166 292
Ioana Pârvulescu
166
letters:
L’INDÉPENDANCE
ROUMAINE. The letters U
and M, which were below
a chimney, were blackened
with soot. Bells were ringing
somewhere nearby. Then
I heard, like an echo, the
chimes of clock, of the sort
that provides entertainment
to those new to the city.
‘They
still
haven’t
appointed a new director
at
L’Endebandans,
to
reblace Mr Lahovary,’ said
Petre, who was suddenly
talkative. ‘I read it yesterday
in Universul. Whoever they
bring in, the baber won’t
change its bolicy. True, they
bretend they’re not caught
up in bolitics. But that’s
what they all say!’
The street advanced in
time with our sleigh,
strangely fast. We reached
an intersection that I was
seemingly seeing for the
first time, we crossed it
with diffculty, since sleighs
and carriages were passing
along the boulevard and
were not prepared to wait,
and then we turned right,
coming to an immediate
stop. We were plunged
within the shadow of a wall.
I recalled the unconscious
young man and wondered
whether he might have died
in the meantime. I looked
at him and he seemed to
groan. There was something
terribly childlike about his
face, and his blond, longish
hair covering part of his
cheek.
An imposing, yellowish,
two-storey building loomed
before us, and above the
entrance, beneath the coat
of arms, was embedded a
clock, whose hands showed
half past two. And beneath
the clock, large stone letters
read: PREFECTURE OF THE