The Quarantine by Jerzy Terpilowski

The Quarantine

(Drama essays through three acts with an introduction but without an exit possibility)

(Passages)

I Monologue of Kasander

(to audience) "And you madam? And you madam, beautiful madam, are you going to visit all world with us? ... You are a society I have caught... Not once eyes had to see not once ears had to hear. And have you been to Oxford? No? It is a pity in case you were not. There is an all souls college. It means no beautiful soul is thrown away from there but they put them up like homeless… However there is not so much room. Its is all right for mostly souls are as ugly as people... You are beautiful so that you may have your soul pretty too. But wait until it is checked. Life is like shifting and lifting and you are tipping toe along tiny rope over an abyss. Or climbing on a high rock. And the abyss is a murder lover although such a rock is a mercilessly lukewarm witness only. Many lost their lives! I remember poetry by Przybos devoted to memory of a climber". (He recites with his voice full of tears)
"How easy
a crag having hung in hands
to keep
and not to fall
when
naked earth overturns in sight
upside down its countryside all
sky in the abyss to throw", !
"I have never been to Oxford and I will never be for my thought countryside overturned too early upside down. I was not able to keep the crag to stable... I see invisible people and unseen things. I see you, I talk to you. I know you are here but what if others do not?… The tests are to distinct what is right, what is wrong. Actually I can not know. It is said the pinch is good to convince us if dreaming or not. Many attempts. However an insane should be distinguished from normal just by pinches. I can torture pinching my leg continually. There is no use of doing it. Still the same. Meseems my reality is different … Take deja vu for instance. It can seem you were here but I know it. I am, I was and probably I will be everywhere in the past and for eternity. Everlasting déjà vu... That is why I know what will be as a fortuneteller. Fortune? Ha! Ha! What is a fortune? It simply can not go through my throat to say about it. As if it was too terrible, or too big. I was able to swallow it but I cannot to give it back. What is it come from? I may have attended a Secret Service. Our servicemen talked to me in so long so many times, something could glue. Look at my cap. Ooo! Children shout at me: Esesman! Does not matter. I know what I attend to, not them"…