I imagine might be happening in the depths of my being. Confessions annoy me. They’re a sign of weakness. I don’t understand how a man could need support from someone else. When times are hard, even the best of friends is an enemy. At moments like that you have to be alone. It’s alone that we either stand or fall.
And I can’t confide in my friends. They have already made up their minds about me: I’m ‘the doctor’. While I – from the little I understand – think otherwise. But if I were to open up to my friends, they’d tell me that everything I say is just a ‘pose.’ For boys, ‘posing’ means anything that distinguishes them from each other.
Bowing to the inevitable, I asked Dinu who his first woman had been.
‘What, I haven’t told you?’ He sat up, absolutely delighted.
He had told me countless times.
‘You told me ages ago, but I don’t remember it that well. Besides, Robert should hear this as well...’
‘Yes, yes, that would be interesting.’
As Robert sat up, I noticed that his eyes were alert.
I had heard about this escapade numerous times, in several different versions. So far, Dinu had had seventeen women. I even knew their names, the colour of their hair, and many other details. But his versions about the first woman interested me particularly – mainly because they were so varied and amusing. In one he told me that his first woman had been a widow with red hair who lived on the same street as him; in another, it was the opposite: she had raven-black hair, was married and very rich. But that wasn’t all. He would recount sub-categories of the same story as well as variations of variations. For instance, his first woman had had black hair, was a widow and lived on the same street as him; or she was a redhead, married and rich; or lived on the same street, etc.
Dinu began in a nonchalant tone. He – a handsome boy in the Third Form, with black eyes, cherry lips, and wearing a well-tailored tunic – was walking home from school one day when, without warning, a flustered maidservant rushed out of an alleyway and grabbed him by the hand. Before he knew what was happening he found himself in a bedroom. In the bedroom there was a bed, and in the bed, a voluptuously clad girl with copper-coloured hair.
‘A girl?’ said Robert, his curiosity aroused.
‘That was only how it seemed,’ replied the other, warily.
I didn’t say a word. But Robert decided to, and leant over to me.
‘Doesn’t it seem to you, Doctor, that Dinu’s escapade is somewhat reminiscent of Caragiale’s The Sin?
To me it certainly did seem ‘reminiscent’. But feigning innocence, I replied: ‘So you think Dinu’s first woman was in Caragiale’s play, The Sin?’
For the next five minutes we listened to military music coming from the other side of the lake.
‘Have you read The Sin? Robert asked him.
‘I don’t remember...’
By the time we left the Cişmigiu Gardens it was getting late. As I write, I can’t hear a single electric tram out on the boulevard. I don’t feel like sleeping. It’s hot. And I’m not at all happy.
I know what I’m going through: I’m sentimental. It’s pointless trying to hide it. I’m as sentimental as any other adolescent. Otherwise I wouldn’t be unhappy now. I have no reason to be unhappy.
So I understand now why I’m unhappy. It’s because I didn’t ‘open my heart’ to my friends. I’m just like all the others.
I need friends as well. There’s no point in lying to myself. So I’m just like all the others.
I want truth, and nothing but the truth. I want to be sincere.
Yet apparently I’m not aware of this. Aren’t I aware that I’m sentimental and weak, completely lacking willpower? Don’t I also dream of blonde virgins, with whom I stroll through the park in the moonlight, or sail on the lake in a white rowing boat? Don’t I imagine myself performing heroic deeds, winning the victor’s laurels and the kisses of beautiful women who I’ve never met and who...?
But all these things are sad and foolish. I won’t get any better by writing about them in my notebook. And I can’t even write about them. They’re laughable.
I must do something else. I should get my rope and whip myself. Because I’m an imbecile. Because I waste time wandering round the Cişmigiu Gardens, and am wasting time even now, dreaming of radiant marguerites with my eyes raised heavenward and my hands clasped over my breast.
And there’s more. I’m the biggest simpleton of all, as much as I try to hide it. I’m such a simpleton that I’m not shocked at how I’ve wasted this whole evening, or at the feebleness of my soul, or the ruin that is my willpower, or the barren wasteland of my mind. And here I am, writing this instead of purifying myself with my whip. I’m disgusted with everything, even with pain. I was looking forward to physical pain. But now...
I’m not even tired. And I can’t even read.
Which is a sure sign that I’m an imbecile.
A Friend
My friend Marcu is tall and skinny, with large, bulging eyes, curly hair, long fingers and long legs. He sits at the back of the class and reads French novels. The other boys think he’s stupid, and they call him, ‘Splinter’ because of the length of his nose, and sometimes ‘Moses’ because he’s a Jew. Marcu doesn’t get annoyed at either of these nicknames. He arrives every morning with a novel in his bag, and sits quietly reading it at the back. If there’s any commotion he just frowns and carries on reading. If people climb onto the desks, he puts his fingers in his ears and keeps reading. Even if a fight breaks out at the desk next to him, he simply moves to another desk and continues to read.
He reads his novel.
He even reads when a master is in the room. At these times he props his book against the back of the boy in front of him. He even reads while the master is actually teaching, because Marcu believes that schoolmasters are without exception blithering idiots, and that what they teach is harmful to a healthy brain. Sometimes his neighbours warn him: ‘Marcu, he’s nearly got to you!’
This means that those whose names come just before his in the class register have already been called. Disgruntled, Marcu raises his large eyes from his book. He inquires about the lesson. Occasionally he even goes so far as to ask someone to explain something. He never misses an opportunity to throw the master a ‘red herring’ – as long as he doesn’t have to spend too long up at the blackboard, because the novel must be read at all costs. But if he’s asked a question in chemistry, however, he doesn’t move a muscle. He knows he’ll still get an ‘Unsatisfactory’ anyway.
‘Ionescu Corneliu, Ionescu Stelian, Malareanu Marcu...’
A classmate nudged him: ‘Up you go, Marcu! Your name’s been called.’
Marcu joined the queue in front of the blackboard, arms crossed. When his turn came, and Toivinovici asked him a question, he calmly answered: ‘I don’t know sir.’
‘What about the industrial preparation of sulphuric acid?’
‘I don’t know sir.’
So Toivinovici asked the first two boys, who had been cramming frantically all week.
They gabbled away and covered the board with formulae.
‘That’ll do. Marcu, could you draw a diagram of the structure of the compound pentaphosphoric acid?’
‘I don’t know sir.’
‘Go and sit down, Marcu.’
He walked away, grinning, his long arms bumping against the desks. When he got back to his seat, he complained to his neighbours: ‘Why did you make me close my book?’
Once Noisil caught him reading in class. The master