In Dionysus` Court

1. Since adolescence I liked to write short stories, stories and even fantasy ‘novels’. […] I started writing on a Sunday; I had the whole day and night ready in front of me. I still remember the beginning and the end of the story; I was in the lab(in that year I was fond of chemistry and I was preparing my lab in the attic) and I don’t know how I got asleep- but, obviously, the reader didn’t know this; I haven’t told him.

2. It was a shame. Even I don’t remember too much. If he had got in this tramway, I would have asked him. I like to enter in conversation with educated people. These young people, my lord, were, of course, students. Eminent students. I was waiting in the station and I was listening to them. They were talking about a certain colonel Lawrence and his adventures in Arabia. And what a memory! They were reciting full pages from the colonel`s book.

3. `They are old nuts`, Gavrilescu continues, that’s why is so much shade and cold. I heard that the walnut starts to give shade only after thirty-forty years. Would that be true? But the old man was pretending he didn’t hear anything. Gavrilescu returned to one of his neighbor which was thoughtfully looking through the window. ` That is what I heard as well` continues Gavrilescu. I am taking this tramway three times a week, and I give you my word, I didn’t happen even once not to hear talking about them, the gypsy. Does somebody know them? I wonder myself: where did they come from?`They came a long time ago` said the neighbor

`They have been here for twenty-one year`, somebody interrupts him. When I first came to Bucharest; these Gypsies were still here. But the garden was still large. The high-school hasn’t been built yet…

4. ` I`m nervous` he said, I don’t realize why…` Don`t drink too much coffee, the girl whispered while she was opening the door and pushing him inside. It was a room that its edges couldn’t been seen, because the curtains were drawn […]. He started to go forward stepping on the carpets more and more thicker and softer, like he was stepping on mattresses, and every step that he made his heartbeat was accelerating until he got scared to go forward and he stopped. In that moment he felt instantly happy, like he was young again, and the whole world was his, and Hildegard was like him. `Hildegard` he said looking at the girl. I haven’t thought of her for twenty years. She was my big love, the woman of my life!But, looking back, he realized that the girl was gone[…] The room was getting lighter in a mysterious way, it was like the curtains were drawn slowly, very slow.

5. ` When I was in love with Hildegard[…] I was dreaming only about this: to go together in a journey to Greece. ` You were a fool` the girl stops him. You shouldn’t have dreamed, you should have loved her… `I was twenty years and she hadn’t even have eighteen. She was beautiful. We were both beautiful` he adds. In that moment he realized he was dressed in a weird costume[…] he was staring in the mirror, like it was difficult for him acknowledge himself.

6. A few moments ago the young man reached to him. ` What a coincidence` Gavrilescu said seeing that he stopped next to him. The door suddenly opened and at the door there was a woman still young , but with pale cheeks[…] Reaching Gavrilescu, she scowls. `what do you want` she asked ` I forgot my briefcase` Gavrilescu started intimidated. I was talking and I forgot it. I had things to do[…] and I couldn’t come earlier.

`I don’t understand. What kind of briefcase?`

`If she sat at the table, don’t bother her` Gavrilescu continues, ` I know where I left it. It`s next to the piano` and he was getting ready to enter, but the woman didn’t move.

`Who are you looking for, mister?` `I`m looking for Mrs Voitinovici. I am Gavrilescu, Otilia`s piano teacher. I didn’t have the pleasure to meet you` he adds politely.

`You have mistaken the address` says the woman. Here is number 18.`

`May I?` Gavrilescu started again smiling. `I know this apartment for five years. I can say I am part of the family. I come here three times a week…` the young man was listening to the conversation leaning towards the wall. `What is he name?` he asks.

7. `Oh, what was going on with her` , the innkeeper interrupts him, `Not even today it doesn’t know what happened. The police was looking a few months for him and they couldn’t reach him, not alive, not dead… It looked like he entered in the ground…Poor madam Elsa, she waited what she waited, and then she left to her family in Germany. She sold her things and she left. They didn’t have too much, they were poor. I was thinking to buy the piano myself.

`You are saying that she left to Germany` Gavrilescu said dreamly. `Did she leave a long time ago?`

`A long, long time ago. A few months ago after Gavrilescu disappeared. In autumn it is 12 years. They wrote in the newspaper…`

`Curious` whispered Gavrilescu[…] And if I tell you , if a tell you that this morning, and I give you my word that I don’t exaggerate, I talked to her…Even more. At lunch we ate together. I can even tell what we ate…`

`She might have come back` said the innkeeper, looking to him.

`She didn’t come back. She didn’t leave at all. It’s a confusion in the middle. Now I am a bit tired, but in the morning I will figure everything out…

8. `Hildegard` he said, leaving her hat falling

`I am waiting for you`, said the girl getting closer. ` I was looking for you all over the place`

`I was at the beerhouse` Gavrilescu whispered. ` If I hadn’t been with her at the beerhouse, nothing would have happened. Or if I had some money…but this way she paid for me, Elsa, and she understands, I felt forced….and now is late, isn’t it? It`s very late…`

`what is that important`, said the girl. `Let`s go`

` But I don’t have a home, I don’t have anything anymore. It was a terrible day…

9. `When I was walking in the morning, a figure of a young woman ,at the end of the beach, caught my attention. She was the only one who was silent in a happy and smiling group, she was silent with her eyes over the sea, and from time to time she was turning her head and she was looking stealthily at one family

near her, she was looking towards the children. I was walking there more than one hour, until I saw her getting up and leaving alone. And then a got closer to her place and I started investigating. I felt that the others in the group were looking curiously, that some of them were laughing[…] and they were making signs, but at my age I was used with many things. Suddenly I understood, It was like I was reading in a book. That young woman was married for several years, she didn’t have children. She wanted to have them, but she didn’t. And recently someone or maybe a doctor, told her that she might have never have children. Not one, not two. Four ….so, you see, I sometimes learn good things too.`

`Didn’t you run after her to tell her? Emanuel asks him. Beldiman was leaning his head smiling.

`No. It is not proper. I am not a soothsayer. I don’t have the right to get into other person`s live, unknown person; and to give her a news that she didn’t ask for. Otherwise, I could be wrong. I know very well that one time I was wrong. It`s right, I was on the mountain[…]. Stones that didn’t move their places for hundreds of years. But even there

Evelina