Squander Your Time
If ever I ventured to write a treatise on the savoir vivre, I would not neglect to address, in an entire chapter, the art of whiling away. It seems to me that this type of happiness – which is, equally, an admirable instrument of knowledge – has long been forgotten.
Further Stories Of The Amazonian Jungle
It would have been extremely cheerful at the Beer Festival if we hadn't been jostling each other so hard. And how on Earth could we have avoided the hassle when, even for one single Alutus beer, one had to cross an Amazonian forest guarded by a swarm of viracocha tribes,
Gogu Georgescu And Gică Petrescu
On some days I feel universal when listening to Hora în căruţă (Jig in the Cart); I can even picture a cart then, all its joints rattling among the frozen missiles of the world. I get dizzy and a teardrop warms up the Murmansk under my eyelids. Hora Stacatto (Stacatto
The Morometes
excerptclick here to see film preview Heeler produced from a slit of his belt an unopened package of smokes, casually took place on a stump and began rolling a cigar. Moromete squatted down and rolled one from Heeler's pack, after which he stretched his arm to laggardly
About Joy In The East And In The West
Minimal Joys To fully take delight in minimal joys – here is one of the irreducible experiences of joy in the East of Europe before 1989. The minimal joys mustn't be confounded with the simple joys. It is one thing to enjoy a piece of hot bread and a glass of wine
The Dacian Allurement
excerpt Never have I felt more keenly all that separates us from the West than in a summer afternoon spent in the Versailles gardens. In the park full of Greek memories: Apollo's Pool, that of Latona, in which the superposed arrangement of the gardens that mount towards
The Wedding Book
excerpt Only when, after three hours, Jim breathed the salty air of Constanţa did he regain his self-possession. Medy let them walk through the city and went to prepare the home reception. They took a round in front of Ovid's statue, who looked at them pensively,
The Procrustean Bed
excerpt Between 9. 30 and 10. 30 in the evening, all the other restaurants were empty, but the Popovici Garden was packed, they put more tables in every corner, and when even that was no longer possible, friends asked those who had arrived earlier to let them sit at their
Masked Ball
excerpts The formulae that announced guests to the Danielescus' meals were varied, appropriate to the guests. For example:Tonight you're laying one more cover, told only to the maid a few moments before dinner by Mrs. Danielescu, meant that the same oilcloth was
Old-Court Philanderers
excerpt Had they just finished dinner, that Pirgu was dying to flee. The gentleman was thirsty. Thank God for the variety of wines at that time, abundant and not expensive; Bordeaux and Bourgogne wines for royal feasts. Still, Gorica was not very pleased with them, he was
Victory Street
The dancing tea partyGuţă Mereuţă was indeed waiting, sad, with a proboscidean long nose. He couldn't dance. He had nothing in appearance or in speech that could have attracted a woman. His eyes pushed aside, towards the temples, by the broad root of the olfactory
Grigoraş Dinicu: Memoirs
excerpt These lines will introduce us into the international career of the great violin virtuoso. At the height of his career, Grigoraş Dinicu carried across the world the fame of Romanian fiddlers and of the rich Romanian folk song. After the creation of the Bucharest