Robinson Crusoe — Chapter 10 in French
By Daniel Defoe
Je reconnus bientôt que j’avais quelque peu dépassé le lieu où j’étais allé lors de mon voyage à pied sur ce rivage ; et, ne retirant de ma pirogue que mon mousquet et mon parasol, car il faisait excessivement chaud, je me mis en marche. La route était assez agréable, après le trajet que je venais de faire et j’atteignis sur le soir mon ancienne tonnelle, où je trouvai chaque chose comme je l’avais laissé : je la maintenais toujours en bon ordre : car c’était, ainsi que je l’ai déjà dit, ma maison de campagne. Having now brought all my things on shore and secured them, I went back to my boat, and rowed or paddled her along the shore to her old harbour, where I laid her up, and made the best of my way to my old habitation, where I found everything safe and quiet. I began now to repose myself, live after my old fashion, and take care of my family affairs; and for a while I lived easy enough, only that I was more vigilant than I used to be, looked out oftener, and did not go abroad so much; and if at any time I did stir with any freedom, it was always to the east part of the island, where I was pretty well satisfied the savages never came, and where I could go without so many precautions, and such a load of arms and ammunition as I always carried with me if I went the other way. I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, that was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was all these two years filled with projects and designs how, if it were possible, I might get away from this island: for sometimes I was for making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me that there was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for a ramble one way, sometimes another - and I believe verily, if I had had the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea, bound anywhere, I knew not whither. I have been, in all my circumstances, a memento to those who are touched with the general plague of mankind, whence, for aught I know, one half of their miseries flow: I mean that of not being satisfied with the station wherein God and Nature hath placed them - for, not to look back upon my primitive condition, and the excellent advice of my father, the opposition to which was, as I may call it, my original sin, my subsequent mistakes of the same kind had been the means of my coming into this miserable condition; for had that Providence which so happily seated me at the Brazils as a planter blessed me with confined desires, and I could have been contented to have gone on gradually, I might have been by this time - I mean in the time of my being in this island - one of the most considerable planters in the Brazils - nay, I am persuaded, that by the improvements I had made in that little time I lived there, and the increase I should probably have made if I had remained, I might have been worth a hundred thousand moidores - and what business had I to leave a settled fortune, a well-stocked plantation, improving and increasing, to turn supercargo to Guinea to fetch negroes, when patience and time would have so increased our stock at home, that we could have bought them at our own door from those whose business it was to fetch them? et quoique cela nous eût coûté quelque chose de plus, la différence de ce prix ne valait certainement pas la peine d'être économisée à si grand péril. and though it had cost us something more, yet the difference of that price was by no means worth saving at so great a hazard. Mais comme c'est ordinairement le sort des jeunes esprits, la réflexion sur la folie en est communément l'exercice de plus d'années, ou de l'expérience chèrement acquise du temps - il en fut ainsi pour moi maintenant ; et cependant l'erreur avait pris si profondément racine dans mon tempérament, que je ne pouvais me satisfaire de ma condition, mais je pensais continuellement aux moyens et à la possibilité de m'échapper de ce lieu ; et afin que je puisse, avec plus de plaisir pour le lecteur, amener la suite de mon histoire, il ne sera peut-être pas inutile de donner quelque compte de mes premières conceptions sur le sujet de ce fou projet d'évasion, et comment, et sur quel fondement, j'ai agi. But as this is usually the fate of young heads, so reflection upon the folly of it is as commonly the exercise of more years, or of the dear-bought experience of time - so it was with me now; and yet so deep had the mistake taken root in my temper, that I could not satisfy myself in my station, but was continually poring upon the means and possibility of my escape from this place; and that I may, with greater pleasure to the reader, bring on the remaining part of my story, it may not be improper to give some account of my first conceptions on the subject of this foolish scheme for my escape, and how, and upon what foundation, I acted.
Je dois maintenant être supposé retiré dans mon château, après mon récent voyage à l'épave, ma frégate mise en cale sèche et sécurisée sous l'eau, comme d'habitude, et ma condition ramenée à ce qu'elle était auparavant : j'avais plus de richesses, à la vérité, qu'auparavant, mais je n'étais nullement plus riche ; car je n'en avais pas plus d'usage que les Indiens du Pérou n'en avaient avant l'arrivée des Espagnols. I am now to be supposed retired into my castle, after my late voyage to the wreck, my frigate laid up and secured under water, as usual, and my condition restored to what it was before: I had more wealth, indeed, than I had before, but was not at all the richer; for I had no more use for it than the Indians of Peru had before the Spaniards came there.
C'était une de ces nuits de la saison des pluies en mars, la vingt-quatrième année depuis que j'avais mis le pied pour la première fois sur cette île de solitude, j'étais couché dans mon lit ou mon hamac, éveillé, en très bonne santé, sans douleur, sans maladie, sans malaise du corps, ni inquiétude de l'esprit plus qu'à l'ordinaire, mais je ne pouvais en aucune façon fermer les yeux, c'est-à-dire pour dormir ; non, pas un instant de sommeil de toute la nuit, sinon de la manière suivante : il est impossible de décrire la foule innombrable de pensées qui se précipitaient dans cette grande avenue du cerveau, la mémoire, au cours de cette nuit. It was one of the nights in the rainy season in March, the four- and-twentieth year of my first setting foot in this island of solitude, I was lying in my bed or hammock, awake, very well in health, had no pain, no distemper, no uneasiness of body, nor any uneasiness of mind more than ordinary, but could by no means close my eyes, that is, so as to sleep; no, not a wink all night long, otherwise than as follows: It is impossible to set down the innumerable crowd of thoughts that whirled through that great thoroughfare of the brain, the memory, in this night's time. Je parcourus toute l'histoire de ma vie en raccourci, pour ainsi dire, jusqu'à mon arrivée sur cette île, et aussi de cette partie de ma vie depuis que j'y suis venu. I ran over the whole history of my life in miniature, or by abridgment, as I may call it, to my coming to this island, and also of that part of my life since I came to this island. J’avais alors pour quelque temps tout mon content de courses sur mer ; j’en avais bien assez pour demeurer tranquille quelques jours et réfléchir sur les dangers que j’avais courus. J’aurais été fort aise d’avoir ma pirogue sur mon côté de l’île, mais je ne voyais pas qu’il fût possible de l’y amener. In my reflections upon the state of my case since I came on shore on this island, I was comparing the happy posture of my affairs in the first years of my habitation here, with the life of anxiety, fear, and care which I had lived in ever since I had seen the print of a foot in the sand. Not that I did not believe the savages had frequented the island even all the while, and might have been several hundreds of them at times on shore there; but I had never known it, and was incapable of any apprehensions about it; my satisfaction was perfect, though my danger was the same, and I was as happy in not knowing my danger as if I had never really been exposed to it. Combien la Providence est infiniment bonne, d'avoir borné si étroitement la vue et la connaissance de l'homme dans son gouvernement ; et bien qu'il marche au milieu de mille dangers, la vue desquels le troublerait et l'abattrait, il reste calme et serein, parce que les événements lui sont cachés, et qu'il ignore les périls qui l'environnent. This furnished my thoughts with many very profitable reflections, and particularly this one: How infinitely good that Providence is, which has provided, in its government of mankind, such narrow bounds to his sight and knowledge of things; and though he walks in the midst of so many thousand dangers, the sight of which, if discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink his spirits, he is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things hid from his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.
Après que ces pensées m'eussent occupé quelque temps, je me mis à réfléchir sérieusement au véritable danger auquel j'avais été exposé pendant tant d'années dans cette île même, et à la manière dont j'y avais marché dans la plus grande sécurité et la plus complète tranquillité, alors que peut-être rien qu'une colline, un grand arbre, ou l'approche fortuite de la nuit ne m'eût séparé du pire genre de destruction - savoir After these thoughts had for some time entertained me, I came to reflect seriously upon the real danger I had been in for so many years in this very island, and how I had walked about in the greatest security, and with all possible tranquillity, even when perhaps nothing but the brow of a hill, a great tree, or the casual approach of night, had been between me and the worst kind of destruction - viz. je n'aurais pas pensé que ce fût un crime de me tuer et de me dévorer, non plus que je n'en pensais un de tuer une perdrix ou un courlis. that of falling into the hands of cannibals and savages, who would have seized on me with the same view as I would on a goat or turtle; and have thought it no more crime to kill and devour me than I did of a pigeon or a curlew. Je me ferais une injustice si je disais que je n'étais pas sincèrement reconnaissant à mon grand Conservateur, dont je reconnaissais, avec une grande humanité, que toutes ces délivrances inconnues étaient dues à sa protection singulière, et sans laquelle j'aurais inévitablement tombé entre leurs mains impitoyables. I would unjustly slander myself if I should say I was not sincerely thankful to my great Preserver, to whose singular protection I acknowledged, with great humanity, all these unknown deliverances were due, and without which I must inevitably have fallen into their merciless hands.