Once in the
tavern, you're no longer master of yourself; the old companionship, the
old habit will carry you along, and you'll spend two or three weeks' pay
again. Then the after-thirst will come and you'll have to improve other
evenings, and more and more you'll lose all belief that you could ever
help yourself up, you'll become slacker every day, and you'll despair of
yourself more and more. Besides, it's not so dreadful as the face you
makeup. See how many people never take a glass the year round, or go
into a tavern. It's not only poor day-laborers, who have all they can do
to keep off the parish, but some of them are well-to-do, even rich
people, who've made it a habit never to spend anything uselessly, and
they are not only contented but can much less understand how a
reasonable man can enjoy idling than you are willing to understand me
when I say a man can live without idling."
"I walked home once with a little man from the Langental market. He was
surprised to find me going home so early; usually he had to go home
alone, he said. I answered that I hadn't had anything more to do, and
that I didn't care to sit in the tavern till evening; that it cost money
and time, and a man didn't know when and how he would finally get home.
He felt the same way, he said. He had begun with nothing and barely got
along. For a long time he had supported father and mother alone, but now
he had his home and farm paid for and every year two cows to sell, and
not one of them under six hundred pounds.
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