ALS: 'De strik'

22.03 the noose

Le danger du succès, c’est qu’il nous fait oublier l’effroyable injustice du monde.

Il ne faut pas croire que la paresse soit inféconde. On y vit intensement, comme un lièvre qui écoute.

Le lièvre se blottit dans la haie, regarde les chiens dépistés et, tout à coup, sent que quelque chose le serre à la gorge: le collet.

the danger of success is that it causes us to forget the frightful injustice of the world.

So wrote Jules Renard on 13 January 1908 in his journal. When I read this, I happened to have a friend who had invented something which led to his becoming rich. I knew that he used that money to support people who had been devastated by some frightful injustice. On the quiet, he didn’t advertise the fact.

That same day, Renard wrote:

one would be wrong to think that laziness is unproductive. In such a state one lives intensely, like an alertly listening hare.

It occurs to me that I never see a hare any more. As I sit at table, I look outside across a large expanse of land. Earlier I often used to see hares frolicking, running, leaping over each other, lying there deathly still – that’s all over. No one is able to explain to me how this has come about, I can’t even blame the hunter, for there isn’t one. No hare, no hunter.

I leaf a bit through the journal. On 8 September 1907 he writes:

the hare snuggles up in the hedge, keeps an eye on the hounds that have lost the scent and, suddenly, feels something seize it by the throat: the noose.