Once ...

The Cries of BucharestCities have their own special humming. Church bells, tram noises, horses, sergeants' whistles, car horns (banned in Bucharest), dogs barking, army trumpets, and so on, and so on – all combined, heard from a distance, forming a characteristic melody. But, apart from this bizarre symphony, common to all big cities, each individual city has its own melodies – this is not about Vienna's waltz, or Warsaw's mazurka, or Bucharest's doina, this is about those short, original songs of small merchants who cry their goods in the streets of capitals. Those who have traveled have the pleasure of remembering the man with a bagpipe in London – I do know what he sold near green parks – the Turk who unpacked his sweets sounding his bells in the Constantinople street, and the strange melodies of vagabond merchants in Paris, which were so ingeniously orchestrated by Charpentier, in his opera Louise. We have mentioned how the attention of people is drawn with various instruments, although the long cry of their nomadic brothers is still a song, as they recommend various products up and down cities. Some onomatopoeia: forming words by imitative harmony. Auditory image of objects by way of verbal sounds. This only happens sometimes, because usually they have no connection with the C's and B's used to offer say cheese, with the vowels and consonants forming the word tasty. All these merchants have been made immortal. In France, for example, by Watteau and Bosse, in Romania by painter Carol de Szathmary. Mourons pour les petites oiseaux! Chauds les marrons, chauds! Paris-Soir, L'Intran, Presse! Chand d'habis! Demandez les berlengots! Vitrier qui passe! And so on, so many urges to buy, still fresh in the memory of anyone who has just been to Paris. Of course, Bucharest has its own unique cries of hundreds of little merchants, most of all from Oltenia, going up and down streets all day long, making housewives happy, because they do not have to go shopping anymore. And making people who stay up late at night desperate, because they are woken up early in the morning by those people's deafening noise. How many of the contemporary people have not heard: Old clothes, old clothes! Locksmith! We have grills, we have good tin! Gas, gas! Cher, cher, coal! Windows, windows! The fisherman, the fisherman is here! Fat beans! Boiled pigeon, pigeon! Fresh yogurt! So many picturesque cries, in all voices (it would be interesting to put them on the staff), uttered by young people, women, old people, wearing all kinds of costumes: coming from Abrud, from Asia Minor, Jews from the Văcăreşti Street, and Gypsy women wearing flowers in their hair, right out of slums. I must not forget the Turk selling Turkish delight with cold water! Dr. Ureche made him immortal in a short story. The war has somewhat scattered them. For instance, who would sell old clothes to merchants in the street, when people can read in the newspaper: "We buy used suits at high prices, call 98599," but the habit goes on, and the next day after life becomes normal again, the concert of the Bucharest street will re-commence, because it is traditional. Are there not merchants in Rahova, Carol, Bazaca, or Obor, still pulling your sleeve to offer you their specialties, like 100 years ago? I said most of these merchants are from Oltenia. Before, they used to be hired for a year at a time by other more cunning people from Oltenia. Then, a skillful lawyer had the idea to organize them into some kind of a corporation, with its own bank. The initiative bore good fruit. I do not know whether that corporation still exists. Note, they will only use the Roman balance, no other. Rumor has it they have their own reasons… Did you here the story? They say it was a His Excellency once, and he saw a young man wearing a very beautiful folklore suit and selling apples, and His Excellency stopped to buy some. After paying, he asked the boy where he was from. "From Caracal," the merchant answered. "I'm an Oltenian, too," His Excellency told him, tapping his shoulder. "Well, if you're one of us, let me give you two more apples, so you won't tell your family back home that I cheated on you when I weighed them." "Well, give me the coin back, so I'll give you a good one, because this is a counterfeit," the buyer was chivalrous, so they both laughed, and went away happy. Of course, this is just a joke about Oltenians, who are hardworking and smart; those who know them well say they are the most representative of our race. It is enough to see the dozens of kilograms, sometimes hundreds, carried by some of those I mentioned, and you realize how strong they are. The Oltenian works hard, and still he has a sense of humor, making fun of the medical Ordinance that forces him to take his lambs to veterinary inspection, always happy, although his back is killing him because of the heavy goods. Some are amazingly strong. One summer evening, I saw one I will never forget as long as I live. After 12 hours of running up and down, although his baskets were empty, going home with a sprint, he had such a big mouth, that you would have thought he was going to work: "Sold! Sold! Sold!" he kept saying happy, laughing like a child. If I went on and on, I would say everything I know about these nice merchants, who sometimes become big-time merchants, with huge capital, but this is not the purpose of these lines; some other time, perhaps. Now let me go on with other cries of Bucharest, more interesting to today's readers, who have, for the most part, not heard them, and they will never hear them, because various circumstances and civilization have made them disappear. The oldest one, which even I never heard, was the funny "I can see you! I can see you!" the soldiers at crossroads chanted by midnight to frighten criminals who might have planned some action. Then there was "Waterrrrrrrr!" The man selling water had a barrel pulled by some skinny horse, when the Dâmboviţa was not developed yet. Housewives filled up their buckets, and they filtered the drinking water. At the services commemorating the dead, some people gave away water for charity, to help the dead person's soul rest. "Water for charity! Water for charity!" the cry went, as the man carrying the water, accompanied by a relative of the deceased, stopped at the doors of the poor, who only stretched out their cups, this time. Another cry was that of the Albanian selling salep, the tea of those who went to work early in the morning: "Salep! Salep!" It was something like a thick, boiled liquid, made of an eastern root. When requested, the man with a large samovar tilted it a little to pour the yellow liquid and fill the cups of those who wanted it. On top of the steamy liquor, they scattered some pepper. Grocery products came a little later. "Three one-penny croissants and bread!" Three and four one-penny croissants! When I was a child, and my grandparents told me that in their time a poor man could eat for 5 coins – "He would pay 2 coins for a loaf of bread, 2 coins for cheese, and 2 coins for plums" – I thought these were fairy tales. And now that a croissant is 5 lei a piece (when you can find it), I evoke, too, the happy patriarchal times, when, not longer than a quarter of a century ago or so, you could buy three croissants for a penny! "Slippers, two coins a pair," a shoemaker would cry. Now they are 3,000 lei a pair! Others would call: "Hot, burning bread!" to compete with other bread sellers, and those who loved special bread greedily took it. Not just bread. Some put a little tripe inside, and got a tasty sandwich. "Tripe, tripe, tripe!" women raised their voices, dragging their slippers. The cost was next to nothing. With 10 coins, you could get luxury. You could buy hot dogs. "Hot dogs, dogs, dogs," the grocer would cry and if anybody wanted, he got out the bowel with hot water where sausages swam. "We fix coffee grinders!" that was rather rare, the Armenian coming with a copper machine in his hand, stopping at people's gates. And there may have been many such cries that I do not even remember! Some can still be heard today, others, as I said, will come back, others have totally disappeared, others are emerging, all covered by a cry Bucharest dwellers never knew before: the gloomy howl of sirens, announcing the air-borne enemy is coming. As an ending – I left these for the end on purpose – powerful sounds, from crowds of little boys: "Tomorrow's Univers!" with the latest news, which will one day announced the much dreamed-of peace. Then, my Bucharest and all the cities will begin to sing again the entire score – bizarre and prosaic sounds, but sounds that form, for those who have heard them for many years, a beloved melody, because it used to accompany their childhood cradle.(1942) 


by Radu D. Rosetti (1874-1964)