1960, ALMANAHUL FEMEIA
Song for a Wife
Stay by my side,
closer to my heart,
closer to the unwritten song
and listen to me:
For the eyes in which burns the love
of boundless loves,
for the eyes in which does not tremble
the temptation of deceptive love,
for the eyes in love with every
child in the world,
for the eyes that weep
at my unhappiness and everyone’s,
for the eyes lit by a simple greatness,
I write poetry.
For the heart that stirs
at the spark of a child,
for the heart that does not grow old
in love,
but is as fresh as the first snowdrop
wrinkled in spring,
for the heart blossomed
by the death of every flower,
for the heart more cheerful
than the skylark in the heights of the sky,
for the heart conceived from laughter and joy,
I write poetry.
For the hand that caresses
the golden hair of the little girl,
for the hand that soothes
my forehead tired from sleeplessness,
for the hand that makes the shirt
purer than the soul of the child,
for the holy hand
of a mother, housewife and wife,
I write poetry.
GEORGE CIUDAN
_____________________
1960, FLACĂRA
Conjugal Prestige
I almost choked on my little meatball when I heard my wife:
— Gogule, I have an innovation!
— About time! — I say. Because I was just about to ask you to change the menu. What kind of innovation?
— Not culinary! An innovation in the field of nylon. And if I perfect it, I’ll achieve an estimated saving of one hundred thousand!
— A hundred thousand?! — I smile sourly. Go easier on that and… serve me the second course. And while I was gobbling down the delicious pre-cooked breaded brains from “The Housewife,” you’ll want to tell me why you don’t understand that women don’t really have the brain for innovation?
— Why, dear?!
— How to explain?… Haven’t you read that a woman… has a smaller brain than a man?
— You mean to say that a woman is dumber than a man?
— Not exactly dumber… But — how should I put it? — less skilled… With less inclination toward technical matters… The only technique in which a woman succeeds better than a man has been and remains the technique… of the kitchen!
Faced with my undeniable argument, my wife had nothing more to say. She tried to shake her head meaningfully, but said nothing. And she served me the compote…
★
The most easygoing man in our section is old man Iorgu. I learned the trade from him, he trained me at the workplace. A skilled master, yes, and when he gets you going!…
— And you say so, Gogule! — he begins. You have secrets from us?
— What secrets, old man Iorgu?
— Come on now, really!
— I swear I don’t know anything!
— It happens! Many times the whole village knows what the husband doesn’t!
— Speak more concretely, man!
— More concretely: Angela! Did we have to find out indirectly from the technical office that your wife has an innovation? Or were you afraid we’d say: “Look at the husband of the innovator”!
“The husband of the innovator”! I felt like throwing myself into the crater of a volcano, overalls and all. So here was the first glimpse of a blow to my male prestige! Saying “the husband of the innovator” is like saying “the tram’s tail light.” Just imagine women — it’s not enough that they’re our equals, now they want to surpass us too!…
That day the meeting room was packed. They were analyzing the work of the enterprise’s technical creation collective. They talked about savings and other matters. Then the director said:
— And now, I have good news: the technical office has accepted comrade Angela Mereanu’s innovation, concerning the system of tensioning the nylon threads in the hemming machines — and this innovation will bring our enterprise an estimated saving of nearly one hundred thousand lei!
The room bursts into applause. (Whoever invented applause had nothing better to do!)
But — the director continued — comrade Mereanu’s innovation now raises a problem… of the husband. Assuming that Gogu Mereanu, her husband, we all know is a fine comrade. But since every man has… his weakness, he cannot reconcile himself with the idea that his workmates will point at him, saying “the husband of the innovator.” This, according to his view, would lead to… a diminishment of male prestige. So, to save “conjugal prestige,” he took it upon himself to present an innovation of his own — which was also accepted and will bring another saving, also of one hundred thousand lei!
The room bursts into applause again. (Smart was the one who invented them!)
— Now, however — said the director, smiling through the applause — let us also think of something for comrade Angela so that she doesn’t feel out of sorts when she’s called “the wife of the innovator,” to reconcile both sides, I propose we call them “the innovator spouses.”
And that’s how I escaped the situation of being… a consort prince in matters of innovation…
… And my wife? What about my wife? Nothing! She just goes on with her work…
… About technology? No, we don’t discuss technology anymore. Ever since she hinted that, while women prove themselves equal to men in all actual technical fields, men are, supposedly, inferior in the… culinary technique. Could be so?
Valeriu FILIMON
_________________
1966, ALMANAHUL FEMEIA
An Energetic Woman
by Henri Cami – France
FIRST SCENE
(The stage represents an apartment.)
Husband
I had a great idea when I cut all our furniture into little pieces, like in a fun puzzle. This way we can move discreetly the day before rent is due. In a few trips I transported almost all the furniture during the night to the new apartment where we will live.
Energetic Woman
The concierge didn’t notice anything?
Husband
Nothing. You know well that our furniture isn’t made of pieces larger than sugar cubes. I can easily hide them in my pockets. The concierge saw us going out, but she couldn’t imagine I had in my pockets the little curtain and the dining table.
Energetic Woman
Admit that this is no way to live! You’re lazy. You’d better get to work so we can pay the rent instead of deforming your pockets moving our furniture.
Husband
Me, lazy! Why do you wrong me, madam? Think that in each new apartment we move into, I lose almost two and a half months reassembling the furniture. Lazy! I’ve barely finished putting the furniture together, and you get it into your head to think about dismantling it again to move! Lazy, me!…
Energetic Woman
Stop chattering and work. I still have to take apart 17,625 pieces of the mirrored wardrobe and 5,452 pieces of the nightstand.
Husband
I have no time to lose. (With the help of sugar tongs he lifts one by one the pieces of the mirrored wardrobe.) Everything is dismantled.
Energetic Woman
Good. Pack the mirrored wardrobe in today’s newspaper. (She counts the pieces before making the package.) As usual, put the nightstand in the lower pocket and let’s go.
Husband
Let’s go. (As he puts the nightstand in his pocket, a few pieces fall out.)
The Energetic Woman
Pick them up, you incompetent! You’ve never been able to do anything with your eleven fingers.
Husband
You’re joking, madam. Is it my fault if nature gave me an extra finger?
Energetic Woman
Shut up, you conceited man! You have one finger more than others, but in return you’re even lazier.
Husband
But…
Energetic Woman (with contempt)
Shut up, you good-for-nothing!
Husband (jumping as if burned)
Good-for-nothing! You know well that insult drives me crazy. (He rushes at his wife, squeezes her nose with a nutcracker and shuts her mouth with the sugar tongs. The energetic woman falls to the ground, suffocated.)
Husband (regaining his composure)
It’s never good to get angry. Let’s now try to repair this act of error. (He takes a saw and cuts his wife into pieces. Then he wraps the pieces in a newspaper.)
Now I have to scatter the pieces of my poor wife through various deserted neighborhoods.
It’s the classic method. And what’s classic is always sure. (He starts to leave.)
Ah! I almost forgot the package with the mirrored wardrobe. A mere trifle makes me lose my head. (Holding the package with his wife in his right hand, the one with the wardrobe in his left, and with the nightstand in the pockets of his overcoat, he leaves the apartment.)
SECOND SCENE
Remorse
The scene represents a deserted neighborhood. It is night.
Husband
I threw a few pieces of my poor wife into the ditch of the fortifications.
To give myself courage, I had to drink quite a lot of alcohol.
Let me go into this tavern too, to drink… to drink some more… to drink always! (He enters the tavern swaying, comes out after two minutes swaying even more.)
Now to throw the last little pieces of my poor wife onto this empty lot. (He throws the last pieces onto the vacant land.)
I have finished this lugubrious task.
THIRD SCENE
Pleasant Company
The scene represents the new apartment.
Husband (entering)
Here I am in the new apartment. It’s getting light.
I can start reassembling the furniture…
In this package are the pieces of the mirrored wardrobe. (He begins to assemble piece by piece.)
My hand trembles, my vision is blurred.
Without question, I’ve drunk too much… I’ve drunk too much… I’ve drunk too much. (He continues assembling.)
I don’t have much left to finish: just three more pieces to put in place.
I work mechanically… without seeing… from habit.
I have drunk. I have drunk too much…
Yes! Here is the last piece. I have reassembled the mirrored wardrobe.
Energetic Woman
You must be drunk to take me for a mirrored wardrobe!
Husband (startled on the spot)
My God! My wife!
I understand everything!
After the crime I drank to give myself courage.
And I mixed up the packages.
I threw away the pieces of the mirrored wardrobe and reassembled my wife!
Energetic Woman (with a terrible voice)
What! You threw away the pieces of the mirrored wardrobe!
Ah! Didn’t I tell you you’re good for nothing!
You must be the last among men and the first among drunkards to throw into the street a mirrored wardrobe made of oak, imitation white wood!
Husband
But…
Energetic Woman (in the paroxysm of anger)
Shut up! If you hadn’t been drinking, such a thing would never have happened!
You wouldn’t have mixed up the packages!
________________________
1967, VIAȚA STUDENȚEASCĂ
LULI
I’m waiting for you, Luli, at seven this evening.
You know? At our confectionery shop, again,
At the small table, right? — with fine edges,
Where we’ve eaten so many cream cakes…
Oh! That girl, who used to serve us,
With the black apron and the rough hand,
(Of whom you were still jealous.)
As soon as I sat down at the table she knew.
And while I was watching the time
To catch sight of you in the colorless world:
To spot you from the sidewalk as you passed
Already on my table were cold glasses,
And with their tempting annex,
With whipped cream on top, like a flower
Fallen in spring from a tree,
Waiting for us with its aroma of rum…
Luli, Luli, do you still remember?
Today it seems everything passes before my eyes!
I see you with short sleeves and with ribbons,
With white, pure and rounded arms,
Grown delicate without any effort,
(Back then, not so much sport was done)
And to be a little independent,
You didn’t have to be, back then, a student
A bit of daring and a little lie
And everything was taken in good humor!
Luli, Luli, do you still remember?…
You whispered “bonsoir” and your first words
You swallowed right away in a glass of water.
That’s how your first stage began,
You then sat comfortably on the sofa,
And began to speak — like this… like this…
And so many things without importance
I listened to attentively, as in a courtroom…
I knew your neighbors by heart,
I knew who they were and who they had been.
I knew all your girlfriends.
I knew one was malicious,
And that she had upset you that very day;
And when the cream cake disappeared,
Making a small pause, Luli,
You murmured to me a spoiled… “merci”…
And then we left, I took you by the arm and come on,
I tossed you into a horse-drawn tram
I felt in the movement a vague breeze,
I felt in the movement a sweet closeness
And the monotonous clip-clop of a well-behaved horse…
Luli, Luli, do you still remember?
Do you still remember when, slowly,
We found ourselves in Filaret Park?
The vast coolness welcomed us from the gate,
And the sumptuous park, like a map,
Unfolded its square lawns,
Raised its fragile palaces
Made from shingles and mud
And now it is flayed by so much rain…
Do you remember when I told you…: It hurts me,
See, their demonstrative splendor…
Everything made here is meant
To deceive the gentlest people…
Knowing that the truth is as small as an amoeba,
Instead of building next to the ground just a hut,
From stone and from solid, heavy things,
They built light castles here.
Do you still remember how he would train, Luli,
When the student made you these… theories,
And when, losing for a moment the contact of your arm,
Stolen by thoughts it seemed, he became abstract?
Only when an electric bulb stealthily projected,
In front, two elongated shadows on the gravel,
Then, clinging to him, making yourself small again,
You spoiled yourself whispering: — Let’s go, you, I’m afraid!
Tudor MĂINESCU
__________
1977, PARENTS’ ALMANAC
THE ROAD TO MARRIAGE
(conversation on a bench)
MIHAI — You wanted to tell us something. What is it about?
VLAD — About a very serious matter. I have decided to get married.
UCU — I congratulate you and I am happy for you.
MIHAI — And who is the girl?
VLAD — You don’t know her. She is a classmate from university.
UCU — You are a lucky man. You have met the person you love. Besides, fundamental for family life, I believe, is the existence of ideas and concerns that can be shared in common. Only through the fruitful communication of your “given” with hers can a lasting unity of life be created. Only this way are you no longer truly alone, having a partner, an alter-ego. The first condition of acceptance is that you are not initially refused by the intellect. Physical beauty is ephemeral, if, like a seed, it slowly fades away.
MIHAI — But can you know so precisely the measure of understanding of the “spirits” being discussed, so as to decide from this sole decisive argument? I think you cannot be indifferent to the way nature has shaped the one with whom you want to bind your life. In society you find enough occasions to give the spirit the opportunity for full manifestation. Contributing to this are art, friends, books… I want my wife to also be beautiful.
VLAD — Do you believe that, when you fall in love, the heart still lets you find and compare arguments?
UCU — In any case, the “heart” argument is not outside of thought.
MIHAI — And thought implies the existence of a diversity of criteria.
UCU — In any case, marriage gives fullness to life, offers it meaning. To have a child, to have something to live for, means to have the conditions for becoming towards the fulfillment of life. What could be more sublime?
MIHAI — Let’s not get ecstatic. Have you heard of family scandals? You philosophers see everywhere only ideas and abstractions, and you are capable of making even out of something as prosaic as marriage a “phenomenon” or some sort of metaphysical mutation. Perhaps that is why you have given humanity the largest number of bachelors. Talking so much about the splendor of marriage, you forgot to reap its fruits. Love and marriage must first be lived and only afterwards discussed, or meditated upon.
UCU — I agree, but not entirely, with your statements. Firstly, if we were to listen to what you said, we would have to end our discussion about marriage, since neither you nor I have been married and have had this experience. Secondly, it seems that, through a curious play of things, there are people who, precisely about what they have not lived or have not had, have written the most pertinent and beautiful pages. J. J. Rousseau never concerned himself in his life with raising a child and yet he wrote the most beautiful book about how children should be raised. Plato was not even once in charge of running the state and yet he wrote “The Republic.” So, if I were, dear Mihai, to return to what you said, I would say that for marriage it is necessary to know your future partner, but it is not absolutely necessary to know marriage.
MIHAI — And what would be, in your opinion, the qualities or “attributes” a future wife should fulfill?
UCU — First, we can make a small distinction between physical and moral qualities. In my opinion, for a wife, moral qualities take precedence. From a physical point of view, I think a future wife should be “pleasant” and not beautiful, to have a sporty figure, which nevertheless does not overshadow certain feminine curves, and one very important thing I would insist on, to know how to use cosmetic artifice which can help her or, on the contrary, can harm her.
MIHAI — I notice you are a traditionalist, although your model so far does not displease me.
UCU — Wait, don’t rush. I would also like this future ideal wife to love coffee less, idle talk less, and more the spirit and nature.
MIHAI — And in the moral order, what are your demands?
UCU — In the moral order, I would see this ideal wife as tender, loving, sincere, discreet, a good housewife and maternal, determined and self-controlled. Something, if you will, between the faithful and domestic love of a Penelope, the ideal gentleness and candor of a Beatrice, and the will and self-control of a Vitoria Lipan, as created by Sadoveanu.
MIHAI — It’s certain you’ll remain a bachelor. You have in mind ideal prototypes and not the real girls of today, who are more into short skirts and light music. But what do you say, you candidate for marriage?
VLAD — Everything depends on us. Our happiness is in our power and we are its measure.
VIOREL NICOLAE
__________________
1999, AGENDA MAGAZIN
“The Rebels” Never Lose
International cinema is launching a new type of woman, formidable and rebellious, who seems to be slowly making her mark in real life as well. The canons of femininity based on patience, docility, kindness, and exaggerated gentleness now seem to belong to the past.
But who are the “bad” women who are now gaining more and more ground?
“Becoming meaner is vital,” emphasizes psychologist Ute Ehrhardt, author of books dealing with the study of character and behavior of today’s young women.
“Being meaner is an art that can be learned. It starts with changing relationships with friends, relatives, role models, and adopting new interests and ideals – it means getting closer to another kind of people. To be successful, you need a great will to win, even accepting being labeled as bad or rebellious.”
Here are some rules that the “rebel” type proposes to be followed by representatives of the fair sex for the coming years:
- Set your own rules
- Know how to say NO without hesitation
- Have a clear vision of the path you want to follow
- You don’t have to please at any cost
- Don’t be afraid of criticism
- Don’t spread rumors and don’t speak ill of others
- Accept the fact that without risk you can’t win
- Use your energies for your own purposes
- Be proud of the successes you achieve
- Use direct language and don’t waste your time being concerned with what others should do and think
- Dream of impressive things, but ones that can be achieved
- Have the will to win
D.M.
____________
2001, COTIDIANUL
Although he is not married, Alexandru Andrieş sings “Divorce Music”
He learned from friends what the unpleasant moment means
Early afternoon, the Green Hours club in the Capital hosted the launch of a new album signed by Alexandru Andrieş. The event took place in a small setting and did not benefit from the participation of a large number of celebrities. Could it be, perhaps, the title of the album, which made many contemporary “artists” squint suspiciously at their own biography?! The only ones who signed the attendance sheet were Nicu Alifantis and Zoltán András, vocalist of the band Sarmalele Reci. Nevertheless, the audience, journalists, and fellow musicians felt at home, listening to divorce music.
The nonconformist singer-songwriter Alexandru Andrieş, still unmarried, decided to release an album of… divorce music. “The idea for this album came from a joke by two friends of mine from Germany, who complained that they were invited to sing at all kinds of events, but never had been invited to sing at divorces,” said the author of the album.
Even though he has not gone through the experience of marriage, Alexandru Andrieş did his homework and gathered information from friends, because, as the saying goes: “What are friends for?” He asked around about what goes on with divorce and, after his quiver was full, Andrieş got to work. The lyrics of the 14 songs on the album are also in keeping with the album’s theme, capturing in rhyme the most common situations in the lives of couples determined to take this step.
When asked whether he had drawn any lessons from what he learned from divorced friends, in his characteristic style, Andrieş replied: “As you know, I’m still not married!” As we are used to, Andrieş surprises his audience not only with the lyrics of the songs but also with the image chosen for the album cover: a family photo from a… wedding.
Even though the album is dedicated to a less pleasant event in the lives of couples, Alexandru Andrieş did not intend for it to be the beginning of a cycle of songs dedicated to life events. That is, there will be no other songs for baptisms, weddings, or — God forbid! — for death.
What will surely follow is the making of a music video for the second song on the album, entitled “Ghinion” (“Bad Luck”). “In this video, there will be only men, because in all the videos made here there are always at least two or three women. And they’re badly dressed,” said Andrieş. Also in this video will appear a famous actor from our country, but whose name Andrieş wanted to keep to himself and the video producers.
The album launch will be followed, on December 3, by a concert — Andrieş’s traditional St. Nicholas concert, now in its sixth edition. The show will take place at the Ion Dacian National Operetta Theater in the Capital, starting at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, priced between 80,000 and 110,000 lei, have already been on sale since the first day of November at the Operetta’s box office.
This time, the concert will not be followed by the release of a video cassette of the show, something like the first one, “Alexandru Andrieş Live.” The reasons were explained by the singer-songwriter himself: “The video cassette market in Romania is not yet well defined, and producing such a cassette would mean a financial loss for the producers.” Instead, another option will be sought: “We will probably contact a television station to record and broadcast the concert later.”
Having said that, Alexandru Andrieş wanted to officially close the conference with a wish:
“I thank you for coming and I wish you… a pleasant divorce!”
Cristina OLOGEANU
___________
Both demystifying and idealizing miss the phenomenon of love”
Interview with writer Pascal BRUCKNER
While summer loves are being consumed on the shores of the world’s seas and oceans, in Bucharest questions were being asked about love. Not stupid questions like “What is love?”, but questions about the meanings of love in contemporary Western society.
Since The New Disorder of Love in 1977, Pascal Bruckner has accustomed us to spectacular and well-targeted approaches to intimacy and sexuality in a world that, if not increasingly schizoid, is at least increasingly unpredictable. In the air-conditioned aroma of the Athenee Palace, amid the disturbing ripples of the Breivik case in Norway, we spoke with one of the representative writers of the generation of French “New Philosophers.”
More than 30 years have passed since The New Disorder of Love, a book that also revealed paradoxes of love in the contemporary West (written in collaboration with Alain Finkielkraut). Does your new book fit into the project launched in 1977? Has anything changed since then, and if so, what?
I think The New Disorder of Love was the first attempt to take stock of May 1968 and all the disorders that followed, in matters of love in the West. The Paradox of Love takes up, after 30 years, the same subject, asking what happened then, what we experienced then, and what remained afterwards, what was good and what was bad in what happened.
It’s about a similar approach, but now I have extended the theme of sex up to its meeting with that of love. In this latest volume I speak about the relationship between love and politics, and ideology, about the way love works in totalitarian systems.
An important change has occurred from the 1960s until today. Then the key term for accessing the issue of intimacy was desire, Deleuze’s “desiring machine,” psychoanalysis, etc. Love was the “civilized” mask under which lusts were unleashed. May 1968 wanted to kill the language of love, to replace it with the language of drives.
The problem is that this replacement of love with desire only reinforced the importance of intimacy, of feeling, in society. Under the pretext of liberating morals, of re-evaluating society, the evangelical discourse was revived.
Today, love is spoken of as in the Gospels, with reverence, with pathos, but we must see whether this piety does not hide some dangers.
Your book addresses the struggle in the minds of moderns between valuing fidelity in love and freedom in love. Shouldn’t we immediately make the distinction between a love-passion, carnal and especially tied to the imaginary, and love-charity, which has no place here, in the world? About the latter you even speak, through a very interesting phrase — “love of poverty.” Please explain it in more detail.
It’s a matter I have spoken about more extensively in other books (Love Thy Neighbor, for example). But indeed, it is about an essential ambiguity of charitable love, which apparently turns toward our unfortunate neighbor.
(….) They are the ones who make us useful, we need them to give meaning to our actions and to see ourselves in a beautiful mirror.
Charity does not mean helping the one deprived of everything, but especially helping him to no longer lack anything and to offer him the means he needs so that he will no longer want for anything.
In Catholicism, especially, there is an ambivalence of charity, between the will to help those who have nothing and the idolization of poverty in itself: the idea that poverty is itself better than wealth, and that there must be miserable people so that mercy has meaning, keeps it alive.
(…) That is what Proust does in all his work, Albert Cohen likewise, and the first to formulate this idea masterfully is Duke La Rochefoucauld. Then there is another discourse, held especially by Christian theoreticians, which says that earthly love is nothing compared to divine love, and we must always surpass this stage of worldly love to truly understand what love is. I believe that both demystifying and idealizing love miss the phenomenon of love, because it exists outside of suffering, and also because it exists in its very human imperfection, and because you cannot always oppose to it Christian love, which is ultimately depersonalized. For God loves us all equally. We always oscillate between these two postulates, and each time we lose, thus, the correct relationship to human love.
We could not miss the topic of the day: in the most exciting chapter of the book — “The Ideology of Love” — you speak of Christianity and communism as two ideologies of love. In Romania, such a juxtaposition is considered by many a sacrilege. Therefore, I ask you: Do you believe we can understand love outside of an ideology of it?
When you speak about love, you can talk about your loves, about your experiences, in a very fragmentary discourse, something that Barthes, for example, tried to do in Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse. The rest, indeed, is a global discourse, which is expressed according to two ideologies with worldwide spread. One speaks a theological language, resorts to the figure of God as love and, in order to unite the world, exterminates its enemies — Jews, Protestants, Muslims, etc. The other is communism, which is a heresy of Christianity. Communism is an ideology which, in the name of a perfect society, invented the notion of the “enemy of the people” (Stalin did this). There are in fact two systems of persecution in history: Nazism, which is founded on hatred — and one of the examples here is the genocide in Rwanda — and communism, on a forced love. These remain, moreover, two important dangers: the discourse of hatred, but also that of an overly important love, which carries within it the germ of destruction, as the phrase of the Council of Trent reminds us: “Outside the Church there is no salvation.”
There is, however, the love lived in a couple, which is not eroded by ideological contamination, but by the passage of time. The question that arises here is how to make the relationship survive despite the years that pass, the desire that wanes, and the attempts to remain united always represent an effort to deceive time.
One last question. The theme of intimacy and individualism in contemporary life is addressed by many contemporary thinkers, some of whom you even cite. Whom do you feel closest to and what do you bring new, I am thinking especially in relation to Gilles Lipovetsky first of all or to Alain Ehrenberg?
There is a group of thinkers with whom I feel solidarity: Luc Ferry, with whom I am friends, Alain Finkielkraut, André Comte-Sponville — all are people who think, starting from different approaches, about the same themes. We are part of the same generation, and our vision of love is very close. Compared to Luc Ferry, who has entered the sphere of political power, I do not have the optimism that would allow me to follow him. But we all think together about the same things, but we draw different conclusions.
recorded by Alexandru MATEI