The Uninvited Guest
It was past midnight. I had gone to bed a long time ago but sleep refused to come. I was permanently lulled between sleep and wakefulness by the same strange dream. I woke up with a start: somebody must have knocked at the front door. I heard the knocking again. Rather dizzy
Napoleon's Victor
That summer, teacher Caranfil had gone to spend his holidays at Neamţul Monastery and on the day when the events he related to me had occurred to him, he had taken a trip with a company of friends in the surroundings of the monastery, beyond Procov hermitage. When he had
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
Honeymoon
At nightfall, after a rather sultry day, in a small station on the Braşov-Cluj line in Transylvania, I was waiting for the express train to Budapest… I did not have to wait too long… the train arrived… I picked up my travelling bag and climbed into the nearest second
A Very Lucky Man
My friend Mr. Manolache Cuvidi is a well-known character in our society; he is a man of substance, his rather comfortable wealth has been earned through honest work; he's an intelligent and earnest fellow, an ideal husband and an ideal father of a family. Given so many
A Petition
It's during the summer months, when public services open at 7 in the morning and close at 2 p. m. The night was sultry and now the sun has risen in the clear sky, threatening to scorch everything and everybody. Just think of what it it's going to be at noon? It
Dog Day's Afternoon
The thermometer stands at 33 centigrade in the shade. In the scorching heat, a coach stops in Patience Street at 11 A, at around three in the afternoon. A gentleman gets off the carriage and, at a sluggish pace, approaches the door with a marquee, then rings the doorbell.
Ion Luca Caragiale And The Kitsch
excerpts 1. Now, as for the figments of the German imagination - why turn to them at all? They're nothing but fads. (the respectable Jupîn Dumitrache)You love me too, leave off pretending and put all fads aside. (Rică)Come off it and put all fads aside, Ghiţă.
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
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
About Ideology
Very few people think: very few in comparison with the nation. And which is more, as these thinkers are kept far away from the lofty secrets of politics, from the lofty secrets of science and research, and from the lofty secrets of the police and of those who secretly run
About The United States
Sometimes I happen to have beautiful utopian dreams. Sometimes I dream that it was not Lenin in that sealed car crossing Germany and going to Russia in 1917, rather there were three or four odious American capitalists: Russia, Europe would have been saved. Imagine all those