Trafika Europe 8 - Romanian Holiday

The Phanariot Manuscript

Doicescu with pleasure. He signaled to the usher that he wished to get dressed who turned his hoarse voice toward someone else so that the initial cry quickly made its way to the back of the house, from one mouth to the other. Through the curtain, the usher’s profile looked like a jagged wheel. After changing his mind several times, he picked some yellow shalwars which seemed refreshing, although they were of the new sort that get tighter near the ankle. Thewoman’s hands touched his thigh while pulling up his pants and Doicescu felt obliged to look at her. She was one of his regular chambermaids whom he had chosen for her ample sighed

breasts. On the divan lay five surplices, but he didn’t ponder them much. Instead he pointed with his chin towards the one with green stripes of a fine cotton with two soft and spacious pockets. Then he asked for a shawl and the word went through the house, fromone mouth to the other so that all the windows trembled under its resonance, making the lemonade vendor from Colţea strain his ear and the butchers across the street close their mouths in bewilderment. From the Doicescu house, the boyar’s order could be heard repeated by several voices: “The Alep satin shawl”, announced the usher with his 70-year-old voice, so rusty that it sounded like a

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