The Stupid Peasant I ^[0]

One morning a peasant started off for his work with ten chapátís, his day’s allowance, tied up in his loin-cloth. He had not proceeded very far from the house when he felt very hungry, and therefore sat down to eat. One, two, three, four chapátís disappeared, but he was not satisfied. Four, five, six, seven, eight chapatis were eaten; still he was hungry. However, he rose up and walked on.

“What shall I do?” he thought. “I ought not to eat all these chapátís before commencing my work. If I do, what will there be left for the rest of the day? And yet my stomach is not full.”

Such reasonings, however, proved in vain. Hunger got the better of the argument, and the peasant sat down again and finished off the other two chapátís, and then felt happy.

“Alas!” said he, “what a fool I was not to have eaten these last two chapátís first of all! There would then have been eight in my loin-cloth for the rest of the day. Now I shall perish from hunger.”

The foolish fellow thought that the first eight chapátís had not in the least helped to satisfy his hunger.