page_title: Childhood Memories (book)
section_title: Fourth chapter
hierarchical_section_title: Childhood Memories (book) / Narrative / Fourth chapter
caption_attribution_description: English: Râul Siret
context_page_description: Childhood Memories is one of the main literary contributions of Romanian author Ion Creangă. The largest of his two works in the memoir genre, it includes some of the most recognizable samples of first-person narratives in Romanian literature, and is considered by critics to be Creangă's masterpiece. Structured into separate chapters written over several years, it was partly read in front of the Junimea literary club in Iași. While three of the total four section were published in Creangă's lifetime by the Junimea magazine Convorbiri Literare, the final part was left incomplete by the writer's death.
  The book offers an in-depth account of Ion Creangă's early life in what was then the state of Moldavia, with much insight into the social landscape of his childhood universe, describing relationships between its hero, mainly referred to with his hypocorism and patronymic Nică al lui Ștefan a Petrei or Nic-a lui Ștefan a Petrei, and the various people in his life. It traces Nică's coming of age passage, from an idyllic age spent the remote village of Humulești to rebellious adolescence and training for a Romanian Orthodox priesthood in the urban centers of Fălticeni and Iași.
context_section_description: The fourth and final chapter of Childhood Memories opens with Creangă's depiction of his own doubts at having to leave Humulești for the more distant Iași: "A bear will not dance of its own accord." The narrator uses this as a pretext to describe the things most dear to him in Humulești: the landscape ("the smooth-flowing crystal-clear Ozana, wherein the Neamț Citadel has sadly been mirroring its face for so many centuries!"), his family and companions, and the local customs related to partying and dancing. His plans about staying home or becoming a monk are shattered by his mother Smaranda, who angrily invokes her ancestors' reputation in persuading him to leave for Socola and make a name for himself as a married priest.
  The narrative focus then covers the trip from Humulești to the Moldavian capital: Creangă and Gâtlan are passengers in the horse-drawn wagon of Luca, their neighbor and family friend. The narrator recounts sense of his shame and frustration upon noticing that Luca's "steeds" are actually "weak and scraggy" horses, and the despondency which grips him and Zaharia in front of the unknown. This sentiment is enhanced by the remarks of passers-by, which refer to the poor state of Luca's belongings and gain in sarcasm as the three travelers approach their destination. The account includes the writer's impressions of the Moldavian landscape, and his stated preference for the mountainous landscape of the west, which the cart was leaving behind, to the areas over the Siret River (where, according to Luca, "the water's bad and wood is scarce; in summer you're smothered with heat and the mosquitoes are an awful torment"). The chapter and volume end abruptly with a description of students from all Moldavian schools gathering into the Socola Monastery yard.
caption: The Siret River, which runs across Moldavia
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