Roumanian Stories Part 1

Roumanian Stories.

by Various.

PREFACE

By H.M. THE QUEEN OF ROUMANIA

Very little is known in England about Roumanian literature, which although not as rich as in many other countries, presents, nevertheless, features of real interest.

Like all people in touch with the East, even the peasants have a strain of poetry in their speech, their expression is picturesque and gentle, an almost fatalistic note of sadness rings through all the songs they sing.

Our poets have adapted themselves to this particular strain, and mostly it is the popular form that has been developed by our literary men both in prose and poetry.

Roumanian literature possesses eminent historians and critics. I am not, in these few lines, going to touch upon their activities; but strangely enough there are few writers of fiction amongst the Roumanians--great novel writers do not exist.

The Roumanian, above all, excels as poet and as a short-story writer. In this last art he is past-master, and it is therefore a great pleasure to me to encourage this book which Mrs. Schomberg Byng is sending out into the world at a moment when I am so anxious that my country should be better known and understood in England.

Each one of these short stories is a little work of art, and deeply characteristic of Roumanian popular life and thought; therefore I have no doubt that they will interest all those who care about literature.

I feel personally indebted to Mrs. Schomberg Byng to have thought of making this interesting feature of Roumanian literature known to the British public. I therefore, with all my heart, wish this little volume Good Luck.

MARIE.

Jan., 1920.

PREFACE

By Professor S. MEHEDINTZI Of Bucharest University and the Roumanian Academy

As regards poetry Roumanian literature had reached the European level by the nineteenth century. Eminescu may be placed by the side of Leopardi. The drama and the novel are still unrepresented by any works of the first rank; but the short story shows that Roumanian writing is constantly on the upward grade.

The following stories have been selected from many writers. The reader must judge each author for himself. It is impossible to settle their respective merits; that would presuppose an acquaintance with the whole of Roumanian literature. We may, however, be allowed to say a word or two about each writer.

Negruzzi is to Roumanian very much what Sir Walter Scott has been to English literature. After the lapse of nigh a century the historical novel is still identified with his name.

Creanga is a production exclusively Roumanian; a peasant who knew no foreign tongue, but whose mind was steeped in the fairy tales, proverbs, and wit of the people. He wrote with a humour and an originality of imagery which make his work almost impossible to translate into other languages.

Caragiale, our most noted dramatic author, is the ant.i.thesis of Creanga; a man of culture, literary and artistic in the highest sense of the word. The Easter Torch ranks him high among the great short-story writers.

Popovici-Banatzeanu--dead very young--and Bratescu-Voineshti are writers who more than any others give us the atmosphere of the English novel in which the ethical note predominates. Some of their pages have the poignancy of d.i.c.kens.

The same discreet note is struck by Slavici, born in Hungary, whose Popa Tanda is the personification of the Roumanian people subject for centuries to the injustice of an alien race, and driven to seek support in their own work only.

Delavrancea, a famous orator, is a romantic; while Sadoveanu, the most fertile prose writer among the younger men, possesses as novelist and story-teller a touch which makes him akin to Turgenev and Sienkiewicz.

Beza stands by himself. From the mountains of Macedonia he brings into the national literature the original note of the life of the shepherds in the Balkans. Constantly upon the road, among mountain tops and plains, always in fear of the foreigners among whom they pa.s.s, their life manifests a great spiritual concentration. Over Beza's work there hover a mystery and a restraint which completely fascinate the reader. Though young, he possesses the qualities of the cla.s.sical writers.

ROUMANIAN STORIES

THE FAIRY OF THE LAKE

By M. SADOVEANU

One evening old Costescu told us an adventure of his youth.

The old mill of Zavu, he began, stands to this day close to the Popricani lake. A black building leaning towards the dark waters. The six wheels are driven by great streams of water which come rus.h.i.+ng through the mill-race, and surround the house, was.h.i.+ng through the cracks. Above the boiling foam which encircles it, the great building shakes with the unceasing roar of the water.

So it is to-day; so it was at the period when I used to roam about those parts--it is long, long, since then.

I remember a night like a night in a fairy tale, full of the silver light of the moon, a night when only youth could see, when only youth could feel.

It was in July. I was descending the lake by myself with my gun over my shoulder. Flights of duck pa.s.sing above the forest of reeds lured me on. I followed their rapid flight through the clear atmosphere, the black specks became gradually smaller until they were lost to sight in the rosy clouds of the setting sun. I pa.s.sed above the weir, where the waterfall brawls, between the bushy willow-trees which guard the narrow path, and approached the mill. The green stream swept through the mill-race, the foaming water boiled round the black building, and in the yard, unyoked and ruminating, the oxen slept beside the waggon.

The old man, the miller, the great-grandson of Zavu, descended from the mill bridge with his pipe in the corner of his mouth. In the deafening roar of the water and the creaking of the wheels men waited in silence amid the luminous spray that filled the old building.

"Good health to you, my old friend Simione!"

"Thank you, sir. How goes it with the land? Grinding good flour?"