The Good Soldier Svejk (20 page)

"Look here, Schweik," shouted the Chaplain, "isn't this a dirty trick? As if I was the only army chaplain in the whole of Prague. Why don't they send that pious chap who slept here a few days ago? We've got to go and administer extreme unction, and I've quite forgotten how to do it."

"Then we'll buy a catechism, sir. It's sure to be there," said Schweik. "That's a sort of guide for sky pilots. At the Emaus monastery there used to be a jobbing gardener, and when he wanted to become a lay preacher and they gave him a cowl to save his clothes from getting torn, he had to buy a catechism to learn how to make the sign of the cross, who's the only one to be saved from original sin, what a pure conscience is, and other little trifles like that. Then he went and sold half the cucumbers in the monastery garden without telling them about it, and he left the monastery in disgrace. When I met him, he said : T could have sold the cucumbers even if I'd never set eyes on the catechism.' "

When Schweik arrived with the copy of the catechism which he had bought, the Chaplain perused it and said :

"I say, extreme unction can be administered only by a priest and with oil which has been consecrated by a bishop. So, you see, Schweik, you can't administer extreme unction. Just read the bit to me about how the extreme unction is done."

Schweik read :

"It is administered thus : The priest anoints the sick person on the various organs of his senses, at the same time uttering this prayer :

'By this holy unction and by His goodly mercy may God forgive you for all your transgressions by sight, hearing, smell, taste, speech and touch.' "

"I'd like to know, Schweik," remarked the Chaplain, "what transgression can be committed by touch. Can you explain that to me?"

"Lots of things, sir. For instance, you may touch somebody else's pocket. Or, again, at dances—you know the sort of thing I mean."

After further philosophical speculations on this subject, the Chaplain said :

"Well, anyway, we need oil, consecrated by a bishop. Here's ten crowns. Go and buy a bottle. They don't seem to have any of the stuff in the military stores."

So Schweik set off on his quest for the oil consecrated by a bishop. He called at several grocers' shops but as soon as he said, "I want a bottle of oil consecrated by a bishop," they burst out laughing or else hid themselves in alarm behind the counter. Schweik kept a straight face the whole time. Next he decided to try his luck in the chemists' shops. In the first one they had him put outside by a dispenser. In the second they wanted to telephone for an ambulance. In the third the manager told him that Polâk & Co., in Long Street, oil and colour merchants, would be sure to have in stock the oil he was after.

And, true enough, Polâk & Co., in Long Street, proved to be a smart firm. They never let a customer leave the shop without satisfying his requirements. If anyone wanted copaiba balsam they served him with turpentine, and that did just as well.

When Schweik arrived and asked for ten crowns' worth of oil, consecrated by a bishop, the manager said to the assistant :

"Give him half a pint of hempseed oil, number 3."

And as the assistant was wrapping the bottle up in a piece of paper, he said to Schweik in a strictly mercantile voice :

"It's first-rate quality. Should you require any brushes, varnish or lacquers, let us have your orders. You can rely on being served to your best satisfaction."

Meanwhile the Chaplain was recapitulating in the catechism

what he had forgotten at the seminary. He took a great fancy to the highly sagacious phrases which made him laugh heartily. Thus : "The term 'extreme unction' is derived from the circumstance that this unction is usually the last or extreme of all unctions which the Church administers to man," Or: "Extreme unction may be received by every Christian Catholic who is seriously ill and has reached years of discretion." Or : "The patient should receive extreme unction, if possible, while he is still in full possession of his senses."

Then an orderly arrived with a packet containing a communication to notify the Chaplain that on the next day the administration of extreme unction at the hospital would be attended by the "Society of Genteel Ladies for the Religious Training of Soldiers." This society consisted of hysterical old women and it supplied the soldiers in hospital with images of saints and tales about the Catholic warrior who dies for his Emperor. On the cover of the book containing these tales was a coloured picture, representing a battlefield. Corpses of men and horses, overturned munition wagons and cannon with the limber in the air, were scattered about on all sides. On the horizon a village was burning and shrapnel was bursting, while in the foreground lay a dying soldier, with his leg torn off, and above him an angel descended with a wreath bearing this inscription on a piece of ribbon: "This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise." And the dying soldier smiled blissfully, as if they were bringing him ice cream.

When Otto Katz had read the contents of the communication, he spat and muttered to himself :

"I'm going to have a hell of a time again to-morrow."

He knew that gang, as he called them, from St. Ignatius' Church, where some years before he had delivered sermons to the troops. At that time he used to take a lot of trouble over his sermons, and the society had a pew behind the colonel. It consisted of two lanky females dressed in black, with a rosary, who had once come up to him after the sermon and had talked for two hours on end about the religious training of soldiers, until it had got on his nerves, and he said to them : "Excuse me, ladies ; the

colonel's waiting for me to play a rubber of two-handed bridge with him."

"Well, there's the oil," said Schweik solemnly, on his return from Polâk & Co. "Hempseed oil, number 3, first-class quality. There's enough to anoint a whole blessed battalion. A reliable firm, that. They sell varnish, lacquers and brushes, too. Now all we want is a bell."

"What's the bell for, Schweik?"

"We've got to keep ringing it on our way to the hospital, so as the people can take off their hats to us, seeing as how we're carrying this hempseed oil number 3 along with us, sir. That's always done, and plenty of people have been shoved into quod for being disrespectful about it and not taking off their hats. Why, down at Zizkov there was a parson who once gave a blind man a good hiding for not taking off his hat on one of these jobs, and he got shoved into quod on top of that because at the police court it was proved that he was only blind and not deaf or dumb, so that he could hear the bell ringing all right. So, if you don't mind, sir, I'll go and fetch a bell this very minute."

The Chaplain agreed, and half an hour later Schweik returned with a bell.

"I got it from the front door of a pub, The Cross Tavern. For about five minutes it was touch-and-go, and I had to wait a long time first, because people kept passing by."

"I'm just going out for a drink, Schweik. If anyone comes, tell them to wait."

After about an hour a gray-headed elderly man arrived. His bearing was erect and his expression severe. His whole appearance was sheer doggedness and malice. He looked as if he had been sent by fate to destroy our wretched planet and
to
wipe out every trace of it in the universe.

His speech was uncouth, curt and churlish.

"Not at home? Gone out for a drink? I've got to wait? All right, I'll wait till to-morrow morning. He can afford drinks, but pay his debts, oh dear no ! A fine parson, and no mistake !"

He spat in the kitchen.

"I say, don't spit there !" protested Schweik, gazing with interest at the stranger.

"I'll spit again, I'm dashed if I won't," said the dogged and churlish gentleman, spitting again on the floor. "An army chaplain, too. Disgraceful !"

"If you've been properly brought up," demurred Schweik, "you'd better drop the habit of spitting in other people's houses. Or perhaps you think that because there's a war on, you can do what you like. You've got to behave properly and not like a hooligan. You've got to be polite, you've got to keep a civil tongue in your head and not start any of your bully-ragging tricks here, you blithering idiot. You ought to be in the army."

The severe gentleman rose from his chair, began to shake with excitement and shouted :

"How dare you! Do you mean to say that I'm not a gentleman? What am I, then? Tell me that."

"You're a lousy swine," replied Schweik, looking him full in the face. "You spit on the floor as if you was in a tram or a train or some other public place. I've always wondered why they have notices hanging up everywhere to say that spitting on the floor is prohibited, and now I see that it's for the benefit of chaps like you. I expect you're pretty well known everywhere."

The severe gentleman began to turn red in the face and tried to retaliate with a flood of invective against Schweik and the Chaplain.

"Have you quite finished your speechifying?" asked Schweik calmly (when he ended up with : "You're a fine pair of blackguards. Like master, like man"), "or would you like to add a few words before I kick you downstairs?"

As the severe gentleman had now so exhausted his powers that no suitable term of abuse occurred to him, he held his peace, and Schweik therefore assumed that it would be useless to wait for any supplementary remarks. Accordingly, he opened the door, placed the severe gentleman in the doorway with his face to the passage, and achieved a goal kick of which the champion player of a champion international football team need not have been ashamed.

And the movement of the severe gentleman downstairs was accompanied by Schweik's voice :

"The next time you pay a visit to well-bred people, just see that you behave yourself properly."

The severe gentleman walked up and down outside for a long time, awaiting the return of the Chaplain.

Schweik opened the window and watched him.

At last the Chaplain arrived, took the visitor into his room and sat down opposite him.

Schweik silently brought a spittoon in and placed it in front of the visitor.

"What's that you're doing, Schweik?"

"Beg to report, sir, that there's already been a little unpleasantness with this gentleman about spitting on the floor."

"You can go, Schweik. We have some business to attend to."

Schweik saluted.

"Beg to report, sir, I'm going."

He went into the kitchen and a very interesting conversation then ensued.

"You've come about that note of hand, I suppose?" the Chaplain asked his visitor.

"Yes, and I hope -"

The Chaplain sighed.

"Man often is reduced to such a plight that the only thing left to him is hope. How lovely is that tiny word 'hope,' one of the three things which uplift man from the chaos of life. Faith, hope, charity."

"I hope, sir, that the money due -"

"Assuredly," the Chaplain interrupted him, "and let me repeat once more that the word 'hope' strengthens man in his struggle with life. Nor need you either lose hope. How fine it is to have a definite ideal, to be a pure, innocent creature who lends money on a note of hand and hopes that he will get it back in due course! To hope, unremittingly to hope that I will pay you 1,200 crowns, when I have scarcely a hundred in my pocket."

"Then you -" stammered the visitor.

"Yes, then I -" replied the Chaplain.

The visitor's face once more assumed a dogged and malicious aspect.

"Sir, this is fraud," he said, rising from the chair.

"Calm yourself, my good sir."

"This is fraud," shouted the visitor stubbornly. "You have misused my confidence."

"Sir," said the Chaplain, "a change of air would certainly do you good. It's too stuffy here."

"Schweik," he shouted into the kitchen, "this gentleman would like to go out into the fresh air."

"Beg to report, sir," said the voice from the kitchen, "that I've thrown this gentleman out once already."

"Then do it again !" came the order which was uttered quickly, sharply and curtly.

"It's a good thing, sir," said Schweik, on his return from the passage, "that we settled up with him before he had a chance of kicking up a row here."

"Yes, Schweik, you see what happens to a man who does not honour a priest," said the Chaplain, smiling. "St. Chrysostom said : 'He who honours a priest honours Christ ; he who humiliates a priest humiliates Christ the Lord, whose deputy the priest is.' We must get everything ready for to-morrow. Fry some eggs with ham, brew some claret punch, and then we'll devote ourselves to meditation, for, as it says in the evening prayer : 'By God's mercy all snares of the enemy have been turned aside from this dwelling.' "

There are some people who will not take No for an answer. The man who had twice been ejected from the Chaplain's flat was one of them. Just as supper was ready there was a ring at the bell. Schweik went to the door, came back a moment later, and announced :

"He's here again, sir. I've shut him up in the bathroom for the time being, so as we can have our supper in peace."

"That was wrong of you, Schweik," said the Chaplain. "A guest's a guest, you know. In ancient times they used to have freaks to amuse them at banquets. Bring him in and let him amuse us."