Orga

I have meant to decompose and recompose the forms and the colors in order to prove and disclose their essence. Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu After a short story debut dominated by lyricism (Deep Waters, The Woman in front of the Mirror) and while trying (and managing) to

from A Concert of Bach's Music The Amzei Church had donned a festive appearance. People had started coming as early as three o'clock, and by four – the time of the ceremony – the street was crowded with carriages and automobiles. An archbishop was serving.

from Requiem for Fools and Beasts That day, Estera did not come to the stadium, but the following two evenings she was there again; however, I did not pluck up enough courage to speak to her, and after overtaking me several times, she kept running about three hundred meters

excerpts IThe Tomb The Royal Church bells of the townlet of Bucharest were pealing rhythmically in a mournful voice, whilst, from the hillock in sight, the small-rounded belfry of Bucur's little church was echoing back the toll in a wailing-remote fashion. It was

excerpts The Diary and Its Readers We should not overdo it with diaries and letters. We usually tend to deem them more revealing of the man than his public work. All that is secretive, familiar draws us as if it were a confession. It is the pleasure of breaking an interdiction,

6 March 1960So I am finally taken out as well, led inside an office hid in that tiny niche of the arched corridor; examined, identified, undressed. I am only left one towel, one bar of soap, one toothbrush, one toothpaste, two pairs of socks, one shirt, one pair of underwear,

vol. II: 1937 – 1960 XXIIII begin to discover America… Chicago, December 10, 1984. For a whole fifteen minutes I have been standing by my window, staring blankly out into the street, without even understanding why. I got up from my desk because I thought it had started

excerpts Fighting for an idea for forty years – the idea of liberating your country from communism; never yielding for one single moment, being consistent in this action and in this hate (constantly fuelled and substantiated); organizing your despair, turning it into

Iaşi, July 12, 1942. We get news from Bucharest that Marshal Ion Antonescu is seriously ill in Predeal. All kinds of versions about his disease, general anemia or the consequences of an old syphilis, so he had to undergo malaria treatment. Meanwhile, it seems that the old

January 5, 1940 On Monday I must get down to work seriously and consistently. Apart from this, my life has become unbearable. I don't know what the devil is the matter with me, I feel as if I were growing old and stupid. I suppose I have some obsessions of my own,

*  Sunday, March 31, 1940Rotten weather. I stay indoors and work, bringing my Diary to date. The French and the British hold frequent, definitely long conferences – now in Paris, now in London – attended by militaries and politicians. This incessant activity evinces

Paris, February 7th, 1939The phone wakes me up: it's George, who calls me from Algiers. He keeps waiting for his plane to be repaired. The thought that he left on an old jade – as he says – worries me. I remember my mother-in-law's words and I agree with her: