Quotogeny

Quotes / Fyodor Dostoevsky / Crime and Punishment

Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, spoken by Rodion Raskolnikov, to himself

Genuine Found word for word in the work, in the original and in a public-domain translation.Draft entry, not yet reviewed

Original
И привыкли. Поплакали, и привыкли. Ко всему-то подлец-человек привыкает!
Translated by Constance Garnett (1914)
They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!
Work
Crime and Punishment, 1866
Where
Part 1, chapter 2
Speaker
Rodion Raskolnikov, to himself

The scene

Raskolnikov has spent the evening in a tavern with the drunken clerk Marmeladov, heard his confession of how his daughter Sonia went on the streets to feed the family, and taken him home, leaving some coppers on the window-sill. Walking away, he regrets the money and sneers that the family has dug a gold-mine in Sonia: they wept over it and got used to it. A moment later he turns the thought round: what if man is not really a scoundrel? Then 'all the rest is prejudice' and there are no barriers.

Read it in the text

Часть первая · II

-- Пропил! всё, всё пропил! -- кричала в отчаянии бедная женщина, -- и платье не то! Голодные, голодные! (и, ломая руки, она указывала на детей). О, треклятая жизнь! А вам, вам не стыдно, -- вдруг набросилась она на Раскольникова, -- из кабака! Ты с ним пил? Ты тоже с ним пил! Вон!

Молодой человек поспешил уйти, не говоря ни слова. К тому же внутренняя дверь отворилась настежь, и из нее выглянуло несколько любопытных. Протягивались наглые смеющиеся головы с папиросками и трубками, в ермолках. Виднелись фигуры в халатах и совершенно нараспашку, в летних до неприличия костюмах, иные с картами в руках. Особенно потешно смеялись они, когда Мармеладов, таскаемый за волосы, кричал, что это ему в наслаждение. Стали даже входить в комнату; послышался, наконец, зловещий визг: это продиралась вперед сама Амалия Липпевехзель, чтобы произвести распорядок по-свойски и в сотый раз испугать бедную женщину ругательским приказанием завтра же очистить квартиру. Уходя, Раскольников успел просунуть руку в карман, загреб сколько пришлось медных денег, доставшихся ему с разменянного в распивочной рубля, и неприметно положил на окошко. Потом уже на лестнице он одумался и хотел было воротиться.

"Ну что это за вздор такой я сделал, -- подумал он, -- тут у них Соня есть, а мне самому надо". Но рассудив, что взять назад уже невозможно и что все-таки он и без того бы не взял, он махнул рукой и пошел на свою квартиру. "Соне помадки ведь тоже нужно, -- продолжал он, шагая по улице, и язвительно усмехнулся, -- денег стоит сия чистота... Гм! А ведь Сонечка-то, пожалуй, сегодня и сама обанкрутится, потому тот же риск, охота по красному зверю... золотопромышленность... вот они все, стало быть, и на бобах завтра без моих-то денег... Ай да Соня! Какой колодезь, однако ж, сумели выкопать! и пользуются! Вот ведь пользуются же! И привыкли. Поплакали, и привыкли. Ко всему-то подлец-человек привыкает!"

Он задумался.

-- Ну а коли я соврал, -- воскликнул он вдруг невольно, -- коли действительно не подлец человек, весь вообще, весь род то есть человеческий, то значит, что остальное всё -- предрассудки, одни только страхи напущенные, и нет никаких преград, и так тому и следует быть!..

PART I · CHAPTER II · Constance Garnett

“He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman screamed in despair--“and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!”--and wringing her hands she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life! And you, are you not ashamed?”--she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov--“from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have been drinking with him, too! Go away!”

The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and would have gone back.

“What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to himself, “they have Sonia and I want it myself.” But reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. “Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as he walked along the street, and he laughed malignantly--“such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they’ve dug there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”

He sank into thought.

“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s thought. “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind--then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”

What it says

People adapt to anything, even to living off a daughter's prostitution, and that capacity to adapt is itself contemptible.

How it is misread

Quoted as a wry truth about human resilience. Raskolnikov says it with malice about a family he has just pitied, and his next thought uses it for his own argument: if man is not a scoundrel, his moral fears are mere prejudice and there are no barriers, the reasoning that leads to the murder. Sonia, the person he sneers at, becomes the book's moral centre.

Forms in circulation

  • condensedКо всему-то подлец-человек привыкает! The Russian proverbial form. 'Подлец-человек' is closer to 'that scoundrel, man'; the same word returns in Part 2, chapter 6: 'Man is a vile creature' (Подлец человек).

Descent

  • KindredDostoevsky, The House of the Dead (Part 1, chapter 1), 1862In his prison memoir the narrator calls man 'a creature that gets used to everything' (существо ко всему привыкающее) and thinks it the best definition of him; there the thought is a survivor's, without the sneer. →

Tags

TopicsHumanityMoralityEvil
SuitsClassroom
Scalesdespairing joyfulcalm feverishplain demandingneeds context stands alonegrave wittydated modern

What it is made of

ThemeHabit & enduranceHuman natureHatred & contemptMoney & poverty
ClaimGeneralisationObservation
FigurePlain statementRepetition
VoiceProtagonistInner monologueMan in general
StanceContested by the workIronic
ToneBitterSardonic
ShapeOne lineTwistShifts out of context
UseTeaching & discussionSelf-examinationArgument & debate

Nearby

Checked against

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