I believe in the sword.
       As you can see, I carry two. Every witcher has two swords. Malevolent
  people  say the silver one is for monsters and the iron one for people. Of
  course  that's  untrue.  There are monsters that can be struck only with a
  silver  blade, but there are also some for which iron is lethal. No, Iola,
  not  any  iron,  only  iron from a meteorite. You ask what is a meteorite?
  It's  a  falling  star.  Perhaps  sometime you have seen a falling star, a
  short,  bright  streak  in the night sky. Perhaps at its sight you uttered
  a wish, or maybe for you it was another reason to believe in gods. For me,
  a  meteorite  is  just  a piece of metal that falls down and sticks in the
  ground. Metal suitable for making a sword.
       You  can,  of course, you can take my sword in hand. See how light it
  is?  Even  you  can lift it without difficulty. No! Don't touch the blade,
  you will hurt yourself. It's sharper than a razor. It has to be.
       Yes,  I  exercise  a lot. In every spare moment. I mustn't get out of
  practice.  So  I came here, to the most remote part of the temple park, to
  move my body, to burn out of my muscles this nasty, wretched numbness that
  falls  upon  me,  this  coldness  circulating in me. And you have found me
  here.  Funny,  for  several days I tried to find you. I was looking around
  for you. I wanted...
       I need this talk, Iola. Let's sit down, let's talk for a while.
       But you don't know me at all, Iola.
       My  name  is  Geralt.  Geralt  from...  No.  Just Geralt. Geralt from
  nowhere. I'm a witcher.
       My home is Kaer Morhen, the Witchers' Place. I come from there. There
  is... There used to be a fortress. Not much is left of it.
       Kaer  Morhen...  There  they  used  to  produce ones like me. It's no
  longer  done,  and  no  one  lives  in  Kaer Morhen now. No one except for
  Vesemir. You ask who is Vesemir? He's my father. Why are you looking at me
  in  surprise?  What's  so strange about it? Everyone has a father. Mine is
  Vesemir.  That  he's  not  my true father, so what? I didn't know the real
  one, nor my mother. I don't even know if they're alive. And as a matter of
  fact, I don't care much about that.
       Yes,  Kaer  Morhen... I underwent the usual mutation there. The Grass
  Test,  and  then  what  is usually done. Hormones, herbs, infection with a
  virus.  And  from  the  beginning  again.  And once more. Till the desired
  result. They say I endured the Changes surprisingly well, I was sick for a
  very  short  time.  So they decided I was an extraordinarily resistant guy
  and selected me for further, more complex... experiments. That went worse.
  Much worse. But, as you can see, I survived. The only one from among those
  selected for the experiments. Since then I have had white hair. Total loss
  of pigmentation. Side-effect they call it. Trifle. Little disturbance.
       Later  I  was  taught many things. For quite a long time. And finally
  came  the  day when I left Kaer Morhen and took to the road. I already had
  my  medallion,  here,  this  one.  Sign of the Wolf School. I also had two
  swords,  a  silver  one  and an iron one. Apart from the swords, I carried
  determination,  enthusiasm,  motivation  and...  faith.  Faith  that I was
  needed and useful. Because the world, Iola, was supposed to be filled with
  monsters  and  beasts,  and my task was to protect those threatened by the
  beasts.  When  I  was  leaving  Kaer  Morhen, I dreamt of meeting my first
  monster,  I  couldn't  wait  to  confront  it eye to eye. And I got what I
  wanted.
       My  first  monster, Iola, was bald and had exceptionally ugly, rotten
  teeth.  I met him on the road, where together with his monster companions,
  some  army  marauders, he stopped a peasant's cart and dragged out of it a
  girl,  maybe  thirteen  years old, or maybe even less. His companions held
  her  father  while  the  bald  one  was tearing the dress off the girl and
  shouting  it  was  high  time  she  learned  what  a  real man was like. I
  approached  them, got off the horse and told the bald one that such a time
  had  come  for him, too. It seemed extremely witty to me. The bald man let
  the  girl go and charged at me with an ax. He was very slow but durable. I
  hit  him  twice  before he collapsed. These were not exactly perfect cuts,
  but,  I  would  say,  quite  spectacular,  such  that  made the bald man's
  companions  run  at  the  sight  of what the witcher's sword can do with a
  man...
       Am I not boring you, Iola?
       I need this talk. I really need it.
       What was I saying? Right, my first noble deed. You see, Iola, in Kaer
  Morhen they hammered that into my head-Don't get involved in these things,
  pass them at a distance, don't play the knight errant and don't do the job
  of  the guardians of the law. I took the road not to show off but to carry
  out  paid  orders.  And  I got involved, like a fool, having traveled less
  than  fifty  miles  from  the foot of the mountains. Do you know why I did
  that?  I  wanted  to see the girl bursting with tears of gratitude for me,
  her  rescuer,  kissing  my hands, and her father thanking me on his knees.
  But  the  girl's  father ran along with the marauders, while the girl, who
  got  splattered  all  over with her oppressor's blood, threw up and got an
  attack  of  hysteria, and when I approached her, she fainted. Since then I
  have very rarely got involved in such things.
       I  was  doing  my  job.  I  learned the way quickly. I neared village
  outskirts,  I  stopped  at  the  foot  of the palisades of settlements and
  cities.  And  I waited. If they spat, cursed and threw stones, I left. If,
  instead, someone came out and gave me an order, I carried it out.
       I  visited  cities  and  strongholds, I looked for messages nailed to
  posts  at  crossroads.  I  was  looking for announcements: "Witcher needed
  urgently."  And  then  it  was  usually  a  backwoods  place, a dungeon, a
  necropolis or ruins, a forest ravine or a grotto in the mountains, full of
  bones  and  stinking of carcasses. And there was something whose only goal
  in life was to kill. From hunger, for pleasure, directed by someone's sick
  will,  or  for  other  reasons.  Manticora,  vivern,  fogger,  dragon-fly,
  girazor,   horribler,   wooder,   vampire,   ghoul,   graveir,   werewolf,
  gigascorpion, lamia, eater, kikimore, vipper. And there was dancing in the
  darkness  and  a sword cutting. And fear and repulsion in the eyes of they
  who later handed me my payment.

                                                              Translation by
                                                              Agnieszka Zych

                                                   The Warsaw Voice - People
                                                   May 10, 1998 No. 19 (498)