The Testing of a Wizard. Viktor Gitin

And then he betrayed me. Threw me away and forgot about me like I was a used handkerchief. I couldn’t stand this betrayal. I was young, and apart from his friendship I didn’t have anything at all…I decided to die. All my emotions, thoughts, and desires had to disappear. And dissolve in loneliness. And so, I went into the mountains. Since then, I have settled down here. At the end of the day my loneliness is my punishment and burden for me being young and gullible. But my loneliness is also my way to peace in mind and happiness.

      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.