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excerpts In the large house of the Barbus, in the Mogoşoaia Bridge Street, the main staircase was guarded by two bronze moors, carrying huge, crystal lamps. Upstairs, you climbed to the boyar's dwelling. Under the first steps, however, a narrow door opened toward the

Volume I, 1871 - 1884 The Christmas of 1871? My young age then was so eagerly waiting for it. By 10 o'clock the night of the Eve, the shrill voices of the carolers would resound all over Bucharest. In those days the carolers were children from the edge of town, children

Walking around the city arm in arm with literary recollections… Laying on façades invisible memorial plates with quotes in verse or prose… Experiencing live the sensation of osmosis between fiction and reality… Feeling literature become history, and history – literature…

excerptsThe Beginnings With the passage of time the ancient road was called by sundry names: lane, bridge, promenade – as if it needed any name or title, this street of streets whose reign over the city goes back two hundred years. Victory Promenade! The Nation's

It was common knowledge that Iacint Manoil was a lady-killer. He was so ugly that they were impressed. And so direct in his stupidity that he came over as honest. Like a millstone. He was an actor. Only those very beautiful or as ugly as sin can make a career in this profession.

excerpt Lying on the hot tile floor, Brave Leader was reaching back and scratching his ass with the Romanian people. What he lovingly called the Romanian people was in fact a tiny little bathroom brush with ivory engravings, which he never parted with, and liked to have

Georgescu went to the pub with his wife and sister-in-law. He is on holiday. His monthly salary is about two thousand three hundred lei, in fact he receives two thousand two hundred and ninety-two lei exactly. As he was paid the vacation money too, Georgescu left the cashier's

I couldn't say I was properly introduced to Magdalene, the wording would be equally pretentious and inexact; as a matter of fact, she actually rushed into my studio… She was tired, exhausted, shabby, as if she had come out of the hundred year war. I had worked all

It was almost closing time. I guess you all know what a horrible time that is! The waiters are all in a hurry not to miss the last tram that leaves Balcescu Square at ten past one; they are therefore busily collecting the tablecloths while the customers are still eating,

In the romantic revolutionary years after the communist take-over there was a custom to hoist a red flag or lay a red cloth over the presidium table at any meeting or session having a political character. It was a revolutionary symbol, an optimistic one, a symbol of the

It's two o'clock in the afternoon. In Mr. Nae Huiduma's inexpensive eating house (various hot and cold meals for prices that defy any competition) there are no more customers. The last one, Mr. Codica, from the Clerk's Office of the court, has left as

'Make your stores - they're cutting it off,' calls the bobby, pushing the entrance door ajar. And every member of the household hurries to grab a pail, a mug or any of the tinier pots and pans, dashing forward to the tap (the house is endowed with a tap -