Romania

L'Abbandonata

excerpt I was half asleep in a somewhat uncertain state of mind (and of body)… A vague and – at first – terribly tortuous state of wakefulness was gently falling over me; then, the same confounded state came back floating over me, translucent, like some veils unbraided

A Legendary Love Story: Maria Cantacuzino - George Enescu

One should add to the romantic universe of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner the love story of Maria Cantacuzino and the composer George Enescu, as the mystery of its extraordinary tension has been revealed in the recently published Ombres et lumières, Souvenirs d'une

The Churchyard Of The Annunciation

9But the candidates were not equally possessed by the same feelings and consideration for the servants in the house. A student in classics had been surprised by the mistress with the kitchen maid, a swarthy wench from the south, with two golden round butterflies for ears

The Wedding Book

excerpt  A few violent knocks on the door startled him. Vera hid under the blanket again, and Jim pushed the door ajar. It was the maid, who wanted to know if they were still there, puzzled by the fact that they hadn't come out of the house till noon. They hurried

Return To The Interwar Bucharest

excerpts  So closeSuddenly, the interwar people make the body visible: men are allowed to shave off not only their beards, but also their moustaches – a facial change that overthrows an aesthetic canon with centuries-old resistance – and women, punished and ridiculed

The Life Of Adrian Zografi

excerpt Adrian was too honest and too weak in front of the woman he felt attracted to. While he accompanied Lucia along the alleys close to the main boulevard, he would keep his mouth shut and barely listen to her constant and tedious tittle-tattle about everything. He already

Son Of A Bitch

excerpt When they were going back to the hotel, the clock at the Carol Foundation showed it was a quarter to five. They parted at the door, arranging to meet the following day. Mr. Petrica Miclaush lingered a little, to pick up his mail. He cast an indifferent look over

Quote

The pornography-related scandals may burst out for various reasons. For instance, because – even if they may accept to give a place, somewhere on the remotest outskirts, to professional pornography, clearly specialized and delimited – many would be bothered by the idea

Quote

At a time of psychoanalysis, and of the study of the subconscious mind and sexual perversion, art too adopts the instruments provided by the new science. The avant-garde author (Dadaist, surrealist or expressionist) rediscovers the physiological, already explored by naturalists,

Defense Of The Editor B. P. Hasdeu

excerpts In connection with the press condemnation, instituted against Lumina by the prosecutor of the criminal court on account of the Emilia episode in the novel Damsel Mamuca, passed on June 3, 1863.  Maxim: De nihilo nascitur historia. . . (Propertius: II, 1) Gentlemen,

Love Asylum And Pharmacy

excerpt Our first poets (the Vacarescus, Milu, Conachi and others) were experts in erotic pathology, the maladies induced by love. But the true physician erotologist appears to have been Anton Pann. The Love Asylum attempted to cure precisely that kind of ailment. The enamored

Quote

Whereas Westerners have not only a scientia sexualis, but also a tradition of erotic literature, a middling language between anatomy and slang, and Orientals have an ars amandi that has long found its expression, we are still betting on the 'mistakes of youth',