Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/122

 world. It was in the white months of winter. Everything seemed so archaic. It was like the descent through the ages to the simple days of patriarchal life and noble struggles. From the mountains, down frozen paths, came peasants riding on small swift horses like the knights of yore when they returned victorious from battle. During the Christmas festivities children, according to tradition, wearing glittering paper garments and gilded crowns, brought me in songs the ancient story of Herod. And the bells, which were later destined to become the victims of the German occupation, tiny innocent bells which surely never dreamt of becoming huge Teuton guns, rang clearly through the sunny morning air from all four churches of the silent peaceful community.

I brought here, to the small house I first occupied, with the shadowed balustrade and blackened wood roof, the noise of a motor for the newly-established printing press. I hoped to make a centre of industry of this beloved nest and my imagination traced the lines of the future streets for my workers. But Văleni is not America. The enlarged printing press still continues, but without profit: the industrial city, alas, has remained in the clouds.

In the old house where I live, everything is preserved as though the boyars of Văleni still lived out their lavish lives. The neighbouring house, until recently, was the abode of an old blind lady who had known prosperity among her family and relatives. She died during the German occupation, poor, forsaken and alone but for a single servant to care for her — nothing lacking to complete her unhappiness.

And now, despite these dreary reminiscences, fresh life is brought into the old rooms to which a new and sunny building has been added. The help of our American brothers was one of the principal impulses for this resurrection.