The Good Soldier Svejk

by Jaroslav Hasek

  "I'm surprised you have no crucifix hanging here. Where do you pray from your breviary? Why, not the single image of a

  * * *

  saint adorns the walls of your room. What's that you've got above the bed?"

  Katz smiled.

  "That's Susanna in the Bath, and the naked female underneath is an old friend of mine. On the right is a bit or Japanese art representing a geisha in bed with an old samurai. An uncommon little thing, isn't it? My breviary's in the kitchen. Schweik, bring it here and open it at page 3."

  Schweik departed, and from the kitchen could be heard the popping of a cork, three times in succession.

  The pious chaplain was aghast when three bottles made their appearance on the table.

  "That's light sacramental wine, my dear fellow," said Katz. "First-rate quality. The flavour is something like Moselle."

  "I have no intention of drinking," announced the pious chaplain obdurately. "I have come to take you seriously to task."

  "You'll find that a dry job, my dear fellow," said Katz. "Have a drink and I'll listen. I'm a very tolerant person and quite capable of seeing the other man's point of view."

  The pious chaplain took a sip and his eyes started out of his head.

  "A deuced good drop of wine, eh, my dear fellow?" said Katz.

  The pious chaplain said coldly :

  "I observe that you are in the habit of using profane language."

  "That's just a habit," replied Katz. "Sometimes I actually catch myself being blasphemous. Schweik, fill up his Reverence's glass. I wouldn't mind betting that when you've been in the army as long as I have, you'll do the same. Drink up, my dear fellow."

  The former catechist sipped mechanically. It was evident that he wanted to say something, but could not. He was collecting his thoughts.

  "My dear fellow," continued Katz, "cheer up; don't look so down in the mouth, as if you were going to be hanged in five minutes. Drink up. That's it. Do you feel better now? Tell me, do you hold progressive views about hell? Are you keeping abreast of the spirit of the age? You know the idea. Instead of the usual cauldrons of sulphur for miserable sinners, there are Papin's di-

  * * *

  gesters and high-tension boilers, the sinners are fried in margarine, the spits are driven by electricity, steam rollers squash the sinners flat for millions of years at a time, the gnashing of teeth effect is produced by dentists with special apparatus, the wailing is reproduced by gramophone and the records are sent up to paradise to amuse the righteous. In paradise there are appliances for spraying eau de Cologne and the Philharmonic Orchestra plays Brahms for such a length of time that you'd rather be in hell or purgatory. Drink up, my dear fellow. Schweik, give him some cognac. He doesn't seem to be well."

  When the pious chaplain had recovered himself somewhat, he whispered :

  "Religion is a matter for solemn deliberation. If a man does not believe in the Holy Trinity -"

  "Schweik," said Katz, interrupting him, "give his Reverence another glass of cognac to bring him round."

  The pious chaplain saw spots before his eyes and he restored himself with another glass of cognac, which went to his head. Blinking his eyes, he asked Katz :

  "Don't you believe in the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary? Don't you even believe in God? And if you don't believe, why are you an army chaplain?"

  "My dear fellow," replied Katz, slapping him familiarly on the back, "the government has decided that soldiers need God's blessing before proceeding to die in battle, and as an army chaplain's job is a decently paid occupation which doesn't involve overwork, I find it a jolly sight better than running about on parade grounds or going to manœuvres. I used to get orders from my superiors, but now I do what I like. I represent someone who doesn't exist and I'm a little tin god all on my own. If I don't choose to forgive a man his sins, why, I just don't, even if he begs me on his bended knees. I'm bound to say that there's precious few of 'em who'd go to those lengths."

  "I'm fond of God," announced the pious chaplain, beginning to hiccough. "I'm very fond of Him. Give me a little wine.

  "I respect God," he then continued. "I respect and esteem Him highly. There's nobody I respect as much as Him."

  * * *

  He brought his fist down on the table and made the bottles rattle.

  "God," he said, "is a sublime, a super-terrestrial being. He is honourable in all His ways. He is a radiant phenomenon—nobody will ever persuade me of the contrary. I respect St. Joseph, too ; in fact, I respect all the saints, except St. Serapion. He's got such an ugly name."

  "He ought to apply to have it altered," suggested Schweik.

  "I'm fond of St. Ludmilla and St. Bernard," continued the ex-catechist. "He's saved lots of travellers on the St. Gothard. He carries a bottle of cognac round his neck and searches for people who've got lost in the snow."

  The entertainment now took a new turn. The pious chaplain began to talk at random.

  "I esteem the innocents. Their feast day is on December 28th. I detest Herod. If a hen sleeps, you can't get newly-laid eggs."

  He burst out laughing and began to sing : " 'God the holy, God the mighty.' " But he immediately broke off and, turning to Katz, asked him sternly, as he stood up :

  "You don't believe that we celebrate the ascension of the Virgin Mary on August 15th?"

  The entertainment was now in full swing. Further bottles made their appearance and from time to time the voice of Katz was heard :

  "Say you don't believe in God, or I won't fill up your glass any more."

  It looked as if the persecution of the Early Christians had been resumed. The ex-catechist was warbling a song about the martyrs in the Roman arena, and then yelled :

  "I believe in the Lord God, I will not deny Him. Let me have my wine. I can send for some myself."

  At last they put him to bed. Before he fell asleep, he raised his right hand, as if he were taking an oath, and declared :

  "I believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Bring me a breviary."

  Schweik shoved into his hand some book or other, the result being that the pious chaplain went to sleep with Boccaccio's Decameron in his arms.

  * * *

  13.

  Schweik Administers Extreme Unction.

  Otto Katz sat meditating upon a circular which he had just brought from the barracks. It was a set of instructions from the War Office :

  For the duration of the war the Minister of War cancels the regulations hitherto in force concerning the administration of extreme unction to the troops and issues the following instructions to army chaplains:

  1. Extreme unction is abolished at the front.

  2. Troops who are seriously ill or wounded are not permitted to proceed to the base for the purpose of extreme unction. Army chaplains are obliged to hand such persons over immediately to the appropriate military authorities for further action.

  * * *

  3. In military hospitals at the base extreme unction can be administered collectively on the basis of an M. O.'s certificate, as long as such extreme unction is not in the nature of an encumbrance to the military body concerned.

  4. In special cases the O. C. military hospitals at the base can allow individuals to receive extreme unction.

  5. Army chaplains are obliged, if called upon by the O. C. military hospitals at the base, to administer extreme unction to individuals designated by the commanding officer.

  The Chaplain then once more read the communication informing him that on the next day he was to proceed to the military hospital in Charles Square for the purpose of administering extreme unction to the seriously wounded.

  "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 Sch
weik. "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 Schw
eik, 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.