uropean society and politics: one of
those smooth, hard, swiftly moving things the Parisian Bernstein might
have written.

Across it I couldn't help seeing the Berlin I had just left, and people
standing in line with their sandwiches at six o'clock to get into the
opera or theatre--the live human beings behind that abstraction
"Germany." And I said that it seemed unfortunate that two peoples with
so many apparent grounds of contact as the Germans and French must so
misunderstand each other. Their temperament and culture were different,
to be sure, but they were both idealistic, sentimental people, to whom
things of the mind and spirit were important. It seemed particularly
unfortunate that everything should be done to force them apart instead
of bringing them together.

Mr. Ionesco listened with some impatience. Unfortunate, no doubt, but
what do you wish? War itself is unfortunate--we must take the world as
it is. No, they were with France and down with the Germans. France
conquered meant the end of Rumania, subservience to Austria; France
victorious, freedom, fresh air.

He gave me a copy of a speech in which he gladly admitted that he was a
"responsible factor." People talked of going slow and sparing blood.
Well, they might get something by sitting still, even become a great
country, but they could never become a great nation. It was not
territory and population they wanted, but the sword of Rumania to join
in remaking the map of Europe. When the delegates gathered around the
green table, they did not want the one from Rumania, as he was at the
Congress of Berlin, only able to make visits to chancelleries. He must
go in the same door with them, and say: "In proportion to my population,
I have shed as much blood as you."

He had always regretted not having children, never so much as to-day;
but if he had a dozen sons, and knew that all of them would fall in the
war, he would not be cast down. Even if the territory they wished could
be occupied by a simple act of gendarmerie--he would say no--they must
enter Budapest itself (it is only twenty-four hours' railway journey
from Bucarest!)--not till then would Austria admit Rumania's
superiority. People accused him of working for himself. Who was Take
Ionesco in comparison with the fate of a race? As for ambition, well, he
had one, and only one--he wanted to see the Rumanian tricolor floating
from Buda palace, and before he died to know the moment in which h