"But life would be dull without it."
"Without vodka?"
"Well, yes! When you drink, it is just as if you were in another world."
Ardalon never came back for good. At the end of a few days he returned to work, but soon disappeared again, and in the spring I met him among the dock laborers; he was melting the ice round the barges in the harbor. We greeted each other in friendly fashion and went to a tavern for tea, after which he boasted:
"You remember what a workman I was, eh? I tell you straight, I was an expert at my own business! I could have earned hundreds."
"However, you did not."
"No, I didn't earn them," he cried proudly. "I spit upon work!"
He swaggered. The people in the tavern listened to his impassioned words and were impressed.
"You remember what that sly thief Petrucha used to say about work? For others stone houses; for himself a wooden coffin! Well, that's true of all work!"
I said: