From The Happiness Diary: 1968

From The Happiness Diary (by Nicolae Steinhardt), transl. Gabriela Ailenei

1968: Outside a bakery, an old beggar, small, discreet. I give him 3 or 4 lei.

He takes off his hat, respectfully, and thanks me for a long while. Why, I don’t know – the memory of my father, the physical resemblance (small and stooping) – his gesture – so polite, the shame of being saluted by an old man for a few lei, the onslaught of images of prison in my memory, revelatory of the human condition’s wretchedness – but I burst out crying in the middle of the street, like a madman.