We frequently see, amongst us, inexhaustible treasures of energy displayed when ambition or pure need demands it but when one or the other has been satisfied, or the necessity for such continual effort no longer seems imperative, or either the desired point has been attained or the future has been fully assured, then little by little energy gives place to a longing for repose.
As I have before said, the Sakai never provides for the morrow. His work begins and finishes with the day. Give him some tobacco and in his happiness he will stay awake all the night to smoke or chew it.
He works only in proportion to the urgency of the moment and then throws himself down to rest upon the ground, because beds and chairs are unknown to him, and it is not always that dried leaves and grasses are used as a substitute for the former.
The evolution of our society has brought us on the contrary to this curious condition: he who does not work at all and consequently has no honest fatigue to rest from, lies upon a soft feather bed, there to restore his strength wasted in fast living and dissipation, whilst.... But I had better stop or I may be mistaken for a dangerous class agitator!
I will only say this: that could the Sakai look into some of our houses and palaces he would make haste to return to his own forest and if he were obliged or knew how to write his impressions he would certainly commence: "The men of the West are effeminate, lazy and indolent".
But he would do wrong to generalize for they are Western men who have conquered his forest.
I will conclude this chapter by confessing a remorse. Out of pity for these poor creatures sleeping on the cold ground, huddled together to keep each other warm, I, one day, gave a hair mattress to a Sakai family.
All of them took their places on it and slept soundly, but in the morning their bones ached so much that they gave me back my mattress in a hurry and without a single word of thanks.
And I could not blame them for this.