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A Career

Captain Drăgoi used to enjoy much consideration among officers. He had gone through the whole set of hard tests. From a non-commissioned officer he had been promoted second-lieutenant in the regiment of a colonel with many daughters who had been withering, a prey to hidden

Oleanders

Mr. Guţă Gheorghiu had just one weakness, which as a matter of fact dominated him to a greater extent than anything else in the world: oleanders. And he did feel it was a weakness, because whenever you asked him how come so much love for a flower, he just shrugged his

Scipio The African

This time I am forced to avoid disclosing both his name and that of the school where he taught the same subject-matter as Anghel Demetriescu: history. But how remote the two teachers were! The fine stature of the former - who was a scholar relying on thoroughgoing studies

Captain Scabbard

excerpts EPIZOOTIC A few years ago, Captain Scabbard's company was transferred to the border to protect the country from cattle diseases. He found this very convenient, as by the frontier there is far less discipline among officers, and life is more regular. Besides,

The Mother With Three Daughters-In-Law

There was once an old woman who had three sons, tall like steeples and of virtue mighty but dumb as fishes. The old woman had a plentiful household, with a fine piece of land, a stout manor and annexes, a vineyard and nice orchard, cattle and lots of poultry. Besides all

Funny Remarks And Satires

excerpts · Formerly people used to go to Paris to learn law; now they learn it in prison. · The newborn boy now must have four hands: one for the cigarette, one for the playing cards, a third one for the latest ointment, and the fourth for the ball and cue. · Since the

Wisdom's Tell-Tale

One fair day the sultan walked about his cityPlain in dress, together with his high vizier. On the spot he noticed lying in the gutterA dime which he, stooping, picked up in great haste. The vizier, who witnessed this parsimonyMade so bold in asking of his majesty:'Please

The Gypsiliad

CANTO THE TENTHArgument Considering the counsel vainOf all the rank and file, The Gypsies chose those of schooled brainTo gather for a whileAnd judge what government is goodFor the entire Gypsihood.  1Now when the maw is well provided for,The mouth is ready and the tongue

Brâncuşi Vs. Brâncuşi

Modernism has brought to paroxysm the need of personal mythologies, immanent to Western civilization. No wonder that some of the heroes and saints of the avant-garde came from those peripheral European territories still uncharted from a spiritual point of view. By the beginning

Quotes On And From Brâncuşi

Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, in approaching the real sense of things. Simplicity is at bottom complexity and one must be nourished on its essence to understand its significance. Catalog of Brâncuşi exhibition, Brummer

Eugen Ionesco - Interviews

UNDER THE QUESTION MARK: MAN If you were asked to portray yourself as you did in your books, diaries, or in Present Past, Past Present, how would you introduce yourself? Eugène IONESCO: It is very complicated. I don't know. I don't know who I am. I don't

About Drama

Honestly, Corneille bores me. We probably only love him (without believing in him) out of habit. We are forced to. They imposed him on us in school. I cannot stand Schiller. For a long time I thought Marivaux' plays were unserious games. Musset's comedies are thin,