The Good Soldier Svejk (27 page)

He whined at this humiliation and began to run about in the kitchen, sniffing desperately at his own tracks. Then, unexpectedly changing his mind, he sat down by the table and devoured the rest of the liver which was
on
the floor. Whereupon he lay down by the fireplace and ended his spell of adventure by falling asleep.

"What's the damage?" Schweik asked Blahnik, when he got up to go.

"Don't you worry about that, Schweik," said Blahnik tenderly. "I'd do anything for an old pal, especially when he's in the army. Well, so long, lad, and never take him across Havlicek Square, or you'd be asking for trouble. If you want any more dogs, you know where I hang out."

Schweik let Max have a good long nap. He went to the butcher's and bought half a pound of liver, boiled it and waited till Max woke up, when he gave him a piece of the warm liver to sniff at. Max began to lick himself after his nap, stretched his limbs, sniffed at the liver and gulped it down. Then he went to the door and repeated his performance with the handle.

"Max !" shouted Schweik. "Come here."

The dog obeyed gingerly enough, but Schweik took him on his lap and stroked him. Now for the first time since his arrival Max began to wag the remainder of his lopped tail amicably, and playfully grabbed at Schweik's hand, holding it in his paw and gazing at Schweik sagaciously, as much as to say :

"Well, it can't be helped ; I know I got the worst of it."

Schweik went on stroking him and in a gentle voice began to tell him a little story :

"Now there was once a little dog whose name was Fox, and he lived with a colonel. The servant girl took him for a walk and up came a gentleman who stole Fox. Fox got into the army, where his new master was a lieutenant, and now they called him Max. Max, shake hands. Now you see, you silly tike, we'll get on well

together if you're good and obedient. If you ain't, why, you'll catch it hot."

Max jumped down from Schweik's lap and began to frisk about merrily with him. By the evening, when the lieutenant returned from the barracks, Schweik and Max were the best of friends.

As he looked at Max, Schweik reflected philosophically :

"When you come to think of it, every soldier's really been stolen away from his home."

Lieutenant Lukash was very pleasantly surprised when he saw Max, who on his part also showed great joy at again seeing a man with a sword.

When asked where he came from and how much he cost, Schweik replied with the utmost composure that the dog was a present from a friend of his who had just joined up.

"That's fine, Schweik," said the lieutenant, playing with Max. "On the first of the month I'll let you have fifty crowns for the dog."

"I couldn't take the money, sir."

"Schweik," said the lieutenant sternly, "when you entered my service, I explained to you that you must obey me implicitly. When I tell you that you'll get fifty crowns, you've got to take the money and go on the spree with it. What will you do with the fifty crowns, Schweik?"

"Beg to report, sir, I'll go on the spree with it, as per instructions."

"And if I should happen to forget it, Schweik, you are to remind me to give you the fifty crowns. Do you understand? Are you sure the dog hasn't got fleas? You'd better give him a bath and comb him out. I'm on duty to-morrow, but the day after tomorrow I'll take him for a walk."

While Schweik was giving Max a bath, the Colonel, his former owner, was kicking up a terrible row and threatening that when he found the man who had stolen his dog, he would have him tried by court-martial, he would have him shot, he would have him hanged, he would have him imprisoned for twenty years and he would have him chopped to pieces.

"There'll be hell to pay when I find the blackguard who did it," bellowed the Colonel till the windows rattled. "I know how to get even with low scoundrels like him."

Above the heads of Schweik and Lieutenant Lukash was hovering a catastrophe.

15.

The Catastrophe.

Colonel Kraus, who also had a handle to his name, to wit, Von Zillergut, from a village near Salzburg which his ancestors had stripped bare in the Eighteenth Century, was an estimable booby. Whenever he gave an account of anything, he confined himself to concrete details, and stopped every now and then to ask whether his hearers all understood the most elementary terms, as : "So, as I was just saying, gentlemen, there was a window. You know what a window is, don't you?" Or: "A road with ditches along both sides of it is called a highway. Yes, gentlemen. Do you know what a ditch is? A ditch is a sort of cavity

dug by a gang of labourers. It's a deep gutter. Yes, that's what it is. And they dig it out with shovels. Do you know what a shovel is?"

He had a mania for explaining things and he indulged in it with the enthusiasm of an inventor telling people about the apparatus he has made.

"A book, gentlemen, consists of several quarto sheets of paper, cut into various sizes, covered with print and arranged in proper order, bound and pasted together. Yes. Do you know what paste is, gentlemen? Paste is used for sticking one thing to another."

He was so immoderately idiotic that officers gave him a wide berth, in order not to be informed that the pavement separates the street from the roadway and that it consists of a raised stretch of stonewalk alongside the house fronts. And a house front is that part of a house which we see from the street or the pavement. We cannot see the back part of a house from the pavement, as we can immediately ascertain for ourselves if we step into the roadway.

This interesting fact he was prepared to demonstrate on the spot. And he would stop officers to embark on interminable conversations about omelettes, sunlight, thermometers, puddings, windows and postage stamps.

The, remarkable thing was that such an imbecile as this should have gained comparatively rapid promotion. During manœuvres he performed regular miracles with his regiment. He never got anywhere in time, he led the regiment in column formation against machine-gun fire, and on one occasion several years previously, during the imperial manœuvres in southern Bohemia, he and his regiment had got completely lost. They turned up in Moravia, where they wandered about for several days, after the manœuvres were all over.

Once at a banquet in the officers' club, when a conversation was started on the subject of Schiller, Colonel Kraus von Zillergut, without the slightest warning, held forth as follows :

"Well, gentlemen, yesterday I saw a steam plough, driven by an engine. Just imagine, gentlemen, an engine, or, rather, not one engine but two engines. I saw smoke, I went nearer, and there was an engine, and on the other side another one. Now, gentle-

men, don't you think that was ridiculous? Two engines, as if one wasn't enough."

He lapsed into silence, but after a moment announced :

"If the benzine gets used up, the motor car comes to a standstill. It must be so. I saw the thing happen yesterday. And then people talk a lot of twaddle about persistence of forces. Isn't it ridiculous?"

He was extremely devout. He often went to confession, and since the outbreak of the war he had prayed regularly for the success of Austria and Germany. He always flew into a temper when he read in the paper that more prisoners had been captured. He would bellow :

"What's the good of taking prisoners? Shoot the lot. No mercy. Pile up the corpses. Trample on 'em. Burn every damned civilian in Serbia alive. Every man Jack of 'em. And finish the babies off with bayonets."

Having finished his class work at the training school for volunteer officers, Lieutenant Lukash went for a walk with Max.

"I hope you don't mind me telling you, sir," said Schweik solicitously, "but you got to be careful with that dog, or he'll run away. I expect he's fretting a bit after his old home, and if you was to untie him, he might take his hook. And if I was you I wouldn't take him across Havlicek Square, because there's a butcher's dog always hanging about round there and he's a terror, he is. The minute he sees a strange dog on his beat, he gets that angry, thinking the other dog's going to sneak some of his grub. And he don't half bite."

Max frisked about merrily and got under the lieutenant's feet, entangling his leash in the officer's sword and altogether displaying extreme delight at being taken for a walk.

They went out into the street and Lieutenant Lukash made for the Prikopy. He had an appointment with a lady at the corner of Pańska Street. He was engrossed in official thoughts. What was he to lecture about to the volunteer officers the next day? How is the elevation of a given hill determined? Why is the elevation always measured above the sea level? How can the simple elevation of a hill from its base be determined from the elevation

above the sea level? Confound it, why on earth did the War Office include such rot in its syllabus? That's all very well for the artillery. Besides, there are the general staff maps. If the enemy is on Hill 312, there's no point in wondering why the elevation of the hill is measured above the sea level or in calculating how high it is. You just look at the map, and there you are."

He was disturbed from these reflections by a stern "Halt !" just as he was approaching Panskâ Street. At the same instant the dog tried to scuttle away from him, lead and all, and gleefully barking, it hurled itself upon the man who had shouted "Halt !"

The lieutenant found himself face to face with Colonel Kraus von Zillergut. He saluted and apologized to the Colonel for not having noticed him earlier.

"An officer of lower rank, sir," thundered Colonel Kraus, "must always salute officers of higher rank. That is a regulation which, I believe, is still in force. And there is another thing. Since when have officers been in the habit of promenading in the streets with stolen dogs? Yes, with stolen dogs, I said. A dog which belongs to someone else is a stolen dog."

"This dog, sir -" began Lieutenant Lukash.

"Belongs to me, sir," said the Colonel, interrupting him curtly. "That's my dog Fox."

And Fox alias Max remembered his old master, and completely repudiated his new one. He left Lieutenant Lukash in the lurch and began to jump up at the Colonel with every appearance of delight.

"To walk about with stolen dogs, sir, is incompatible with an officer's honour. You didn't know? An officer cannot purchase a dog unless he has convinced himself that he can do so without fear of any untoward consequences." Colonel Kraus continued to bellow as he stroked Max, who now basely began to snarl at the lieutenant and to show his teeth, as if saying to the Colonel : "Give it him hot!"

"Would you consider it right, sir," continued the Colonel, "to ride on a stolen horse? Didn't you read my advertisement in
Bohemia
and the
Prager Tageblatt
about the loss of my Pomeranian? You didn't read the advertisement that your superior officer put into the papers?"

The Colonel banged the fist of one hand into the palm of the other.

"Upon my word, what are these young officers coming to? Where's their sense of discipline? A colonel puts advertisements in the paper and they don't read them."

"By Jove, wouldn't I like to land him a couple across the jaw, the silly old buffer !" thought Lieutenant Lukash to himself as he looked at the Colonel's whiskers, which reminded him of an orang-outang.

"Just step this way a moment," said the Colonel. So they walked along together, engaged in a highly pleasant conversation:

"When you get to the front, you won't be able to get up to tricks of that sort. I've no doubt it's very nice to lounge about at the base and go for walks with stolen dogs. Oh yes ! With a dog belonging to your superior officer. At a time when we are losing hundreds of officers every day on the battle fields. And catch them reading advertisements. Not they! Why, damn it all, I might go on advertising for a hundred years that I've lost a dog. Two hundred years, three hundred years !"

The old colonel blew his nose noisily, which in his case was always a sign of great indignation, and said :

"You can continue your walk."

Whereupon he turned on his heel and departed, savagely slashing his riding whip across the ends of his greatcoat.

Lieutenant Lukash crossed the road, and there again he heard that yell of "Halt !" The Colonel had just stopped an unfortunate infantry reservist who was thinking of his mother and had not noticed him.