Two or
three hours you shall have to yourselves, slaves, to think and love
and play, if you be not too tired to think, or love, or play. Then
to your litter, that you may be ready for the morrow's task.
The twilight deepens into dark; there comes back the woman of the
streets. As the shadows, she rounds the City's day. Work strikes
its tent. Evil creeps from its peering place.
So we labour, driven by the whip of necessity, an army of slaves.
If we do not our work, the whip descends upon us; only the pain we
feel in our stomach instead of on our back. And because of that, we
call ourselves free men.
Some few among us bravely struggle to be really free: they are our
tramps and outcasts. We well-behaved slaves shrink from them, for
the wages of freedom in this world are vermin and starvation. We
can live lives worth living only by placing the collar round our
neck.
There are times when one asks oneself: Why this endless labour? Why
this building of houses, this cooking of food, this making of
clothes? Is the ant so much more to be envied than the grasshopper,
because she spends her life in grubbing and storing, and can spare
no time for singing? Why this complex instinct, driving us to a
thousand labours to satisfy a thousand desires? We have turned the
world into a workshop to provide ourselves with toys.
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