“He read everything, regardless the subject, and, whatever he did, he did it better than the others”
Mircea Vulcănescu never missed an opportunity to talk about Indian philosophy. He still lived in his parents’ house in Popa Soare Street, but he was married for the second time, to Marguerite, and already had a daughter. He had put on a lot of weight in recent years, but his face was still beautiful, with big, dark, deep-set eyes. He remained so until the last time we met, ten years later – still putting on weight, but walking briskly, pacing the room incessantly, and never ceasing to talk about everything, dazzlingly, with the same astonishing erudition and clarity.
He read everything, regardless the subject, and whatever he did, he did better than the others. When he decided to play bridge, he learned with skill and method for a few weeks and then became a champion. He could write with equal ease and competence on Eastern theology, banking or a modern novel. Once he came across a French magazine announcing a competition for a detective story. Mircea Vulcănescu read the novel and answered on the spot, and the solution he came up with was obviously the right one. A few weeks ago, his name was at the top of the list.
He wrote a lot, but published little, and only when forced by friends or circumstances. He was, as he reminded Goethe, an “occasional writer”. He would intervene in a polemic or publish an article to defend a friend who had been unjustly attacked. He published mainly in “Cuvântul”, not only because he liked the newspaper, but above all because he had a boundless admiration and love for Nae Ionescu, which he kept to the end, even if, a few years later, he did not always agree with the professor’s political activity. Most of the time, however, Mircea Vulcănescu wrote for himself and a few friends: essays, small studies on obscure or unknown problems, plans for future treatises on theology, morality or political economy.
That year he was director of customs. I don’t understand by what miracle he was able to keep his post for so many years, because he was more than incorruptible: he was rigidly honest, sometimes out of touch with reality. He once confessed to me that he had no criteria other than the customs regulations, which he did not allow himself to interpret, but applied ad litteram.
He told me that Stelian Mateescu had recently been interned. Mircea told me that in recent years he had fallen into a religious mania, but that he had written some extraordinary novels. One evening he came to Mircea’s house, pulled a large kitchen knife from under his coat and lunged at him with the intention of stabbing him. He planned to murder his best friends – to protect them, it seems, from the temptations of the devil.
Apart from Nae Ionescu, Mircea was the only person with whom I discussed Indian philosophy in depth. He was mainly interested in soteriology and aesthetics. As he had a prodigious memory, he quickly mastered all the technical terminology. His other friends listened in amazement as he interrupted me to add a detail or clarify an expression. As he had time for everything, he not only read me the pamphlets in “Cuvântul”, but also listened to the lectures I had begun to give on the radio.
(Mircea Eliade – Memoirs 1907-1960, 2nd edition, Humanitas, Bucharest, 1997, pp. 224-225)