UNPUNISHED CRIMES COMMITTED IN ORDINARY LIFE

Javier Marias, The Infatuations: A Novel, translation from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa (New York: Knopf, 2012, 2013) ("As I said, I cared nothing for justice or injustice. What business were they of mine, for of Diaz-Varela had been right about one thing, as had the lawyer Derville in his fictional world and in his time that does not pass and stays quite still. it was this: 'Far more crimes go unpunished then punished, not to speak of those we know nothing about or that remain hidden, for there must inevitably be more hidden crimes than crimes that are known about and recorded.' And perhaps also when he said: 'The worst thing is that so many disparate individuals in every age and every country, each on his own account and at his own risk, and not, in principle, subject to mutual contagion, separated from each other by kilometres or years or centuries, each with his own thoughts and particular aims, should all choose the same methods of robbery, deception, murder or betrayal against the friends, colleagues, brothers, sisters, parents, children, husbands, wives or lovers whom they once loved the most. Crimes committed in ordinary life are more scattered, more spaced out, one here, another there; and because they only trickle into our consciousness, they cause less outrage and tend not to provoke waves of protest, however incessantly they occur: how could it be any other way, given that society lives alongside them and has been impregnated with their very nature since time immemorial.'" Id. at 334-335.).