"This being the case, what possible course shall I adopt to keep alive? How about robbery? That too is damnable, for it means appropriating what belongs to others. As the verse puts it:
Better let your tongue be tied
Than to know that you have lied;
Better to be impotent
Than adulterously bent;
Better die than take delight
In the petty pricks of spite;
Better beg as monk than feel
That you live by what you steal.
Well, then, shall I live on charity? That, too, is damnable, my friends, damnable. That too is a second gate of death. As the saying goes:
Parasite, or exiled scamp,
Invalid, or homeless tramp—
Life is death for these. The best
Would be death. For death is rest.
"Then I must at any cost recover the very treasure that Wide-bottom has stolen. For I saw my money-bag converted into a pillow for those two villains. I must regain my property, and if I die in the attempt, it will be better than this. For
If cowards who see themselves despoiled
Too tamely feel the sting,
Their fathers in the world beyond
Will spurn their offering."
After reaching this conclusion, I went there at night and gnawed a hole in the bag after he had gone
