GELO – Has your soul really become that stale and gloomy? Just because of your friend’s betrayal, you have turned your back on the rest of the world?!
HERMIT – What do you know about my soul, a soul of a lonely man!!! It is covered in wounds like a body of a smallpox sufferer. The soul of a lonely man is unable to create something magnificent, to fly and be joyful! It can only moan and sorrowfully watch the world go by. It doesn’t contain love or hatred. The wound of a lonely soul hurts and itches. This itch changes into emptiness and indifference. You want to peel the scab off, but you’re afraid, what if it becomes even worse. Any human contact is like a gulp of liquid in a desert, but you never know whether it is water or poison. And because of this you want to drown into an immeasurable sadness…and you’re surrounded by anguish and emptiness … But I don’t want to change anything! And I will not!
GELO – And with this heartache you hide yourself here from life and people?
HERMIT – Sometimes I come across people. I go down into the valley to the fair. I wonder among the loud and variegated crowd, peer at their faces and their eyes. Trying to understand what they are thinking and feeling about and why they are hustling and bustling…
GELO – To get lost in a crowd doesn’t mean you are a part of them!
HERMIT – I think you’re right, that’s why I seldom do it.
GELO – And how do you feel when you are doing it?
HERMIT – Lonely, but in a crowd. It is a strange feeling; all around you is commotion, conversations, other people’s lives. I’m at center of it all, but it feels I’m on the outside looking in, at people and myself. I walk around and I don’t know who I am, where I am and why I am here. I’m alive but don’t have a life…
GELO – It seems you’re bogged down in your memories. They drag you like a quagmire. Shake it off! One cannot pity himself all life and condemn others.
HERMIT – What’s it to you?!
GELO – I’m trying to understand you because you saved my life.
HERMIT – It’s not my fault; I didn’t do it on purpose…
GELO – Listen! To live in the past isn’t a life but an illusion. Real life is in the present and in dreams about the future.
HERMIT – You’re wrong. A person’s memories are his treasure, his fortune, and his assets. One can’t throw away life experiences out the window, even if they are sad and sorrowful.
GELO – Why throw it away? Stop living in the past, have a look around.
HERMIT – Where?! At the filth of the world? At the people’s staleness and meanness?
GELO – I agree not all people are kind and nice. It’s hard to live in an imperfect world. But it’s even harder to live alone. Why have you doomed yourself to a life of suffering and anguish?
HERMIT – I’m tired of lies and hypocrisy.
GELO – Maybe that’s because you never learnt to love.
HERMIT – But I’m capable of friendship. Don’t you think sincere friendship is equal to love?
GELO – I don’t know. But in my opinion love is superior to virtue and sin, humiliation and retribution, mercy, and compassion. Genuine love is the ability to forgive.
HERMIT – No, I don’t need friendship or love anymore. It’s burdensome, which means it is dangerous for health. Of course, no one has yet to die of love…and I don’t want to be the first one.
GELO – Nonsense! You could still meet and fall in love with a woman who wouldn’t betray your feelings.
HERMIT – I doubt it. The only love which won’t betray you is the love for yourself. With this love you can live all your life and keep your faith.
GELO – Aren’t you even interested in a woman’s beauty?
HERMIT – Women are complicated creatures. When I lived in the valley, I almost went crazy trying to understand them. But I guess I tried to hard. That’s why when I think of women, I don’t tremble with love but instead I get a nervous twitch.
GELO – Looks like you were unlucky. You never met a girl like my Lizy.
HERMIT – You kept talking about her when you were unconscious. What’s so special about her?
GELO – My Lizy is so beautiful, naïve, and innocent. Sometimes I think she is a saint.
HERMIT – It seems dangerous, having a saint for a wife. They usually turn their husbands into martyrs. Are you ready for that?
GELO – For Lizy I am ready to do anything! You wouldn’t imagine what a pleasure it is to hug and kiss my fiancé!
HERMIT – Maybe it’s even better to kiss another man’s fiancé?! Have you tried it?
GELO – I don’t need others! I only love Lizy. Whenever I look at the moon, I remember Lizy. When the wind sings in the sky, I hear Lizy’s voice. Whenever I smell wildflowers, I can smell Lizy too. Lizy is everything wonderful and beautiful about this world. Lizy is like a mighty river and yet tender like a brook. Lizy is like the warmth of the sun’s rays and the freshness of the summer’s rain. Lizy is like the brightness of the day and the calmness of the night. And she loves only me. When she’s near me I am ready to carry out the most unthinkable things and the most unimaginable heroic act. Whenever we’re apart I always remember that she is out there waiting for me, and we will be together soon. And because of that my heart is filled with warmth and pleasure. What could be more wonderful!
HERMIT – If so, why have you left your Lizy, and instead rushing somewhere risking your life?
GELO – This is my duty, my vocation and destiny. The matter is that I’m a future Wizard.
HERMIT – Like I haven’t got enough to deal with! Ah, that’s why you’re so strange.
GELO – No, at the moment I’m only an apprentice. But I hope to become not just a Wizard but a truly great one.
HERMIT – But of course! Young people are always trying to get themselves in the history books. If travelling, it has to be to the end of the world. And if jumping then to reach the moon.
GELO – You don’t understand. It’s not about vanity or pride, believe me. I want to become a great Wizard, because my greatest wish is to make all people happy. To an ordinary Wizard this is impossible.
HERMIT – So you want to make people happy. To give something to someone means that you have to take something away from someone else. Who will you take happiness from, so that you could give it away?
GELO – Nobody.
HERMIT – It doesn’t work like that.
GELO – My teacher Fadrius sent me on a long journey to get the MIRACLE. With The help of this MIRACLE, it is possible to make any wishes come true.
HERMIT – Now I get it. Your kind is a dying breed.
GELO – What do you mean?
HERMIT – You are a romantic idealist, a dying breed.
GELO – I’m not dying. I just have a slight headache. Apart from that I’m alright.
HERMIT – That’s just what you think. In truth you’re incurable. You want to make all people in the world happy by putting yourself at risk! To those people who gave each other anguish instead of joy. To those people whom treachery and lies come easier than truth and sincerity, to those people who won’t even want to thank you. You’re ill!