A short distance away there was another island, and on this island there lived a boy. The boy and the girl were very much in love with eac h other. The boy had to leave his island and go on a long journey, and he would be gone for a very long time. The girl felt that she must see the boy one more time before he went away. There was only one way to get from the island where the girl lived to the boy’s island, and that was on a ferryboat that was run by a ferryboat captain. And so the girl went down to the dock and asked the ferryboat captain to take her to the island where the boy lived. The ferryboat captain agreed and asked her for the fare.
The girl told the ferryboat captain that she did not have any money. The ferryboat captain told her that money was not necessary: ‘I will take you to the other island if you will stay with me tonight’. The girl did not know what to do, so she went up into the hills on her island until she came to a hut where a hermit lived. We will call him the first hermit. She related the whole story to the hermit and asked for his advice. The hermit listened carefully to her story, and then told her, ‘I cannot tell you what to do . You must weigh the alternatives and the sacrifices that are involved and come to a decision within your own heart’.
And so the girl went back down to the dock and accepted the ferryboat captain’s offer. The next day, when the girl arrived on the other island, the boy was waiting at the dock to greet her. They embraced, and then the boy asked her how she got over to his island, for he knew she did not have any money. The girl explained the ferryboat captain’s offer and what she did. The boy pushed her away from him and said, ‘We’re through. That’s the end. Go away from me. I never want to see you again,’ and he left her. “We are through”. That’s the end. Go away from me. I never want to see you again. ” The girl was desolate and confused.
When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a “messenger to mankind” stating that through his struggle to to terms with “his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler’s death camps”, as well as come his “practical work in the cause of peace”, Wiesel had delivered a “of peace, atonement and human dignity” to powerful message humanity. 6