"Well, yes," said Peredonov, "do you think that in two or three hundred years from now people will have to work?"
"What else is there to do? If you don't work, you have no bread to eat. You buy bread with money and you have to earn the money."
"But I don't want bread."
"But there wouldn't be any rolls or tarts either," said Volodin with a snigger. "No one would have any money to buy vodka, and there wouldn't be anything to make liqueurs of."
"No, the people themselves won't work," said Peredonov. "There'll be machines for everything—all you'll have to do is to turn a handle like an ariston[2] and it's ready.... But it would be a bore to turn it long."
Volodin lapsed into thought, lowered his head, stuck out his lips and said, reflectively:
"Yes, that would be very good. Only none of us will live to see it."
Peredonov looked at him malignantly and grumbled:
"You mean you won't live to see it, but I shall."
"May God grant you," said Volodin gaily, "to live two hundred years, and then to crawl on all fours for three hundred."