4 - Student in Cluj

Summary

From Geoagiu-Băi, Nicolae Tămaş came with me to Obreja, where he spent two weeks trying to convince me to go with him to Bucharest University, and even to study law on top of sociology, as Blaga had recommended.

“Cluj University cannot be better than the one in the capital,” he claimed. “And besides, Bucharest has the Romanian Social Institute with its conferences.”

Ioan Breazu and Petru Munteanu spoke to me very enthusiastically about Virgil Bărbat's lectures, as well those by Vasile Bogrea, Sextil Puşcariu, and Bogdan Duică. My choice was thus made. I entertained the hope that my friends from Mihalţ—two kilometers away from my own village—would be able to convince Tămaş to come to Cluj. He knew them from previous summers, when he had come to Obreja.

Our talks together had taken place on the bank of the Mureş, with its deep water that was great for swimming, and on the fine sand on the Târnava, after which we feasted on mother's chicken soup, which Breazu would not stop praising, calling it unsurpassed. The noodles were finely cut by Măriuca, my brother's wife and Petru Munteanu's sister. Mother prepared the clear soup and the tomato sauce for the plain boiled meat; she had her secret recipe, which she later on passed to my wife, who told me: fat chicken, lots of vegetables, and tomatoes straight off the vine.

Breazu was impressed not only by the way in which Tămaş had summarized John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace, recently translated by Constantin Stere, but also by the smart interpretation he had given, which included some opinions of his own.

The brilliance of the courses taught by Bogrea, Bărbat, Puşcariu, and Bogdan Duică, according to Breazu, managed to fascinate Tămaş. Bogrea's Latin language, literature, and civilization lessons could be useful for Roman law. He was also attracted by the Treatise on Roman Law by Professor Cătuneanu in Cluj, which he had borrowed from Romi, our friend with the theater girl. Also heavily weighing in the balance was the Avram Iancu Dormitory, whose recreation and reading room—and even a pool room!—was something the dorms in Bucharest did not have.