Ioana Pârvulescu - Life Begins on Friday

For a few years before 1900 the days were capacious. The people thrummed like telegraph wires. They were optimistic and believed, as never before and never again thereafter, in the power of science, in progress and the future. This is why the New Year was the most important time for them: the ever-renewed beginning of the future .

The texture of the world permitted every mad notion and often the mad notions became reality.

Romania was in Europe, and her capital was now a cosmopolitan city, which was making great efforts to become organized and civilised. In Bucharest, as every period document attests, you never had a chance to be bored, night or day.

Sensitive souls were fearful of unknown dangers. A man fended off electric light with his cane. A woman obstinately refused to let her son take her photograph, although she allowed her portrait to be painted. Neuroses were transformed into poetry; pain and opium went hand in hand. Tuberculosis, syphilis and dirt either killed or left deep wounds in body and soul. Evil had not vanished from the world, and ignoring it was not the best method of preparing for the future. There were people who fought it.

The newspapers had become aware of their own power and it was already possible to die for the written word. And already the written word betrayed them. Money was a problem, but not an end in itself, and there were plenty of people prepared to sacrifice all their money for the sake of a beautiful idea. Children were precocious in imitating grown-ups, grown-ups sometimes behaved like children, and curiosity about life was a joy that did not vanish at any age.

Before 1900, people believed that God desired their immortality, in the most palpable sense of the word. Nothing seemed impossible and nor was it. Every utopia was permitted. And playing with time was always the most beautiful utopia. Apart from that, people were quite similar in every respect to those who came before them and those who came after them.

For a few years before 1900 the days were capacious and people dreamed of our world.

They dreamed of us.

Dan Creţuor Dan Kretzu, 43, a stranger found unconscious in a forest at the edge of Bucharest

The Margulis family:

— Leon, physician, 47

— Agatha, his wife, 42

— Iulia, their daughter, 21

— Jacques(Iacob), their son, 10

Nicu(Niculae Stanciu, Nicuşor), 8, courier for Universul newspaper, the character who links all the other characters

Costache Boerescu, Chief of Public Security, deputy to the Prefect of Police, a friend of Leon and Agatha Margulis since their youth

General Ion Algiu, former Prefect of Police, friend of Costache Boerescu

Caton Lecca, current Prefect of Police

The Livezeanu family:

— Alexandru, aristocrat, homme à femmes

— Mihai(Mişu), studying Medicine in Paris

— Marioara, divorced, with three children, including twins Anica and Ștefan

— Mariaand Hristea, parents of the above

Nicu’s mother, mentally ill washerwoman

Staff of Universul newspaper:

— Old man Cercel, the porter

— Neculai Procopiu, 43, the longest-serving newspaperman at Universul

— The brothers Mirto: Peppin, translator, proof reader, optimist, endowed with an operatic singing voice, and Pavel (Păvălucă), editor, introvert, pessimist, writing a novel

vThe Director, Italian Luigi Cazzavilan

Petre, coachman of Inger the pastry maker

Dr Rosenberg, runs the House of Health establishment on Strada Teilor (Lindens Street)

Mrand Mrs Movileanu, lawyer and his wife, resident on Strada Teilor

Epiharia, devout woman who frequents the Icoanei Church, preparing to become a nun

Fane, alias the Ringster, crook

Episodic characters

George Lahovary, newspaperman, director of the French-language L’Indépendance Roumaine , slain in a duel at the age of 43 by Nicu Filipescu (former Mayor of Bucharest, who ordered the demolition of the Sărindar Church)

Metropolitan Ghenadie, involved in a scandal culminating in the theft of a miracle-working icon

Dimitrie Gerota, physician, friend of Dr Margulis

Vasilica, Iulia’s cousin

Marwan, photographer for Universul

Elena Turnescu, widow of an eminent surgeon, involved in charitable works

Signor Giuseppe, Italian neighbour of the Margulis family

Otto, ethnic German from Transylvania who has come to the capital to work as a church painter

The wounded young aristocrat(Rareş-Ochiu-Zănoagă)

Coachmen: Yevdoshka(Russian Old Believer), Budacuand Ilie(in the employ of the Police)

Toader, servant of the Livezeanu family

Margareta, one of Alexandru Livezeanu’s mistresses

Pet animals

Liza, Costache’s old dog, Lord, General Algiu’s Borzoi hound,

Firathe cow, a fridge magnet, Speckle, Nicu’s pigeon

Unconventional characters

Bucharest, Capital of Romania

Time

I like to read in the carriage. Mama takes me to task; Papa, who never forgets, not even en famille , that he is Dr Leon Margulis, primary physician with a surgery behind the National Theatre, says that I will ruin my eyes and give birth to near-sighted children. But I am obstinate and still bring a book with me. Back in their day they probably had the time to read and do lots of other things, but we youngsters have to dole out our hours with care. I could hardly wait to find out what Becky would get up to next in Vanity Fair . Although truth to tell, I think that I am more like that silly Amelia, and I shall end up loving some rascal all my life. Today I had no luck with my reading: firstly, because my hands were frozen; and then, no sooner did we climb into the carriage than Mama and Papa, chopping the subject as finely as our cook does the parsley, began to dissect the case of the unidentified man whom Petre found lying in the snow this morning, in a field near the Băneasa woods and lakes. He was taken to the Prefecture of Police and placed under arrest. Mama, who is up to date on absolutely everything, says he is a fugitive from the madhouse and that he must have been driven insane by too much learning. And here she gave me a minatory look: ‘It is high time that Iulia decided on a decent man to marry.’

Papa examined the stranger at the request of Costache, our friend from the Police, and said that he was not a vagrant, despite his wearing unbelievably odd clothes.