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Evening. A gentleman is walking in front of a house: three steps to the left, three steps to the right. He examines the building, then the street, and again the building. He rubs his red eyelids. Three steps to the left, three steps to the right. A gentleman with a bamboo

PART II - THE SALT MINEexcerpt The second day in the salt mine Zahei's push-cart lay broken. The man was free to do whatever he wanted to. He asked to return to his tally on the walls. But the guard was not allowed to leave his post in the mine and no one was allowed

excerpts As he wandered out in the yard that night, as every night, actually, Platamonu saw the fire lights towards the East. He thought it should be in Teleorman, at the border of the district, or maybe in Izvoru. Anyway, it was a sign that the uprising was closing up

It was the month of June, 1821. Tudor Vladimirescu had risen from the darkness of Oltenia's forests; he had carried from Cernetzi all the way to Bucharest the light of his prophetic claims and he had set down like the sun, somewhere between Goleshti and Targovishte,

Chapter IVexcerpts The doorbell rang earnestly. I had noticed, during my long career as an art scholar, that all of my doorbells manifested a sort of unexpected zeal, an eagerness that suggested that these tiny technical devices strove to reach the condition of an animate

excerpts THE UNHAPPINESS OF KINGSCONSTANTINE THE LOST THE FIRST. CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE He was called Constantine the Lost for he was first seen and found on Horse Island with no known parents, and without his being able to tell whence he came or what he was doing in

Most of the characters of Romanian fiction are outcasts and misfits and they duly suffer from it. This is not surprising, given the high speed of change experienced in the past two hundred years of Romanian history. When circumstances alter in such a rapid way, the individual

excerpt Olgutza's gifts, just like springtime's, proved that, during the three years of Parisian life, not only hadn't she forgotten any of the folks back home, but on the contrary, she had lived in them, like spring at the root of trees. Everybody loved

Oh, moody minstrel, hazier stillThan the old wine wedding guests toast,Ribbons and gold reward thy skill,Lavishly granted by the host.  Come, self-willed minstrel, cast thy spell,Gather thy ample voice and singAbout Laplander EnigelleAnd ancient Crypto, mushroom-king.  Best

All kinds of things happen. I remember this biker. I was sitting in front of the chalet, watching him. I was waiting to see him getting bored. He was mounting the steep slope for the forth time around and, as soon as he reached the top, he would turn his bike into a smooth,

A Great Man is one of the short stories that has haunted me since adolescence when I accidentally found it on one of the shelves in my bookcase, in a volume of short stories by Eliade. I was intrigued by the title and I chose to read it first. Its reading brought in front

I had known Cucoanesh as far back as the first high school years, but we had never made friends. In university, I lost touch with him. I only learnt that he entered the PolytechnicUniversity. Meeting him, by accident, in a tobacconist's, he told me that he had graduated