Ill-gotten gains certainly do profit a man

Ill-gotten gains certainly do profit a man is a bitterly comic maxim about the apparent rewards of crime. It frames Reinhold’s exhilaration after a burglary: he has money, has thrown Trude out, and believes he has outwitted Franz Biberkopf. Yet the profit is inseparable from drunken violence and the gang’s fear of what Franz might reveal, making the saying less a celebration of success than an exposure of its moral and practical cost.

Meaning and narrative context

The expression appears immediately before the account of Reinhold’s return to his apartment on Monday. Its blunt certainty supplies an ironic lens for what follows. In the narrowest sense, ill-gotten gains do benefit Reinhold: the burglary has brought him money, and he turns that success into an inflated sense of confidence. The narration, however, places this satisfaction beside the harm and danger that accompany it, refusing to let material gain stand as uncomplicated proof that crime has paid.

The saying also compresses the episode’s contrast between apparent good fortune and consequences not yet faced. Reinhold feels triumphant, while the men in Pums’s gang are alarmed by the assault on Franz. They fear that Franz may be alive and identify the gang, or that his death will bring police questions to the people in his block. The maxim’s assurance therefore belongs to a precarious moment: Reinhold has gained money, but the others can already see the risk gathering around that gain.

Reinhold’s immediate profit

Reinhold returns home at noon on Monday and, at one o’clock, throws Trude out. The narrator describes him as heavily intoxicated and explains that the schnapps has loosened his restraint. Though Reinhold had seemed incapable of harshness toward a woman, he beats Trude, tears out her hair, smashes a mirror over her, and punches her in the mouth when she screams. By that evening her mouth is horribly swollen; she intends to have him prosecuted and must put ointment on her lips.

When Reinhold comes round later in the afternoon, he initially cannot recall the violence. Trude and her basket are gone, the mirror is broken, and blood marks the mess on the floor. Seeing that his own mouth is unhurt, he concludes that Trude vomited and that he struck her. Rather than respond with remorse, he laughs, studies himself in a shard of the mirror, and pats his cheeks, delighted by what he has done. His sense of profit thus includes not only the burglary money but a newly discovered, brutal self-image.

The irony of success

The landlady confirms Reinhold’s account and praises his treatment of Trude, giving him further reason to feel pleased with himself. Her approval makes his recollection of the previous night return: he remembers the successful trip, the money, his deception of Franz, and his hope that Franz has been run over and killed. The expression’s apparent logic is complete in Reinhold’s mind: he has obtained money, removed Trude, and believes he has escaped the consequences of involving Franz.

That confidence does not quiet the gang’s alarm. A man from Pums’s group summons Reinhold to the pub, where the others are worried about what Franz’s fate could mean for them. Reinhold remains buoyant and wants to go out drinking and find other women, but the gang keeps him there until he agrees to hide with them in Weißensee for two or three days while they learn what has happened. The maxim’s irony sharpens in that contrast: Reinhold experiences criminal proceeds as immediate pleasure, while the gang’s need for secrecy and flight exposes the danger attached to them.