The House of the Dead

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Man is a creature that can get used to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

The thought once occurred to me that if one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible punishment, one at which the most fearsome murderer would tremble, shrinking from it in advance, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that it is possible to tell a man by his laugh,12 and that if on first meeting you like the laugh of a person who is completely unknown to you, then you may confidently say that this is a good person.

It was almost uncanny to see how some of them would work themselves half to death without respite for months on end, for the sole purpose of squandering in one day all they had earned, every last penny of it, and how then once again they would toil away until they had enough for another binge.

Perhaps these people are in no way worse than those outsiders, those people outside the prison.’ I thought this and shook my head at the notion; but – God in Heaven – if only I had known then to what extent it was true!

It occurred to me that if at some later date we should all find ourselves together in hell, it would be very similar to this place.