The Good Soldier Svejk (24 page)

Suddenly he thought of something, and rushed into the lieu-

tenant's bedroom. Lieutenant Lukash was now fast asleep, but Schweik woke him up.

"Beg to report, sir, you didn't give me any instructions about the cat."

And the lieutenant, half-asleep and half-awake, turned over on the other side and mumbled drowsily:

"Three days' C. B."

Then he fell asleep again.

Schweik tiptoed out of the room, dragged the unfortunate cat from under the sofa and said to her :

"You've got three days' C. B.
Abtreten
."
¹

And the Angora cat crawled back under the sofa.

IV.

Schweik was just getting ready to go and look for the fox terrier when a young lady rang the bell and said she wanted to speak to Lieutenant Lukash. Beside her lay two heavy trunks, and Schweik just caught sight of a cap belonging to a porter who was going downstairs.

"He's not at home," said Schweik stolidly, but the young lady was already in the passage and said to Schweik in a peremptory tone:

"Take these trunks into the bedroom."

"It can't be done without the lieutenant's permission," said Schweik. "The lieutenant said I was never to do anything without it."

"Why, you must be mad," exclaimed the young lady. "I've come to pay the lieutenant a visit."

"I don't know nothing about that," replied Schweik. "The lieutenant's on duty, he won't be home till to-night, and my orders are to find him a fox terrier. I don't know nothing about any trunks or any lady. Now I'm going to lock up the place, so perhaps you wouldn't mind getting outside. I ain't had any instructions and I can't leave any stranger here whom I don't know anything about. Down our street there was a confectioner

¹
"Dismiss."

who once let a man in and he forced the wardrobe open and cleared off.

"Of course I don't mean any disrespect to you, miss," continued Schweik, when he saw that the young lady showed signs of getting upset and was crying, "but you absolutely can't stay here ; you must see that for yourself, because I'm in charge of the whole place, and I'm responsible for the least thing that happens. So I'll ask you once more not to make any unnecessary fuss. Until I get my orders from the lieutenant, I couldn't let you stay here, not if you was my own brother. I'm sorry I've got to talk to you like this, but in the army we have to have proper discipline."

Meanwhile the young lady had recovered herself somewhat. She took a visiting card out of her bag, wrote a few lines on it in pencil, put it into a dainty little envelope and said in tones of distress :

"Take this to the lieutenant and I'll wait here for an answer. Here's five crowns to pay your fare."

"It ain't a bit of use," replied Schweik, annoyed by the obstinacy of the unexpected guest. "Keep your five crowns; here they are, on the chair, and if you like you can come with me to the barracks; you wait for me while I take your note and I'll bring back the answer. But you can't wait here, that's a dead cert."

With these words he dragged the trunks into the passage, and rattling the key like the warder of a castle, he said with solemn emphasis, as he stood in the doorway :

"Time to lock up."

The young lady dejectedly drifted into the passage, Schweik locked the door and strode ahead. The fair visitor trotted after him like a little pet dog, and did not catch him up till he stopped at a tobacconist's to buy cigarettes.

Now she walked along by his side and made efforts to start a conversation.

"You're sure you'll hand it to him?"

"If I say I will, I will."

"And will you be able to find him?

"I don't know."

They again walked on side by side in silence, until after some time the young lady resumed:

"So you think you'll be able to find him?"

"No, I don't."

"And where do you think he's likely to be?"

"I don't know."

This put a stop to the conversation for quite a long while, until the young lady again continued it by inquiring :

"You haven't lost the note?"

"Not yet I haven't."

"You're sure you'll hand it to him?"

"Yes."

"And you'll be able to find him?"

"I've told you I don't know," replied Schweik. "What beats me is how people can be so nosey and keep asking the same question. It's like as if I was to stop every other person in the street and ask him what the date is."

This concluded the attempt to engage in conversation with Schweik, and the rest of the way to the barracks was traversed in complete silence. When they reached the barracks, Schweik told the young lady to wait, and then began to discuss the war with the soldiers at the gateway. The young lady walked nervously to and fro on the pavement with a very distressed look on her face. She saw SchWeik continuing his disquisition with an expression about as fatuous as that on the photograph published just about that time in the
Chronicle of the Great War
and entitled : "Austrian Heir-Apparent Talking to Two Airmen Who Shot Down a Russian Aeroplane."

Schweik sat down on the bench in the doorway and explained that on the Carpathian front the attacks had failed, but on the other hand, the command of Przemyśl, General Kusmanek, had proceeded to Kiev, and that the Austrian troops had left eleven pivotal centres behind them in Serbia, so that the Serbians would not be able to keep running after them much longer. He then plunged into a criticism of the various fighting operations, and made the sensational discovery that a detachment which is entirely surrounded has to surrender.

Having had his say, he thought he had better go out and tell

the young lady, who by now was at her wit's end, that he wouldn't be long and that she was not to go away. Thereupon he went upstairs into the office, where he discovered Lieutenant Lukash. He was just expounding a scheme of trenches for the benefit of an officer whom he was taking to task for being unable to draw and not having the least idea of geometry.

"You see, this is the way to draw the diagram. If we have to drop a perpendicular on to a given straight line, we have to do it so that it forms a right angle with it. Do you follow? If that's done, you'll get your trenches in a proper position, and they won't reach as far as the enemy. You'll keep at a distance of 600 yards from him. But the way you've drawn it, you'd shove our position into the enemy's lines, and you'd have your trenches right on top of the enemy, whereas you need an obtuse angle. Simple enough, isn't it?"

And the reserve officer, who in civil life was a bank cashier, gazed distractedly at the diagrams of which he understood nothing, and heaved a sigh of relief when Schweik approached the lieutenant.

"Beg to report, sir, there's a lady sent you this note and she's waiting for an answer."

He winked in a knowing and confidential manner.

Lieutenant Lukash was not altogether pleased when he read the following :

LIEBER HEINRICH !

Mein Mann verfolgt mich. Ich muss unbedingt bei dir ein paar Tage gastieren. Dein Bursch ist ein grosses Mistvieh. Ich bin unglucklich.

DEINE KATY.
²

Lieutenant Lukash sighed, led Schweik into an empty inner office, closed the door and began to pace to and fro between the tables. At last he came to a standstill in front of Schweik and said:

²
"d ear henry!

"My husband's after me. You simply must put me up for a few days. Your orderly is a horrid beast. I am so miserable.

"your katy."

"This lady says you're a horrid beast. What have you been doing?"

"Beg to report, sir, I didn't do anything to her. I was as polite to her as could be, but she wanted to settle down in your quarters there and then. And as you never gave me any instructions about it, I wouldn't let her. And on top of all that she brought two trunks with her, as if she was going to make herself at home."

The lieutenant gave another loud sigh, which Schweik repeated after him.

"What's that?" shouted the lieutenant in a tone of menace.

"Beg to report, sir, it's a ticklish business. Two years ago down our street there was a young lady moved into a paper hanger's lodgings and he couldn't put her out, and in the end he had
to
poison himself, and her as well, with coal gas. It was no joke. Women are a nuisance. They don't catch me napping."

"It is a ticklish business," repeated the lieutenant, and never had Schweik spoken a truer word. Dear Jindrich was in the deuce of a fix. Here was a young lady whose husband was after her, and who had come to pay him a visit for several days, at the very moment when he was expecting Mrs. Micek from Trëbon on one of her quarterly shopping trips to Prague. Then, the next day but one another young lady was coming to see him. After having thought the matter over for a week, she had definitely promised to be his, because the following month she was going to marry an engineer.

The lieutenant now dejectedly sat down on the table, and lapsed into silent thought, but all that he could think of for the time being was to sit down and write on an official form :

DEAR KATY,

On duty till p p. m. Shall be home at 10. Please make yourself at home. As regards Schweik, my orderly, I have now instructed him to carry out all your wishes.

YOURS, JINDRICH.

"Now," said the lieutenant, "you'll hand this note to the young lady. And let me impress upon you that you are to be respectful and tactful in your behaviour towards her, and you must carry

out all her wishes, which you are to treat as commands. You must treat her courteously and look after her requirements to the best of your ability. Here's a hundred crowns, for which you must account to me after having ordered lunch, supper and so on for her, should she send you to fetch anything. Also, you'll buy three bottles of wine and a box of Memphis cigarettes. Well, that's all for the present. Now you can go, and once more let me urge upon you the necessity to do everything you can see she wants, even if she doesn't actually ask for it."

The young lady had already given up all hope of seeing Schweik again, and so she was very surprised when she observed him emerging from the barracks and proceeding in her direction with a letter.

Having saluted, he handed her the letter and said :

"The lieutenant's instructions to me, miss, are that I am to be respectful and tactful in my behaviour towards you, and I'm to look after your requirements to the best of my ability, and to do everything I can see you want, even if you don't actually ask for it. I've got to feed you and to buy whatever you'd like. The lieutenant gave me a hundred crowns to pay for it all, but out of that I've got to buy three bottles of wine and a box of Memphis cigarettes."

When she had read the letter, she recovered her strength of will, which she manifested by ordering Schweik to fetch a cab, and when that was done, she told him to sit on the box with the driver.

They drove home. When they got there, she admirably acted her part as lady of the house. Schweik had to carry the trunks into the bedroom, besides beating the carpets in the yard, and a tiny cobweb behind the mirror made her extremely angry. There was every indication that she intended to dig herself in thoroughly, with a view to a lengthy stay in this strategical position.

Schweik sweated. When he had beaten the carpets, she remembered that the curtains would have to be taken down and dusted. Then he received orders to clean the windows in the bedroom and kitchen. Thereupon she began to rearrange the furniture, which

made her very nervous, and when Schweik had dragged it from one corner to another, she was dissatisfied and started devising new groupings and arrangements. She turned everything upside down and slowly, as the cosy snuggery took shape, her supply of energy began to ebb, and the harrying gradually came to an end. When everything else was finished, she took clean bed linen from the cupboard, and as she arranged the fresh pillow cases and mattresses, it was clear that she did so with genuine devotion.

Then she sent Schweik for lunch and wine. And before he returned, she put on a filmy gown which made her extremely attractive and alluring. At lunch she drank a bottle of wine and smoked several Memphis cigarettes. And while Schweik was in the kitchen feasting on army bread which he soaked in a glass of brandy she retired to rest.

"Schweik," she shouted from the bedroom. "Schweik!"

Schweik opened the door and beheld the young lady in an enticing attitude among the cushions.

"Come here."

He stepped up to the bed, and with a peculiar smile she scrutinized his sturdy build. Then, pulling aside the thin covering which had hitherto concealed her person, she said sternly :

"Take off your boots and trousers. Let me -"

And so it came about that when the lieutenant returned from the barracks, the good soldier Schweik was able to inform him :

"Beg to report, sir, I carried out all the lady's wishes and treated her courteously, just as you instructed me."

"Thank you, Schweik," said the lieutenant. "And did she want many things done?"