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Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth. Nothing is easier than flattery.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, 1866

Literature

The story behind the card

Svidrigailov says this in Part 6, chapter 4 of Crime and Punishment (1866). He is a rich, unscrupulous landowner in whose house Raskolnikov's sister Dunya once worked as a governess, and in a tavern he tells Raskolnikov how he tried to win her over, naming his weapon: flattery. If the truth carries even a hundredth part of a false note, he goes on, it jars; flattery can be false to the last note and still please. Dostoevsky gives this sharp insight to one of the novel's most sinister men.

Türkçe oku
Bu dünyada doğruyu söylemekten daha zor bir şey yoktur; dalkavukluktan daha kolay bir şey de yoktur.
Fyodor Dostoyevski, Suç ve Ceza, 1866

Bu sözleri Suç ve Ceza'nın (1866) altıncı bölümünün 4. kısmında Svidrigaylov söyler. Svidrigaylov, Raskolnikov'un kız kardeşi Dunya'nın bir zamanlar mürebbiye olarak çalıştığı evin zengin ve vicdansız sahibidir. Bir meyhanede Raskolnikov'a, Dunya'nın gönlünü nasıl kazanmaya çalıştığını anlatır ve kullandığı silahın adını koyar: dalkavukluk. Sonra şöyle sürdürür: Doğrunun içinde yüzde bir sahte nota bile olsa ahenk bozulur; dalkavukluk ise baştan sona sahte olsa da yine hoşa gider. Dostoyevski bu keskin gözlemi romanın en tekinsiz adamlarından birine söyletir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Fyodor Dostoevsky
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