MARTHA. When he's drunk there's no pleasing him, do what you will.
TARÁS. But you should understand that we can't help having a drop now and then. Your woman's business is at home, but the likes of us must have a drop when we're on business, or for company's sake. Well, so one drinks, and where is the harm?
MARTHA. You may talk, but it's hard on us women. Oh, how hard it is! If one harnessed you men to our work just for a week, you would sing a different tune. Kneading, cooking, baking, spinning, weaving, and the cattle to look after, and all the rest of it, and the brats to keep washed and clothed and fed; it's all on our shoulders, and if anything is the least bit not to his fancy, there you are, especially when he's drunk. Oh dear, what a life ours is!
TRAMP[ chewing ] That's quite correct. It's the cause of it all; I mean all the catastrophes of life proceed from alcoholic liquors.
TARÁS. It seems to have bowled you over too!
TRAMP. No, not exactly that, though I have suffered from that too. The career of my life might have been different but for the drink.
TARÁS. Now, to my thinking, if you drink reasonably, there's no manner of harm in it.
TRAMP. But I say that it is so strong that it may completely ruin a man.
MARTHA. That's what I say: you worry and do your best, and the only comfort you get is to be scolded and beaten like a dog.
TRAMP. And that's not all. There are some people, persons I mean, that are quite deprived of their reason through it and commit entirely inappropriate actions. While he does not drink, give him anything you like and he won't take what is not his; but when drunk, he grabs whatever comes handy. Many a time one gets beaten and put in prison. As long as I don't drink, all goes honestly and honourably, but as soon as I drink, I mean as soon as that same person drinks, he at once begins grabbing whatever comes his way.