Young Ofeg's Ditties/Ditty 13
XIII.
I was devouring my black bread, dipping it in water to soften it. My enemies sat at a sumptuous table and ate larks' tongues and drank exquisite wines.
"You must not imagine," said one of them, "that we do not know how to render you the honour that is due to you. We do you full justice in our thoughts. We respect your courage and your firmness. You have never made compromises, you have always jumped into the breach, you have never shirked anything in the defence of your convictions, and above all, you have been true to yourself, tested, investigated, weighed and valued, steadfastly, repeatedly. It is great, we acknowledge it, we cannot do otherwise than esteem you for this, although we are still of the opinion that you are your own worst enemy, and stand in your own light."
Then I answered, "Good food gives a sound skin and a merry spirit. You see the world through the glow of wine and the sound of the dinner gong, and even your enemies appear to you in this light. You fling your pity at me and imagine you are doing a good action, for your wretched drowsy soul never realises that it is to me as a crumb from the rich man's table. And even though your face is puffed and flushed with too much eating, yet I can see the brand of the slave burning on your brow when you speak to me thus. Can you not see yourself how poor and naked your soul reveals itself in your words? It lies steaming in your hand, and the smoke smells evilly as it blows up towards me. Cock your ears and open your mouth and stare with all your might, so that wisdom may find a way into your soul through every opening. You praise me because I never have been a weathercock that turned with the wind of the day. You praise me because I have always taken a bird's-eye view of the world, so that the petty every-day interests of life looked so small that they escaped my gaze. You praise me because I prefer to eat this frugal, sorry fare, rather than lie in a common way and kiss hands to vulgarity. All this you praise,—why? Because you imagine I had the option of a choice, because you yourself happened to have one; because you cannot conceive that all this is the natural outcome of my temperament and its necessary expression. All your life through you have weighed in a scale, huckster like, every one of your actions. You have no other instincts than those of a huckster, you see in all others merely your own huckster likeness, you measure with a true huckster standard, and judge with a huckster heart
"Why do you pity me?—because to you I am a huckster with whom business has been bad. Why do you praise me?—because to you I am a huckster who always has used standard weights."