Trance

The Impossible Oasis

The wire that I had failed to see hit me below my knees. The earth turned, the boles propped against the stars somersaulted and I no longer heard the whistles. The red bells started to toll. Whipped up by the rain, the smell of weed and death that had simply been the breath

The Secret Of Dr. Honigberger

Einem gelang es – er hob den Schleier Goettin zu Sais. . . Novalis I One morning in the autumn of 1934, a messenger brought me a rather strange letter, adding he was waiting for an answer right then and there. The letter was from a lady, Mrs. Zerlendi, whose name I had

The Man In My Dream

In short?In short, right now, as soon as you get home, pack up your things. . . Tomorrow morning, on my way to the station, I'll drop by for five minutes: I'm gonna drag you along! Fifteen days of quietness, of fresh air, after a whole summer in this inferno will

The Huck

Nowhere does the devil, with all its litter and creatures, hide better than in the waters. The devil of the marshes, everybody knows, mingles with people and is the most delusive of them all. It takes various shapes: from the small light flickering in the darkness of the

The Accident

excerptStanding in front of the Corso building on Calea Victoriei one day, he felt someone's familiar gaze follow him from across the street, as if to catch his eye. He crossed over, as though answering a call, and discovered a picture of Ann among several other portraits

Occurrences In Current Unreality

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. P. B. Shelley When I stare at a fixed point upon the wall at length, it sometimes happens that I no longer know who I am, nor where I am. On such occasions I experience my lack of identify from afar, as if for a moment I had become a

R.E.M.

excerpt I am going to tell you of things that happened back in 1960 or 1961, when I was still a little girl, no more than 12 years old. I was living with my family in Moşilor Street, in one of those queer houses, with the second floor protruding a little, with two very

What We See

excerpts …Once, when his wife's condition showed signs of deterioration, Marcu entered the Sfînta Vineri church, on his way home from the shops he had called at to collect his rents. He prayed a long time and fervently, though he could hardly concentrate, choking

Memory And Strolls

If you read travel notes by simple tourists or people on journalistic, cultural or political assignments, from the 1920s or 30s, if you peruse recurrent images about a Bucharest imprinted with evil or good charms, equally decrypted and encoded, moving and repulsive, you

The International George Enescu Festival Tradition And The Romanian Athenaeum - The Symbol Building For Romanian Musical Culture

In the heart of Romania's Capital stands the monumental building of the Romanian Athenaeum, the symbolic edifice of the most significant musical events ever since 1889 and, at the same time, the cradle of the International George Enescu Festival. There is no musical

End Of Century In Bucharest

excerpts In the large house of the Barbus, in the Mogoşoaia Bridge Street, the main staircase was guarded by two bronze moors, carrying huge, crystal lamps. Upstairs, you climbed to the boyar's dwelling. Under the first steps, however, a narrow door opened toward the

The Bucharest Of Former Times

Volume I, 1871 - 1884 The Christmas of 1871? My young age then was so eagerly waiting for it. By 10 o'clock the night of the Eve, the shrill voices of the carolers would resound all over Bucharest. In those days the carolers were children from the edge of town, children