère. Raymond Poincaré*Welcoming the Philanderers…au tapis-franc nous étions réunis. L. Protat**Although no further than the night before I had promised myself under

*More than a century ago Europe was not yet known as a cultural construction, an intellectual day-dream, a heap of broken images, a copy in a world without originals. Artists tried to escape the big fortress ensconced in coal smog and torn by wars, social conflicts, and

The research with a satyr's eye of the flaccid, common, adjacent mores.  His heroes resemble us in the whims for the sake of which we all are sometimes weak, fictitious, camouflaged. St. ROLL Urmuz… alongside Eminescu, with their turmoil and tragic end, with their

Cotadi is short and big-bellied, brawny, his legs are curved twice outside and once inside, and he is eternally unshaven. His ebony dark hair is full of dandruff and studded with shiny little crystals and expensive tortoise shell combs. Hardly ever does Cotadi stand upright

The summon sounded imperative, I had positive interests, thank goodness – I was to receive by the hands of professor Cioranescu the second volume of his memoirs - this, as he had no intention of coming to the country this year – moreover, my curiosity was not inconsiderable.

excerptFor various reasons, travel became a fashionable experience at the beginning of the 19th century all over the Europe. Even Spain, originally a destination country for foreign travelers, mainly from Britain, is invaded by the mania de viajar; the Spanish playwright

(Constantin Golescu, Notes on My Travel, drawn up in 1824, 1825, 1826. Reprinted and accompanied by an introduction by Nerva Hodos, Bucharest, 1910)excerptsWhen today a Romanian travels in all European comfort, by railway; when he can, even without changing car, get to Paris

excerptThat afternoon we took a train to Constanta where, the same evening, we planned to embark on a Romanian ship bound to Constantinople. We arrived in Constanta late at night, so we didn't get to see any of the city or port. All I remember is the very agitated sea.

excerptsVienna, December 1838 Extra Hungariam non est vita, si est vita, non est ita.  Vienna and Bucharest! Oh, what a difference between these two cities! Like the sun and the planets is this Capital surrounded by adequate corollaries stretching to the margins of the

excerptsA group of Indians. In one of these caves I saw the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego for the first time. I had left the convoy behind at a certain distance and accompanied by two men, I had gone ahead, when all of a sudden, I found myself near a group of 25 or 30