– So, the young enough man had a job, “long live that” … at the Municipal Council from Baia. He was the person that distributed the inhabitants in the new apartment houses. He was so nice and courted by women that we can say he could not bear with them and not few of them “slipped” in his arms. Maybe also his job could have facilitated this matter, but he was indeed a handsome man, communicative, very charming, how maybe any woman would wish her man to be and something that we cannot pass over, he had a very good financial situation. He had his own house, life, fortune, what else, he did not miss anything. He built this “little house” as a jewel “openly” how they say in here if the house is faced south, with a particular finish. I don’t have to remind you about the orchards and others.
Our Pavel, that was his name, I think he never tasted plum brandy or wine from other places than the ones that he made and he used to make it the way he liked it. There’s no use in telling more, he had everything and mostly everything a person could wish for … or a woman of those that “throws herself in his arms”. Not few were from those that may have seen Pavel’s fortune and maybe only after that they taped him, or they “got warm” after Pavel. He was close to 50 years old and Pavel lived all his life in pleasures and parties with women, each one of them different than the other. Maybe what surprised people from the village were Pavel’s “breaking up” of these women? Breakings up that were spent in silence, in such way that not even one neighbor heard any hard words, rude things or words that were calling out from Pavel’s place. With about two years earlier “he felt” for a very beautiful woman, a charming woman, that was behind any gossip that wasn’t admirable. She was about 35 years old. A pleasant woman that knew her value and importance in the society. She was the kind of woman to “be seen” anywhere. Suddenly for the first time in his life, Pavel felt in love with her. Thinking about how many women crossed his “doorstep”, have brightened his life and spent unforgettable hours together and each time he knew how to get away to come back to his bachelor’s, to don’t get married with any of them, now it seemed he became immune to these things. This late falling in love for this woman seemed absurd. Against all these Pavel was deeply in love, when he separated from her a state of mesmerizing used to get into him and a fact was sure: if she asked him to get married, Pavel wouldn’t think a minute about it.

Yes, only that she didn’t propose this and although he asked her to get married she didn’t even want to hear about it. When he used to mention this she started to laugh. Nobody knew why she was so special than “so many others”. For certainty Pavel was already addictive to her, he who used to laugh about the love of women that got into his life for more than 30 years, having a longer or shorter lay-over in his house. Could these be the “swan enchantment” of the affairs of a man of 50 years old? Nobody knows. They inhabited and lived in a happy dream for about six months. Pavel felt in love with Iulii day by day. All her wishes were as a rule for Pavel. What else, he adored her. He started to buy her countless presents, more and more expensive, more substantial, until one day, when not knowing how to act he proposed to her, to get married with him. If she makes that step everything that he has, house, fortune, will be on her name. Even so it seems he didn’t manage to impress Iuli, that lately seemed that nothing could impress her anymore, but Pavel, in his blind love, thought that Iuli believes he is not capable of this gesture, maybe that is why she was so unapproachable from this point of view. They might have lived one more month in this happiness, but this time at Iuli’s place, since Pavel “passed” all his fortuned and house on her. After committing this act, after this fateful prove of love, at a few days a guy shows up. Pavel, polite and gracious, invited him in the house, fastened him and seeing he is a stranger, proposed to stay the night over. At night Pavel went to sleep waiting for Iuli. Seeing she is late, he went after her, asking her to go to sleep. Iuli answered:
– Pavel, how do you expect me to sleep with you in front of my husband?
– Dear Iuli, what husband are you talking about?
– Emil, the man you invited inside the house is my husband.
– What are you talking about woman?!
– If you don’t believe me I can show you the wedding certificate. I’m his wife.
Pavel was as crippled. In such situation there was nothing else to say. He loved one time in his life and even then a married woman. Until now he didn’t even wish to know what this woman did in her 35 years lifetime, although all these could have straightened up if he had given a single phone call. The husband and wife, rejoining, slept, as it was normal, together. After a few hours their children and relatives showed up … The family reunited. Pavel moved back into the summer kitchen, becoming indulged by Iuli’s family that was managing and consuming his own fortune.

After this take-down of life and stupidity, Pavel lived for about 8 more months and than, with his soul full of sadness, died. After his death and the breathable life of those two, an untold question remains: How could it be that Pavel didn’t even move a finger for saving the fortune that was taken through blackmail by this woman? I mean by this woman that you see in the yard, specified Buia.
At a year or maybe two, a rumor that might have been an answer at the unexpressed question took place. Sometimes a long time ago, when Pavel was a young and handsome bachelor, had a mission in the home village of Iulica that was recently married. Being that Julia’s husband during those days wasn’t home; she and Pavel got to know and liked each other. From these love a baby was born, that goes to high school now. The funny part is that Pavel didn’t recognize Julie, the one from his adolescence that even then broke his heart, only after her husband came back. Then the situation became embarrassing. If Julie didn’t enmesh him in adolescence, Pavel couldn’t avoid it now. In such way ended the life of the only man, a convinced bachelor (until Julie) that I have known and that felt in love two times in his life by the same woman at different ages. So, the people that you see now in that yard are the relatives of Julie, the woman that opened the desire of living for Pavel, but also the door to his grave. And how it may be known: nobody built happiness behalf other’s sorrow. Julia’s big son, found out that his real father was, namely Pavel, how his father and mother treated him and gave them an ultimatum. As an inheritor of Pavel, his mother Julie and his husband should leave his house and fortune.
– Poor man, the teacher couldn’t resist, he lived a fully life with no worries, nothing missing, no gravity, after his own desires, but death came as a dart into the soul that for the first time choused to love.
– This is it. Who knows what’s left for us too, Thomas replied, Buia’s namesake, while they were slowly going ahead down the street.
They were going leisurely because Buia was hardly moving. He had a difficulty in walking because of a chronically rheumatism, after the hard work from the mine. In fact, as he was saying, he might have avoided the “earning” if Purcaret gallery wouldn’t have given itself for excavation in which the work itself wasn’t harder than in other places, but as it was an escarpment gallery, short enough it was as “warm” as it was outside.