The Good Soldier Svejk (17 page)

The Chaplain replied with a gesture signifying his hopeless plight. And in a trice the piano was being stowed away in the van.

When Schweik got back from the pawnshop he found the Chaplain sitting with an open bottle of cherry brandy in front of him, and fuming because he had been given an underdone cutlet for lunch. He was again tipsy. He declared to Schweik that on the next day he would turn over a new leaf. Drinking alcoholic beverages was, he said, rank materialism and man was made to live the life of the spirit. He talked in a philosophical strain for about half an hour. When he had opened the third bottle, the second-hand furniture dealer arrived, and the Chaplain sold him the sofa for a mere song. He asked him to stop and have a chat and he was very disappointed when the dealer excused himself, as he had to go and buy a night commode.

"I'm sorry I haven't got one," said the Chaplain regretfully, "but a man can't think of everything."

After the second-hand furniture dealer had gone, the Chaplain started an affable little talk with Schweik, in the course of

which he drank another bottle. A part of the conversation dealt with the Chaplain's personal attitude toward women and cards. They sat there for a long time. And when evening came, it overtook Schweik and the Chaplain in friendly discourse.

In the night, however, there was a change in the situation. The Chaplain reverted to the state in which he had been on the previous day. He mixed Schweik up with somebody else and said to him:

"Here, don't go away. Do you remember that red-headed cadet in the transport section?"

This idyllic interlude continued until Schweik said to the Chaplain:

"I've had enough of this. Now you're going to toddle along to bed and have a good snooze, see?"

"I'll toddle along, my dear boy, of course I will," babbled the Chaplain. "Do you remember we were in the Fifth together and I used to do your Greek exercises for you? You've got a villa at Zbraslav. And you can go for the steamer trips on the Vltava. Do you know what the Vltava is?"

Schweik made him take his boots off and undress. The Chaplain obeyed, but addressed a protest to unknown persons :

"You see, gentlemen," he said to the cupboard, "how my relatives treat me.

"I refuse to acknowledge my relatives," he suddenly decided, getting into bed. "Even if heaven and earth conspire against me, I refuse to acknowledge them."

And the room resounded with the Chaplain's snoring.

IV.

It was about this time that Schweik paid a visit to Mrs. Muller, his old charwoman. The door was opened to him by Mrs. Muller's cousin, who amid tears informed him that Mrs. Muller had been arrested on the same day on which she had taken Schweik in a Bath chair to the army medical board. They had tried the old lady before a court-martial, and as they had no evidence against her, they had taken her to the internment camp at Steinhof. There was a postcard from her. Schweik took this household relic and read :

DEAR ANINKA,

We are Very comfortable hear and are all well. The Woman on the bed next to mine has Spotted . . . and their are also some with small . . . Otherwise, all is well.

We have plenty to eat and collect Potato . . . for Soup. I have heard that Mr. Schweik is . . . so find out somehow wear he is berried so that after the War we can put some Flowers on his grave. I forgot to tell you that in the Attic in a dark corner there is a box with a little Dog, a terrier puppy, in it. But he has had nothing to eat for several Weeks ever since they came to fetch me to
...
So I think it must be to late and the littel Dog is also . . .

Across the letter had been stamped a pink inscription :

"Zensuriert k. k. Konsentrationslager, Steinhof."
⁴
"And the little dog
was
dead," sobbed Mrs. Muller's cousin. "And you'd never recognize the place where you used to live. I've got some dressmakers lodging there. And they've turned the place into a regular drawing room. Fashion pictures on all the walls and flowers in the windows."

Mrs. Mùller's cousin was thoroughly upset.

Amid continued sobbing and lamentation she finally expressed the fear that Schweik had run away from the army and wanted to bring about her downfall also and plunge her into misery. She wound up by talking to him as if he were an infamous adventurer.

"That's one of the best jokes I've heard," said Schweik. "I'm fairly tickled to death by it. Well, I don't mind telling you, Mrs. Kejr, you guessed it right, first go. I have done a bunk. But first of all I had to do in fifteen sergeants and sergeant-majors. Only don't tell anyone . . ."

And as Schweik departed from the home which had given him so chilly a welcome, he said :

"Mrs. Kejr, there's some collars and shirt fronts of mine at the laundry. You might go and fetch them for me, so that when I come back from the army, I'll have some civilian togs to put on And see that the moths don't get at my things in the wardrobe. Well, give me best respects to the young ladies who are sleeping in my bed."

⁴
"Censored, Imperial & Royal Internment Camp, Steinhof."

Then Schweik went to see what was going on at The Flagon. When Mrs. Palivec saw him, she said that she wouldn't serve him with any drink, because he'd probably taken French leave.

"My husband," she said, beginning to harp upon a now ancient topic, "he was as careful as could be and there he is, poor fellow, in prison, though as innocent as a babe unborn. And yet there's people going about scot free who've run away from the army. They were looking for you here again last week.

"We was more careful than you," she concluded her discourse, "and now look at the bad luck we've had. It ain't everyone who's as lucky as what you are."

An elderly man, a locksmith from Smichow, had overheard these remarks and he now came up to Schweik, saying :

"Do you mind waiting for me outside? I'd like to have a word with you."

In the street it turned out that from what Mrs. Palivec had said he took Schweik for a deserter. He told him he had a son who had also run away from the army and was hiding with his grandmother. Although Schweik assured him that he was not a deserter, he pressed a ten-crown piece into his hand.

"Just to keep you going for a bit," he explained, taking him into a wineshop round the corner. "I know how things are with you. Don't you worry. I won't give you away."

It was late at night when Schweik got back, but the Chaplain was not yet at home. He did not turn up till the morning, when he woke Schweik up and said :

"To-morrow we're going to celebrate mass for the troops. Make some black coffee and put some rum into it. Or better still, brew some grog."

11.

Schweik Accompanies the Chaplain to the Celebration of Mass.

I.

Preparations for the slaughter of human beings have always been made in the name of God or of some alleged higher being which mankind has, in its imaginativeness, devised and created. Before the ancient Phoenicians cut a captive's throat, they performed religious ceremonies with just the same magnificence as did the new generations a few thousand years later before they marched into battle and destroyed their enemies with fire and sword.

The cannibals of New Guinea and Polynesia, before solemnly devouring their captives or superfluous persons, such as missionaries, travellers and agents of various business firms, or those merely prompted by idle curiosity, offer up sacrifices to their gods and perform the most diverse religious ceremonies. As the refinement of canonicals has not yet reached them, they decorate their thighs with festoons of gaudy plumage.

Before the Holy Inquisition burned its victims, the most magnificent religious ceremonies were held—high mass with choral accompaniments.

When criminals are hanged, priests always officiate, annoying the malefactors by their presence.

In Prussia a pastor conducts the poor wretch to the block ; in Austria a Catholic priest escorts him to the gallows ; in France to the guillotine ; in America a clergyman accompanies him to the electric chair ; in Spain to the ingenious appliance by which he is strangled, etc.

Everywhere they have to carry a crucifix about on these occasions, as if to say: "You're only having your head chopped off, you're only being hanged, you're only being strangled, you're only having 15,000 volts shoved into you, but don't forget what He had to go through."

The shambles of the World War would have been incomplete without the blessings of the clergy. The chaplains of all armies prayed and celebrated mass for the victory of the side whose bread they ate. A priest was in attendance when mutineers were executed. A priest put in his appearance at the execution of Czech legionaries.

Throughout Europe, men went to the shambles like cattle, whither they were driven by butchers, who included not only emperors, kings and other potentates, but also priests of all denominations. Mass at the front was always held twice. When a contingent was moving up to the front line and then again before going over the top, before the bloodshed and slaughter. I remember that on one such occasion, while mass was being celebrated, an enemy aeroplane dropped a bomb right on top of the altar and nothing was left of the Chaplain but a few bloodstained rags.

Afterward he was mentioned in dispatches as a martyr, while

our aeroplanes were preparing similar glory for the Chaplain on the other side.

II.

Schweik brewed a splendid dose of grog, far better than all the grog imbibed by old sailors. Such grog as his might have been drunk by Eighteenth Century pirates to their complete satisfaction.

The Chaplain was delighted.

"Where did you learn to brew such fine stuff as that?" he asked.

"When I was on tramp years ago," replied Schweik, "in Bremen, from a sailor, a regular tough 'un he was. He said grog ought to be strong enough to keep a man afloat from one side of the English Channel to the other. If a man fell into the sea with weak grog inside him, he said, he'd sink like a stone."

"With grog like that inside us, Schweik, we'll have a first-rate mass," remarked the Chaplain. "I think I ought to say a few parting words first, though. A military mass is no joke. It's not like mass in the detention barracks or preaching to that scurvy crowd of scallawags. Oh, no, you've got to have all your wits about you. We've got a field altar. It's a folding contraption that'll fit into your pocket. Do you know where I used to keep that folding altar? In the sofa that we sold."

"Whew, that's awkward and no mistake, sir," said Schweik. "Of course, I know that second-hand furniture dealer, but the day before yesterday I met his wife. He's in prison on account of a wardrobe that was stolen and now our sofa's in the hands of a teacher at Vrsovice. That field altar's going to be a nuisance. The best thing we can do is to drink up the grog and go to look for it, because, as far as I can see, we can't have mass without an altar."

"The field altar's really the only thing that's missing," said the Chaplain dismally. "Everything's ready in the exercise ground. The carpenters have knocked up a platform. We'll get the monstrance on loan from Brevnov. I ought to have a chalice of my own, but where the deuce . . ."

He lapsed into thought. "Supposing I've lost it. Well, we could get the challenge cup from Lieutenant Wittinger of the 75th

Regiment. He won it a long time ago in a running competition as a representative of the Favourite Sports Club. He used to be a good runner. He did the twenty-five miles cross-country Marathon from Vienna to Modling in 1 hour 48 minutes. He's always bragging about it to us. I settled that with him yesterday. I'm a silly chump to put everything off till the last moment. Why didn't I look into that sofa? Oh, what a fathead I am !"

Under the influence of the grog, prepared according to the recipe of the sailor, that "regular tough 'un," he began to call himself names bluntly, and he uttered the most diverse dicta to indicate where he really ought to be.

"Well, we'd better go and have a look for that field altar," suggested Schweik. "It's broad daylight. I must just get my uniform and drink another glass of grog."

At last they went. The wife of the second-hand furniture dealer, who was half asleep, gave them the address of the teacher at Vrsovice, the new owner of the sofa. The Chaplain became extremely affable. He pinched the lady's cheek and chucked her under the chin.