"It's high time you lived useless. You've just lived a useful life long enough. Just remember: you got up early, and with an anemic head from lack of sleep, rubbing your temples and eyelids, you hurried to the workbench to do some work in the morning hours, a task that people rated as useful; but neither they nor you got any real pleasure from this work. (...) You have always lived as if you were waiting for the order that calls you to perform even more useful tasks. You knew you had only one task, life. What have you been doing with your time, unhappy? Live useless at last, against their law, according to your own law. Then maybe, in the end, you will use something.
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Author
Márai SándorAll Translations
All Translations
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It's high time you lived useless. You've just lived a useful life long enough. Just remember: you got up early, and with an anemic head from lack of sleep, rubbing your temples and eyelids, you hurried to the workbench to do some work in the morning hours, a task that people rated as useful; but neither they nor you got any real pleasure from this work. (...) You have always lived as if you were waiting for the order that calls you to perform even more useful tasks. You knew you had only one task, life. What have you been doing with your time, unhappy? Live useless at last, against their law, according to your own law. Then maybe, in the end, you will use something.
""Legfőbb ideje, hogy haszontalanul éljél. Már éppen eleget éltél hasznosan. Emlékezzél csak: korán keltél, s álmatlanságtól vérszegény fejjel, halántékod és szemhéjad dörzsölve, siettél a munkapadhoz, hogy valamilyen munkát elvégezzél a hajnali órában, feladatot, melyek az emberek hasznosnak minősítettek; de sem nekik, sem neked nem volt igazi örömöd ebből a munkából. (...) Mindig úgy éltél, mintha várnád a parancsot, mely még sokkal hasznosabb feladatok elvégzésére szólít. Tudtad, hogy egyetlen feladatod van, az élet. Mit csináltál időddel, boldogtalan? Élj végre haszontalanul, az ő törvényük ellen, a magad törvénye szerint. Akkor talán, a végén, használsz is valamit."