At The Fair

Yellow and blue streetcars, princely coaches, churlish carts and bikes and a lot of folks on foot…From so many streets and ways, like on as many arms of a huge river waves upon waves of people are flowing as if into a boisterous sea, unto the barrier at the end of the bridge of the Outer Fair. Just as for two drops of water, once each has come its own way and reached the wide sea, it is difficult to meet again, the same it would be for two persons, once lost in the throng at the Fair, to find each other if they hadn't been wise enough to establish beforehand a place and time to meet. But Madam Georgescu, wife of Mr. Mitică the passement maker, Madam Popescu, wife of Mr. Guţă from the ministry, and auntie Lucsiţa, the authorized midwife were wise enough and had indeed set a meeting for three sharp in the central pavilion of the beer house. Who comes first waits for the others. Inside the old closed streetcar thirty-four persons, some crammed on benches, others standing, are in considerable distress. Among them one is ever more distressed: missus Lucsiţa; because all the others are uncomfortable only because of the heat and because of being thirsty whereas to this she can also add being hungry. When the streetcar stops at St. George's she gets red in the face, then yellow and then she feels cold sweat invading her, and again a rush of heat, and again a wave of cold, and she breathes heavily, wiping herself under her fat chin and saying: "Wow! I should've have taken a coach, not this thtreetcar!" (The lady lisps a little.) The car leaves St. George's and enters Moşilor [Fair's] Road…When in motion it's better anyway, somehow a little more drafty, and this draft tempers the heat a little; but not hunger, no, hunger cannot be assuaged by a puff of wind. Naturally, it was terribly imprudent of this lady to leave home just like that, three hours after lunch, and not have a bite of something, considering that she had been in a hurry not to miss the appointment in the central pavilion and therefore had had a light lunch: three hard boiled eggs, a lamb's head cooked in borsch, some stew, prunes with meat, roasted steak with cucumber salad, three spritzers and a cup of coffee. When reaching Zece Mese Street the streetcar makes another halt. Missus Lucsiţa feels poorly. From the sidewalk, right under the windows of the streetcar, covering the rumor of the road, there towers the voice of a millet beer vendor. The midwife gets up with supreme resolution and excusing herself right and left she elbows her way to the door; she pushes desperately everybody on the platform and prepares to jump out. The car gets going; the midwife dashes out, taking a wrong step. Luckily, the millet beer vendor proves twice her savior! Had she failed to clutch to him who knows what could have happened to missus Lucsiţa, corpulent and robust as she is! In a corner there's a little bit of shade. That's where she pulls her savior and then gulps down two liters of millet beer like nothing. Millet beer as a drink is very refreshing and sanitarian; as food it is the lightest and at the same time most comfort invigorating. In a couple of moments, midwife Lucsiţa perks up; that faintness and gone feeling people experience when there is a hollow in their guts have now been completely annihilated. It's late though: three quarters past two…All the streetcars that pass by are packed. The midwife beckons each passing one with her umbrella, or her handkerchief, enjoining the driver to stop. "No more seats!" And the cars go on indifferently. Now the metal rattling is cut short by a different sound: a car pulling up. Two elegant young men descend the steps of the front platform, dusting their trousers and the tails of their coats to remove the signs of any contact with the rabble. Free seats! The midwife dashes bravely ahead, clutches the iron bar, climbs the steps, pushes on, elbows her way and gets finally to the platform. A young man, crushed by the pressuring lady, lets out: "Beg your pardon, ma'am! Can't you see there's no more room?" "Oh, but there is!" replies missus Lucsiţa."Could be, but you are bulky!""A good thing you're skinny!…That's how God made me, voluptuous! Like it or lump it…""Fares, please!" shouts the conductor.Missus Lucsiţa takes out of her billfold the ticket she had from the TheatrePlaza. The conductor studies it carefully."This you haven't got from me.""But from who elthe?" asks the lady. "It's from another car." "Tho what? Isn't thtill the thame company, right? I paid to go up to the barrier…I got off…" "If you got off once," the conductor cuts her short, "you have to pay again." "Again? A good thing this is! What a piece of sharp practice!" But finally she pays for a new ticket. The streetcar arrives at the barrier and missus Lucsiţa gets off. From all parts there comes a whiff of mitittei, those mouth-watering grilled small sausages. An unpleasant whiff for who is full but for who is ravenous, the scent is heavenly! Missus Lucsiţa sets out, nostrils flaring, to one of those places, like a panther drawn by the smell of a wild goat. "Two mitittei, boy!" Feeling better, she walks up to the central pavilion where the company is waiting for her impatiently. "Mitică!" the midwife bursts out, after biting off a piece of gingerbread from Madam Georgescu, "You thtand us a treat? My! Boy, a pint of beer! But mind you, no big heads for me!" The fair is at its height…The crowds, my the crowds, you can't imagine! When Mr. Mitică has footed the bill, Madam Petrescu says: "Let's go first see the pottery! I promised to buy a little whistle for the little boy of Madam Ionescu, the landlady!" "Let's go." And off they go to admire the pottery. But when they were about to cross the road, the midwife stops short: "Hold it!" Donuts fried in oil! The liquid is sizzling! … One, two, three…"Come on, woman! Forget the darned donuts! Don't they smell rancid? You'll ruin your stomach.""I beg your pardon, no rancid thmell at all."The pottery stand…Madam Petrescu buys the whistle and they all set out for Iliad's garden. When they are ready to go in, the midwife shouts out to a fezzed man:"You, rascal, the drinks man, bring a lemonade over here!"And after quaffing it:"It's cold, thwell ! Bring another one."Then they all have their fortunes told by an Italian woman with a parrot. Mr. Mitică reads Madam Lucsiţa's fortune:"You will go through a lot because of your good-natured heart. But have courage because you will live to be a hundred, in great amorous happiness.""I thay! Go through what, now? If that didn't happen when I was young, what could happen to me now?"Then Mr. Mitică treats the lady to two cartons of hot popcorn…Fiddlers with a cembalo and a hurdy-gurdy, and clarinets and the big drum, and trumpets, and flutes, and rattles, and tongs clattering on grills, and shouts, and cries and shrills! – it's so pleasant!…And the smell of heated grills! Yummy!…The whole company take seats at a table and order sausages and steaks and two bottles of wine and soda."Boy!" the midwife pesters the waiter…"Thprinkle the thteaks with thavory, got it? And have them rubbed with onion, underthtand?"And then she starts chomping!"Goodness, woman!'" exclaims Madam Georgescu. "You're eating again!""Again? What did I eat tho far?"But she's red like a beet and quaffs a glass at a go. Then, all of a sudden, like magic for a second the entire din ceases, the fiddlers and the bag-pipes, the clarinets and all the voices, while from the bench where Madam Lucsiţa sits there burst forth like the sounds of a bassoon."Why are you giggling?" explodes the midwife, enflamed."It's nothing!" Mr. Mitică shouts. "The soda bottle made that noise.""What soda bottle?" asks Mrs. Petrescu. "You have not even touched it!""But there are soda bottles that squeak even if you don't touch them! It's the gas from the machine…"But before Mr. Mitică is through explaining, the midwife has got up quickly and vanished in the crowd."Where's the woman? Where's the midwife?""She went into the garden," replies Mr. Mitică, to break some more…hearts as her fortunes said!"Son of a gun, this Mr. Mitică!


by I. L. Caragiale (1852-1912)