8937 - Monologue in black and white

N. Lygeros

Chaplin: Today for the first time I thought that nobody had ever heard the voice of the Tramp after all. Of course, it was the era of the silent cinema back then and there is an excuse. The truth is different. But to whom shall I say this without being laughed at? Now that the silence has died in the cinema and there is so much noise, how to speak about the soundless thought and the silent humanity? However, if I think of how many people have shed tears with his actions and his movements, then it is not possible for me not to say few words. The Tramp was silent so to better hear the pain of the others and help them with his compassion and his hugs. If you knew how much the people are in need of hugs, you would cry. But you don’t know and you can’t imagine this. Look around you when you are on the scene, look at their gaze expecting your slightest move towards them. This is what the Tramp had already understood from the beginning. And if he used to run, it was only to catch up and hug more people and children. Yes, little children trying to hold him inside them at the same time when society used to catch them to make them citizens who wouldn’t resist any autocratic system. This is who the Tramp was, a poor rebel wanting to live free even where there was no freedom any longer, but instead only violence and genocide. I know, I know, I am not funny, but what to do, when I recall of the Tramp I want to smile of course, but more than that, I want to cry out of joy, because inside his heart I had put so much of humanity that it would overflow and splotch all the others around him. He would in this way clean them from the society’s dirt, of the system which wouldn’t go away without sacrifices. And now I look like an idiot who says foolish words. It’s okay if some men and some women won’t understand me. At least I will be understood by those who have listened to the Tramp’s silence, as well as his emotion when he would discover his beloved one, the blind, who can see at last. And if his trousers bore holes that was only for him to scatter more easily the joy which the roses of our life love so much. See, I won’t cry, not yet, even though I am sad saying you all this. And you know why? Because I realized that you, despite that you don’t tell me a word, you loved him as well and you now want a hug. My hug!