One autumn, his grandson Andrei came from the city. Andrei carried a phone, not a scythe. He wanted to “digitize” Matei’s chronicle. “We’ll make a summary, bunicule. A rezumat . For the internet.”
“December 1989 – The soldiers came. No one sang carols that year. But in the spring, the plum trees blossomed twice.”
They sat on the porch as the sun bled into the hills. Matei began to hum—low, broken notes, like wind through dry corn stalks. Then he opened the notebook. It was not a list of dates. Each entry was a story:
And in the morning, he wrote at the top of a new page: “Hronicul și cântecul vârstelor – There is no summary.”
Andrei closed his phone. That night, he learned to hum the cracked melody of the falling leaves.
Andrei realized there was no summary. A chronicle is not facts. A song is not data. The ages cannot be condensed.
“April 1956 – The last horse foaled in the valley. Its name was Starlight. I forgot to write that two days later, the foal stood on three legs, and my father said: ‘Even the crooked ones find their balance.’”
The book recounts Blaga’s childhood and adolescence in the Transylvanian village of Lancrăm, near Sebeș, at the turn of the 20th century. It is not a strict chronological memoir but a poetic, philosophical meditation on memory, time, and the formation of consciousness.