After the last act, with the collar of the raincoat raised, hiding the flowers picked up from the stage by the flyman, he was the last to go out in the street.The doors were closing on the dark halls. The square was empty. The light bulbs threw a bluish and so sad a light over the swamps! But the rain stopped. In the clear sky, the stars shone brightly. The wind snatched from the chestnut trees the first leaves. The air was fresh, damp, sonorous. In front of the only café-restaurant, an automobile with the driver sleeping in a fur coat drawn over his head was waiting. Lit in the band of rays spread out on the asphalt and triggered by the headlights, several orange peels washed by the water called to his mind torrid lands, beeches heated by the sun, with golden sand, gardens of orange trees. A year spent there long time ago: Sicily; squares with plenty of light, with sonorous hubbub of people; marble artesian fountains, women with amphoras on their shoulders, like in the ancient engraving… was he the same as the one elbowing his way through the crowd, with the huge straw hat, pulled elfishly, artistically, over his eyes? Used to thinking in terms of memories of the parts he played, he hummed mentally: "Do you know the country where the lemon trees bloom?" Haralamb Tarcush – Haro Ditarca on the billing – hesitated in front of the doorway. Through the thin curtain, silhouetted in Chinese shapes, the others could be seen inside, sitting at the table with some strangers. He knew what was in store for him. The empty bottles, the anecdotes carried from town to town, the songs of the fiddlers, always the same. He was even ashamed of the flowers which he would have liked to hide. Hunger overcame him, though. He made for the café grudgingly, like a draught horse stretching voluntarily, out of cowardice, its neck at the harness. But somebody called his name and he turned, his fingers still on the door handle. A stranger was running breathlessly, with the overcoat flapping unbuttoned. His hat was pulled upwards, towards his nape and he had a happy, smiling face, resembling a full moon in the light coming through the window, a face that he didn't remember ever having seen before.The stranger opened his arms fraternally:"Well, I'll be damned… is it you, Tarcush? Well, I'll be damned! I thought so…"Clasping his arms, he gripped him, a long lost pal. Haralamb Tarcush thought to himself: "The lost son is now found, and the fatted calfFor him we will kill, and the best wine…"He tried to look happy, to discover a name for this exultant friend, but the stranger understood and let his arms fall, saddened. "Don't you recognize me? Mishu. Mishu Vulpescu, from Cantemir! Well, I'll be damned… say, you forgot me?"He finally remembered. How could he forget? Can you forget those years?Mishu Vulpescu grabbed his arm and dragged him authoritatively:"Not here! I have a quiet little room and some wine… great wine, dear Haralamb! I have my own Jew… well, I can't believe it! You, Haralamb! Henry IV… that was funny! You hugged that girl, mam'selle de Mercoeur! Be honest, you sly boots! She must have been some chick…"The former companion from Cantemir school winked waggishly, twisting his rufous, bushy, disgusting moustache. Haralamb Tarcush nodded without answering. The pal was free to understand and believe whatever he wished. He couldn't tell him that; for him, that chapter was long closed, like so many chapters, almost all of them. They walked in silence for a while. The actor was taking stock of his friend with the tail of his eye, measuring his plump dimensions, the well-fed abdomen, his butterball smug cheek. What could be his occupation? How can some people be so vulgar?Haro Ditarca recited in his mind, stepping over the black swamps:"Is it the memory that saddens me, count?Our childhood, the castle and the garden?..." They arrived. The pub was isolated. With the green shutters tight closed. The friend knocked on the door with a special signal. Suddenly a bolt screeched inside: a Jew with a blind eye, and a rough woolen vest, opened presently. Judging by the joyful rush with which he welcomed them, bowing and rubbing his hands, by the "special" little room where he invited them, one could infer that Mishu Vulpescu enjoyed the distinctive appreciation of an old and important client. With the wine glasses before him, loosened up, Mishu Vulpescu told his friend how he discovered him."I suspected it since yesterday, when you played Othello! I asked for you and a lank fellow, who played the Marquis of Montmorency, told me that Haro Ditarca is Tarcush! I'm so happy, I can't believe it! I applauded you first, when you came out on the stage. Great success! Even the prefect's wife, Iliasca, threw flowers on the stage; and, my dear lad, everyone knows how finicky madam Beatrice is!"Haralamb Tarcush felt he was blushing because of the heavy admiration of his friend. He was pottering about, looking at the knife edge. He changed the subject: "What about you? How did you come here? There are, let's see, there are thirty years since we lost touch." His pal took out a handkerchief, unfolded it, wiped his forehead and his sweaty nape, folded it back and placed it in the chest pocket, one corner out. He seemed not to find it in himself to confess to a much lower status than the expectations of his former companion. "Me, my dear… what can be of interest to you? I am a peaceful man. We are engulfed by the countryside… I am a poor clerk! A court clerk at the tribunal: a mockery! Two more years and I retire. A house with an orchard, a housewife, married children, a son-in-law who is a lawyer… three years ago I purchased a vineyard with fruit; I go there when I manage to get away, and look after the graft: I planted two hectares. As you see, it's a roguery! A glass of wine with our pals, that's all we can afford. There is an Armenian, Agop, he's really droll… you must meet him! When he gets carried away, he shoots the gun at midnight, in the square, and he says he's going to avenge all the massacres in Erzurum. Then, he weeps… one of his daughters ran away with a revolutionary five years ago, he dumped her, and now she sings at a cabaret in Galatzi… this is what we do! We are not artists. We don't know what applause and flowers are!"Haralamb Tarcush pushed the flowers under the napkin, guiltily. The admiration, and the envy, of the friend sounded like the mean joke of a satiated man on the hungry one's expense; he looked, with tensed carefulness, for the clue of a subtle irony. But on Mishu Vulpescu's plump cheek, he could only make out the most innocent and absolute joyfulness. He reflected on how deceitful this admiration was for the void around him, for the sadness of the never-ending tours, for the frivolity with which he dragged his parts from one troupe to another and from borough to borough. He sipped two glasses of wine, one after another, at one go. He remembered inadvertently:"Alas, poor Yorick!I knew him, Horatio… these dead dreams." The Jew sneaked on tiptoe, changed the ice in the green cooler, brought clean plates, the steak, and asked in a drawling voice:"Maybe we should send for Naitza if you wish?..."He assumed that Naitza was some gipsy with a violin and, by looking at him, asked his friend to give up the idea."It's between you and me. Better! We'll sit and talk."They had lots to talk about. Firstly, long-forgotten school incidents. The strike at the maths classes, the scandal in Hulubei's class, when they were kicked out for a week. Then, the colleagues. Who would have thought that Brinzeu, the priest's son from Vovidenia, would become three times a millionaire? And that Stroescu, who was always up to some mischief, would shoot himself for love? And especially that the scoundrel Toroceanu, would become minister, it's incredible. Minister…Mishu Vulpescu got really angry, and to soothe this terrible anger he shouted and asked the servant to change the coolers and to bring Cotnar wine.He unbuttoned his vest, sprawled his legs under the table and Tarcush found himself reciting in his mind:"So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood."The Jew's wine was good. It brought a warm torpor feeling through the veins, enveloped the souls in a joy with no particular reason: the memories came, tender, and everything seemed simple and as blissful as possible.The friend was overwhelmed by memories. He raised the glass in the light, admired the limpid color of the wine in the frosted crystal, sipped slowly, to relish the aroma, and was suddenly moved:"I don't know! When you were in school, you recited something very beautiful once, at a celebration… something sad, that stuck to my mind… do you remember? We made the dress rehearsal in our theatre in Manciulescu's barn… Medrea, the Romanian teacher, kissed your forehead, and your mother wept. I remember, it began:'Near the icon, in the black shadow,The black spider lurks for the pray,And it squeezes the web, with its fierce claws,But the wing is missing… but the wing is missing…' "This is all I can remember. I told my wife too, many times… my youngest daughter, Victoria, also looked in her books… apparently it is something very old, one cannot trace it now." Haralamb Tarcush smiled, thoughtfully, to the past, resurrected from the ashes, and tried to remember as well:"But the wing is missing…", "But the dead wing…", no, not his one! "But the wing is missing…"No, he couldn't remember any further! He saw the book, with the corners of the pages turned down, the spider drawn in the middle of the geometrically woven web, he saw on the other page Vlad the Impaler's portrait, with the white aigrette on his fur cap, the title of the intuition lesson: Iron, cast iron and steel, but the lines he could remember no further. He remembered – oh! how far away and indistinct – that day when, on the wooden platform, in his new uniform, he recited the poem. He remembered how he put on the uniform brought from the tailor. The collar was too tight. His mother changed the clips. She poured eau de cologne on his handkerchief, from the bottle in the wardrobe. When he mounted the stairs, red in the face and trembling, he saw the people in the room through a tear-like flicker, as one sees the street when looking over the tar alembics when they are boiling, in a tremble, like the dead men's water in July. He was afraid not to lose track, not to mess up. And how he grew more animated when he saw Mr. Medrea, who encouraged him, kind and smiling, with his eyes! How his mother squeezed him at her thin chest, in the black coat, after he finished in the peal of applause from the room! Was he the one and the same? The child with trembling voice, in the uniform with too long sleeves… and, when else did he experience such immense joy, a joy that made his heart burst, as then, the day when his downfall began?Haro Ditarca remained silent, for fear his voice might tremble. The meeting ended desolately. Both of them dug up graves. The memory shook them with a cold shiver.They measured each other furtively, searching on their faces the depredations of years. Tarcush envied the other's health, the warm clothes, the publican's respect; he hated him for his self-content, hypocritically concealed. But suddenly the memory of a line in a part soothed him, professionally:"The bourgeois was stupid, and so was his vulgar costume!…"They parted with a soft handshake. The wine exhausted all its former joy; each of them carried nothing but a handful of cold ashes…Alone, in the middle of the street, the hotel room did not entice him. He took out his hat, to cool off his forehead. He raised his eyes. A star fell from the sky, very close: it seemed that it would have been enough to walk to the end of the town to find it somewhere, in a garden, hidden in the damp grass, like a glow-worm. A guardian passed by, greeting him.Haralamb Tarcush made up his mind. He quickened his step to the night club, where the others were. He was afraid they had left. Anything was more welcome than the bed with the moist, bluish, sticky linen, like all the linen he had been sleeping in for years. When he opened the door, the entire table yelled with alcoholic enthusiasm. Cristodorescu, the famous wooer, staggered with the glass in his hand, and kissed him tackily:"You're a darling, uncle Haralamb… a most real darling!"And to the waiter: "What are you waiting for, Melchisedech?! A glass for uncle 'Aralamb… and clear the table, you imbecile! You are all imbeciles, real imbeciles…"Dorina, "the third Court lady" made the introductions. A lieutenant, clanging his heels, slightly hunchbacked, a bearded gentleman, two youngsters, a lad, the policeman!The waiter changed the table cloth. Haralamb Tarcush emptied the first glass thirstily and only afterwards did he look around. All tables cleared off, the chairs with the legs up, the back lights off, a young waiter sleeping with an arm folded under his head on the billiard table.But their table filled the whole room, large as it was, with smoke and noise. The fiddlers shouted at the top of their voice in the ear of the famous wooer. Cristodorescu, his eyes crying with happiness, sighed after each refrain: "There you go, Melchisedech! Drink a glass of wine, you imbecile. Uncle Haralamb, these 'mbeciles sing like demigods! Cross my 'eart! Real demigods…"Haralamb Tarcush nodded his head in agreement: "I agree, the imbeciles sing like real demigods." Otherwise, if contradicted, Cristodorescu could break a glass: "Cross my 'eart, a glass!" – the first from a real waterfall of glasses, as that was his habit of perplexing the provincial "mbeciles". Between the bearded gentleman and the lieutenant, Dorina, with the fiery cheeks, with the eyes widened by the eye circles and with tresses of hair hanging loosely from the pins, listened, lost in thought, to the words spoken in a low voice: undoubtedly impudent invitations, as she was blushing and threatened to leave. The lieutenant smoothed his parting with the palm, looked at himself while speaking in the mirror in front, then bent to her ear again, still gazing in the mirror, to whisper something else, just as impudent. The woman twisted nervously the chain of the purse. With no intention of hearing the words, Tarcush guessed them and turned his head, scandalized. He's smoking so much! And how can he listen to all this garbage? Why doesn't he go to sleep? Tomorrow he will send for the doctor again… and look how this barely hatched imbecile feasts his eyes on her!Indeed, at the other end of the table, the child looked ecstatically, and whenever his eyes crossed the woman's eyes, his long eyelashes trembled; and there was so much ardor in his pupils, that he no longer needed words to tell it. The skin of his cheek was translucent and feminine, he had fleshy lips and the muffler knotted with the coquetry of a mother's loving hand. Naturally, she tied the bow before the mirror of the wardrobe, sprinkled cologne on his handkerchief, warned him maternally not to come home late or else she would take his key, and now he returns at dawn, on tiptoe, stroking the courtyard dog to prevent its bark, feeling the walls in the corridor, his flesh aroused with the lust for a woman, for an … imbecile! Haralamb Tarcush turned his back and held out his glass cordially, to touch glasses with the two gentlemen beside. However, both of them touched glasses without drinking and didn't take note of him. One of them wiped his glasses, stared aimlessly, and caught, like one catches a fly, the thread of the conversation interrupted by Haro Ditarca. "No!..." he resumed, "Hamlet proves that any intellect drama has no solution! Shakespeare didn't intend to turn the prince of Denmark, like Sophocles did with Orestes, into an instrument of justice. He was interested in the man, not in the mission the latter was assigned by a specter. For me, mon cher, Hamlet means the victory of spirit over matter, of imagination over reality. 'My father!-methinks I see my father.' 'Where, my lord?' 'In my mind's eye.' The excess of thought must have fatally prevented him from carrying out the action. To act, you have to believe in the efficiency of the action! Hamlet wonders, hesitates, because he sees too clearly and too much at once… There is a mathematical moment for any act; if it passed, everything is dissolved into uselessness. The desire for perfection forces Hamlet to postpone a gesture that he doesn't carry out eventually, because he dreamed to fulfill it to perfection. Is this madness? Mr. Ditarca, you who played Hamlet's part many times, what do you think? Was Hamlet a madman?"Tarcush made a hesitant gesture with his hand. What might these people want now? Hamlet is a part and that's that! A great part…The young man with glasses wiped the oval lenses again and, pushing the too long cuff back in the sleeve, turned triumphantly: "You see? Nobody can say he was crazy! This allegedly mad prince was the wisest of all these rotten Danish people that roam on the terrace of Elsinore. The imbeciles have on their side reckless action; the wise – the thought that paralyses action. How could you believe, want, act, when you know that a single impure grain can turn the noblest human substance into wretchedness? The first consequence of an act is renouncing other acts, a thousand of them! But which to give up, which to choose? Hamlet's thoughts are contemporaneous with Montaigne's 'what do I know?' It's the first modern doubt on the value of good and evil, of conscious action and fate, of a practical thing and art. In fact, Pourtalés says it better than me! Strange madness, that which sees so clearly the conflict between the pure idea and…"Haralamb Tarcush, disgusted, stopped listening any further. What would be left of a part if it were judged by these people, who split hairs? He moved with his glass near Dorina. The bearded gentleman moved his chair aside gladly. "You come and reconcile her! This rascal upset her…"The lieutenant leaned his head backwards and laughed in a contented manner, feeling his parting with both hands. "Forget it, uncle Grigore, we know very well how women get upset! Look, for instance…"Unfolding his handkerchief from the tunic pocket, he wiped, with no sign of resistance, Dorina's tears, as for a spoilt child, opened the little purse and took out the powder brush and passed it over the woman's cheek, took the red lipstick and applied it to the middle of her lips with an expert's dexterity at a beauty salon. Then, he kissed hypocritically the tip of her fingers:"You have forgiven me, haven't you?"Dorina smiled through the tears, appeased. Tarcush remembered finally where he had heard that baritone voice. A few hours ago, in the girl's dressing room, on the other side of the wall, when they giggled, and while he was tormented by loneliness, in the costume of Henry IV. From the other end of the table, the teenager tried to look indifferent to the officer's triumph, twisted between his teeth a thin cigarette, looked with faked carefulness at the bottom of the empty coffee cup, where the dregs turned upside down showed happiness from love. The bearded gentleman took some expensive cigarettes out of a leather cigarette-case. He offered to everyone and presented gallantly a silver lighter attached with a chain by the vest button. Then, he ordered champagne. Cristodorescu rose to make a toast. He staggered before the table that oscillated and, dazed by the dance of the glasses, sat down again, declaring in a mumbling voice:"I am a Melchisedech! True Melchisedech!" Around, empty glasses, turned upside down, empty cigarette packs, round coffee stains, wet bread, siphon bottles and coolers. The fiddlers stopped playing. They were eating together on a table corner, whispering, joking, sharing the tips. The place looked like a devastated battlefield. Only the two continued, away from everything that happened around them, as on a foreign continent, speaking a language unknown to the natives. Haralamb Tarcush saw the things, the people double, dancing in a maze, acquiring rainbow-hues. But he felt happy, kind, generous. Beside him, close to his leg was Dorina's leg, warm and friendly. The champagne fretted in his veins. With a matchstick, he drew cabalistic signs on the tablecloth, from the coffee dregs.What if he, the usually quiet one, rose to say nice words for the woman who wept, for the drunken friend? Friends in damnation, clowns of the world, a gang of buffoons, beings whom are given food and drink in every café in the country, to entertain, to let themselves be grabbed, to cheer up strangers for one night. In his mind, he developed sympathetic sentences, the words that would slap that plump bearded man, the impudent and conceited officer and the lad that was feeling his bow and wondering obviously how much money he would need to buy the kiss of the woman. All have a home, a warm shelter, familiar things waiting for them, a bed of their own, which they don't cherish, a book left on the nightstand with a mark, a life. Words remained unuttered though, only for him, and he kept on drawing with the tip of the matchstick the meaningless marks on the tablecloth. In a blur, he saw the teenager nearing Dorina's chair. Bent over, he whispered something to her, over the lieutenant's shoulder, and his hand, holding a cigarette and leaning against the table, was trembling imperceptibly. The imbecile! Haro Ditarca emptied the bottle in his glass. Upon leaving, they heard that the woman had disappeared and the lad was nowhere to be found. The waiter held his coat, helping him find the sleeve and gave him the bunch of flowers. Ah! Yes, the flowers… the bearded gentleman said goodnight. What did he mean? Cigarettes, he forgot to take cigarettes. Uncle Grigore shoved scornfully a handful of expensive cigarettes in his coat pocket, from the leather cigarette-case, as one does when giving something to children, to poor children! When did he come near these two again, these two who never end? Now they are talking about something else. He tried hard to concentrate and listen, at least for the sake of appearance, in order not to seem drunk as a brute:"If life is nothing but an ephemeral incarnation of the immortal, even more: eternal, spirit, what gives you the right to suppress it?" (only now did Tarcush notice that the man with glasses, standing, was much shorter than he had seemed when he was sitting: almost a midget.)The other didn't answer. The midget stepped quickly over the swamps, hardly keeping up, resonantly hitting the umbrella against the asphalt. "What gives you the right to suppress it?" he insisted, when he got near his friend again, and slackened his pace to keep the same rhythm. "We were sent on earth to rehabilitate ourselves, to expiate, to purify and to repair what our soul did wrong in a former life. Man cannot exit life without divine permission! Plato says it, Socrates, the Pythagoreans, Christianity teaches it. We are part of a universal order which I, you or another cannot perturb." (Tarcush laughed to himself at the thought that this midget with umbrella and himself, Tarcush, are part of a universal order.)"I beg your pardon? Did you say anything?" the midget turned towards him.Tarcush staggered, stopping near a street lamp and waved his hand: no, he didn't say anything."Then? Let alone that a suicide is a monstrosity from a biological point of view. Still, remaining in the realm of pure thought, the Stoics admitted five cases of legitimate suicide. A banquet, said Olympiodorus, can be interrupted either by the occurrence of an unexpected event, such as the arrival of a friend, for instance, or by the invasion of some drunk people, who say dirty words, or when the food and drinks served have a dangerous effect, or finally, when this food and drink is over!… Similarly, one can end life in five circumstances. For a heroic reason, like Menoeceus, who sacrificed himself for his country. When a tyrant wants to force you through torture to disclose a secret. When you kill yourself out of madness and you are mad, and you have no responsibility. When your body is ill and cannot serve your soul. And finally, when you are so poor that you are forced to receive the villains' mercy, whose charity is just as foul as they are. Are they five? Yes, they are. (The midget showed five sprawled fingers.) Physical life is involuntary, it cannot have a voluntary ending! We have to live to fulfill our destiny which is our purification through ourselves. If some divinity watches over us, eluding its protection means dooming yourself to eternal expiation. Doesn't it? It does! And now, to stop philosophizing, let's go to Vetushka. She came back from Bucharest yesterday. I have at her place, since last week, a bottle of Martel three-star brandy, brand new. She'll make us coffee and we can discuss Plato's Symposium eloquently, on the spot!" The short gentleman put the umbrella under his arm and shook Tarcush's hand strongly; the other held out his soft and damp fingers; both of them started down the dark alley, to comment Plato's Symposium, at Vetushka. Haralamb Tarcush gathered the luggage scattered through the room. He crammed it in the suitcase with the torn oil cloth, and threw on top the notebooks with the parts. He was always calm this way, even if he woke up late: the eternal nomad, always on the road. He then lay in bed, with a shiver at the cold and weary touch of the blanket. The bunch of flowers, set on the marble of the night stand, gave out a smell of wreathed flowers and of wine. He pushed it away. Then blew out the candle. His temples were throbbing again. From downstairs, from the hotel's café, one could hear a violin shriek and drunken voices. Somewhere, the wind was tossing a loose tin plate, and the screech kept repeating monotonously, like the tic-tac of a pendulum. Sleep wouldn't come. And he didn't even look at the watch! It can't be long till daybreak. He'd better turn on the light again. He should follow, perhaps more successfully, the doctor's advice. He turned on the light and started counting the flowers from the painting on the ceiling, with all his attention focused on this vain and absurd preoccupation. There were green and red flowers, blended with bizarre drawings, with colored snails and butterflies from an unknown continent, a continent perfect for the two fellows and their crazy discussion about Hamlet and Olympiodorus. Obedient, as a convalescent who drives away his boredom, he counted the flowers up to the last one, started again, looked for tiresome combinations: first the green ones, then the red ones, then the butterflies, then the snails… for a moment, the eyelids gave in; but he realized that the noise, downstairs, had stopped. Before him rose the question from a part:"Could the planet have died?Louisa, what does vault-like silence mean?"One could hear now only the monotonous beat of the tin plate in the wind. When did they become quiet? It's certain that he will not fall asleep from now on… how similar is the painting in all the hotel rooms! How many has he seen so far? Hundreds and hundreds… "In order to act, you must believe in the efficiency of the act. There is a mathematical moment…" What imbeciles! How admiringly would that lad with blue bow look at Dorina! Both of them left… she will make him sick… the better! Let some of the privileged and the rich of the earth experience disease, sufferance, death. "A banquet, said Olympiodorus, can be interrupted in five circumstances…" Imbeciles!... "The spirit is immortal, even more, it is eternal." All of them are "Melchisedechs"! How could some people get drunk every night like troopers? Who paid the bill? Naturally, in the coat pocket the cigarettes got broken. And this goes on and on, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, always, endlessly.The tired eyes looked for the solution in the intricate ornaments of the painting on the ceiling. But from among the red and green flowers, a black spider answered his call and, woken up by the light, it moved cautiously, ahead on the painted wall, stopped motionless, lying in wait for something unseen. "The black spider lurks for the pray,And it squeezes the web…" "But the wing is missing…" "But the wing is missing…" He still couldn't remember! And it was with the thrill of the applauses he had then, that he got on the third class carriage to conquer the world… He only had a pair of new clothes with him, as his only asset. He had run through the back of the house. How the old woman must have wept for him! He didn't even go to her funeral… is anyone still taking care of the tomb? The spider stood motionless. He seemed now like a deceiving and inanimate spot on the flowers of the painting. Now everybody is asleep. Mishu, too. Mishu Vulpescu from Cantemir. He would have been like him… a vineyard with fruit, an orchard, grandchildren to wait for him at home. The bearded man who gave him cigarettes is sleeping, too. What's his name? Uncle Grigore… he has a tooth missing in front and a goatee, his ears are sharp and long… "A banquet can be interrupted in five circumstances…" What nonsense! The spider was waiting. Haro Ditarca stood straight. Something was suddenly becoming clear, luminous, as a guffaw. A thought suppressed long ago, chased away in all the sleepless nights, in all the endless nights. It did not scare him anymore. He jumped out of the bed, relieved. In the middle of the room, in his nightgown, he took off the strap of the suitcase and looked at it carefully. His shadow stretching on the wall showed a huge head, thin legs and the little hair he had on his forehead – bristled like a cheerful clown crest. He searched with his eyes, the nail surrounded by the painted flowers. He didn't shudder. His head was whizzing. His heart was asphyxiating, as squeezed in a hand. But not with fear. Everything was now clear, simple, as it should be. He had nothing to be afraid of. The wine and the cold in the room. That's all! "There is a mathematical moment…" How can they waste their time with stupid things?... It is a very good strap, he bought it ten years ago from Botoshani… He remembers, a young freckled Jew, who recognized him, sold it to him and made a discount "for artists". How cold and damp the floor is! It smells of tax collection office. All the tax collection offices have a special smell, of boards washed with leach, of violet ink and cigarette stubs. Who would play his parts?... The performances from Roman will be suspended; everybody will curse him: how will they pay for the hotel room? On the wall, the shadow of the arms stretched upwards moved, at which he remembered, as usual, a forgotten line:"The dervish from Mecca, El-Djem-Zaet-Mansur, Towards the sky, the arms he raised, saying…"The shadow of the strap was swinging on the wall, like the shadow of a snake. Now, the teenager walks on tiptoe on the corridor. He turns in the key, slowly, so as not to be heard. The dog smells him friendly and pushes him with its moist snout. Has anything creaked? No… and it's so warm, and so good inside the room. The bed with the Holland linen, unfolded at one corner, the glass of water and the apricot jam on the bedside, Musset's book with the violet mark and Alina's highlights. Some pressed flowers, grayish-mauve, lion's foot; they picked them up together from Red Rock, last summer, on the trip, when he kissed her neck, up, for the first time, and she ran away. He dropped her boot! The noise filled the entire house. He waits…nobody was woken. In Mishu Vasilescu's courtyard, the dog-cart is harnessed and ready to take him to the vineyard. From the horse's nostrils, white puffs whirl up in the air. A lad with a whip in his hand goes around the wheels, looking at something. Mishu Vulpescu, at the window, sips his black coffee standing and shouts for somebody to fetch the crate for grapes. At Vetushka, the two disciples of Plato finished the brandy bottle. The midget is sleeping on the sofa, with a cigarette stub in his hand, hanging over the edge of the sofa, with his collar unbuttoned and his shirt revealing the hairy chest. Vetushka smiles at a dream in her sleep, a breast coming out of the lace. The other friend, with his elbows leaning against the sill of the open window, stares aimlessly, outside, at the end of the night with stars fading in the cold opaque light.Now, in the room of Royal hotel there is complete silence as well. The spider walks ahead, up on the ceiling, with no fear. He draws near the nail in the middle. It measures the distance, then lets itself slide on an invisible thread, swings a few times, and, taking a spring, joins the thread to the tightly stretched strap. Then, diligently, quietly and scholarly, starts weaving its web, in a geometric shape, in the new angle of the room. Haro Ditarca doesn't see it now. His eyes white, his legs detached from the earth, he seems to rise and look apprehensively outside, through the dirty window. There, a dreary morning comes to naught. The wind rustles a metallic leaf in the window. A train departs in the railway station and the sonorous echo of the wheels, over the iron bridge, wakes up the city, whitened by the first hoarfrost. In 1947, in a Soviet-occupied country about to sink into almost half a century of communist terror, Cezar Petrescu (1892-1961), a prolific novelist and contributor to literary magazines, and member of the interwar beau monde, claimed the writer's right to live off his own work: "not pity, not aids, not wispy subventions, or crumbs fallen from budget banquets."
by Cezar Petrescu (1892-1961)
