nicious!
This leads straight to the depth of wretchedness.
Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will become vermin!
Ah!
So it does not please you to work? Ah!
You have but one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well.
You will drink water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee.
That is well. You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat grass like the beasts of the forest.
And you will be recaptured. And then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten before you.
You will be a wood-louse in a cellar.
Ah!
Have pity on yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive!
I conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you.
You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on your locks, to please low women, to be handsome.
You will be shaven clean, and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes.
You want rings on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. If you glance at a woman, you will receive a blow.