Jarmila, Hašek’s wife, said this
of her maligned husband:

"The honesty of Hašek’s work lies in that he would descend for his art all the way to the level of his jokes to come to understand their relation to people and things. He sacrificed himself, a mother, a wife, a child, a friend – he laid everything he had on the altar of truth – and she revealed herself to him such as she is, a laughably crippled wretch, without trinkets and without a veil."