The Cave by José Saramago

The potter stopped the van, rolled down the windows on both sides and waited for someone to come and rob him. It is not uncommon for certain states of despair, certain of life's blows, to force their victim into dramatic decisions like this, if not worse ones.

There comes a point when the confused or abused person hears a voice saying in his head, Oh well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and, depending on the particular situation in which he finds himself and the place where the situation finds him, he either spends his last bit of money on a lottery ticket, or places on the gaming table the watch he inherited from his father and the silver cigarette case that was a gift from his mother, or bets everything he has on red even though he knows that red has come up five times in a row, or he climbs alone out of the trenches and runs with his bayonet fixed toward the enemy's machine guns, or he stops this van, rolls down the windows, opens the doors, and waits for the people from the shantytown to attack with their customary clubs, their usual knives, and anything else they deem appropriate to the occasion, If the people at the Center don't want them, then the robbers might as well have them, was Cipriano Algor's last thought.