And didn’t it take an immense effort for him just to stand up? He was the first to admit that making that decision could appear to be of the utmost simplicity to white men. As for him, he found it infinitely difficult than one might believe. Ordinarily, waking up and work go hand in hand. Certainly work didn’t frighten him excessively. Robust, stout-limbed, of excellent stride, he knew no rival when it came to throwing a spear or an assagi, hunting or fighting.
So work couldn’t frighten him. Only, in the language of the white men, this word took on a surprising sense, signifying fatigue without immediate tangible result, worries, grief, pain, bad health, the pursuit of chimerical designs.
Aha! white men. So what did they come looking for, so far from their home, in black lands. How much better for them, all of them, to go back to their lands and never to leave them again.
Life is short. Work is only pleasing to those who never understand life. Idleness [la fainéantise] cannot degrade anyone. In this it differs profoundly from sloth [pareses].
In any case, whether you agreed with him or not, he firmly believed, and would not have given in until proved wrong, that to do nothing was, in all good nature and simplicity, to avail oneself of everything that surrounded you.
So work couldn’t frighten him. Only, in the language of the white men, this word took on a surprising sense, signifying fatigue without immediate tangible result, worries, grief, pain, bad health, the pursuit of chimerical designs.
Aha! white men. So what did they come looking for, so far from their home, in black lands. How much better for them, all of them, to go back to their lands and never to leave them again.
Life is short. Work is only pleasing to those who never understand life. Idleness [la fainéantise] cannot degrade anyone. In this it differs profoundly from sloth [pareses].
In any case, whether you agreed with him or not, he firmly believed, and would not have given in until proved wrong, that to do nothing was, in all good nature and simplicity, to avail oneself of everything that surrounded you.
