The Good Soldier Svejk (2 page)

"Sarajevo must be a rotten sort of place, eh, Mr. Palivec?"

Mr. Palivec was extremely cautious in answering this deceptively straightforward question :

"At this time of the year it's damned hot in Bosnia and Herzegovina. When I was in the army there, we always had to put ice on our company officer's head."

"What regiment did you serve in, Mr. Palivec?"

"I can't remember a little detail like that. I never cared a damn about the whole business, and I wasn't inquisitive about it," replied Mr. Palivec. "It doesn't do to be so inquisitive."

Bretschneider stopped talking once and for all, and his woebegone expression brightened up only on the arrival of Schweik who came in and ordered black beer with the remark :

"At Vienna they're in mourning to-day."

Bretschneider's eyes began to gleam with hope. He said curtly :

"There are ten black flags at Konopiste."

"There ought to be twelve," said Schweik, when he had taken a gulp.

"What makes you think it's twelve?" asked Bretschneider.

"To make it a round number, a dozen. That's easier to reckon out and things always come cheaper by the dozen," replied Schweik.

This was followed by a long silence, which Schweik himself interrupted with a sigh :

"Well, he's in a better land now, God rest his soul. He didn't live to be Emperor. When I was in the army, there was a general who fell off his horse and got killed as quiet as could be. They wanted to help him back on to his horse and when they went to lift him up, they saw he was stone dead. And he was just going

to be promoted to field marshal. It happened during an army inspection. No good ever comes of those inspections. There was an inspection of some sort or other at Sarajevo, too. I remember once at an inspection like that there was twenty buttons missing from my tunic and I got two weeks' solitary confinement for it, and I spent two days of it tied up hand and foot. But there's got to be discipline in the army, or else nobody'd care a rap what he did. Our company commander, he always used to say to us : 'There's got to be discipline, you thickheaded louts, or else you'd be crawling about like monkeys on trees, but the army'll make men of you, you thickheaded boobies.' And isn't it true? Just imagine a park and a soldier without discipline on every tree. That's what I was always most afraid of."

"That business at Sarajevo," Bretschneider resumed, "was done by the Serbs."

"You're wrong there," replied Schweik, "it was done by the Turks, because of Bosnia and Herzegovina."

And Schweik expounded his views of Austrian international policy in the Balkans. The Turks were the losers in 1912 against Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. They had wanted Austria to help them and when this was not done, they had shot Ferdinand.

"Do you like the Turks?" said Schweik, turning to Palivec. "Do you like that heathen pack of dogs? You don't, do you?"

"One customer's the same as another customer," said Palivec, "even if he's a Turk. People like us who've got their business to look after can't be bothered with politics. Pay for your drink and sit down and say what you like. That's my principle. It's all the same to me whether our Ferdinand was done in by a Serb or a Turk, a Catholic or a Moslem, an Anarchist or a young Czech Liberal."

"That's all well and good, Mr. Palivec," remarked Bretschneider, who had regained hope that one or other of these two could be caught out, "but you'll admit that it's a great loss to Austria."

Schweik replied for the landlord :

"Yes, there's no denying it. A fearful loss. You can't replace Ferdinand by any sort of tomfool. Still, he ought to have been a bit fatter."

"What do you mean?" asked Bretschneider, growing alert.

"What do I mean?" replied Schweik composedly. "Why, only just this: If he'd been fatter, he'd certainly have had a stroke earlier, when he chased the old women away at Konopiste, when they were gathering firewood and mushrooms on his preserves there, and then he wouldn't have died such a shocking death. When you come to think of it, for him, the Emperor's uncle, to get shot like that, oh, it's shocking, that it is, and the newspapers are full of it. But what I say is, I wouldn't like
to
be the Archduke's widow. What's she going to do now? Marry some other archduke? What good would come of that? She'd take another trip to Sarajevo with him and be left a widow for the second time. A good many years ago there was a gamekeeper at Zlim. He was called Pindour. A rum name, eh? Well, he was shot by poachers and left a widow with two children. A year later she married another gamekeeper from Mydlovary. And they shot him, too. Then she got married a third time and said : 'All good things go by threes. If this turns out badly, I don't know what I shall do.' Blessed if they didn't shoot him, too, and by that time she'd had six children with all those gamekeepers. So she went to the Lord of the Manor himself at Hluboka and complained of the trouble she'd had with the gamekeepers. Then she was advised to try Jares, a pond keeper. Well, you wouldn't believe it, but he got drowned while he was fishing and she'd had two children with him. Then she married a pig gelder from Vodnany and one night he hit her with an axe and gave himself up to the police. When they hanged him at the assizes in Pisek, he said he had no regrets and on top of that he passed some very nasty remarks about the Emperor."

"Do you happen to know what he said?" inquired Bretschneider in a hopeful voice.

"I can't tell you that, because nobody had the nerve to repeat it. But they say it was something pretty awful, and that one of the justices, who was in court at the time, went mad when he heard it, and they're still keeping him in solitary confinement so as it shouldn't get known. It wasn't just the ordinary sort of nasty remark like people make when they're drunk."

"What sort of nasty remarks about the Emperor do people make when they're drunk?" asked Bretschneider.

"Come, come, gentlemen, talk about something else," said the landlord, "that's the sort of thing I don't like. One word leads to another and then it gets you into trouble."

"What sort of nasty remarks about the Emperor do people make when they're drunk?" repeated Bretschneider.

"All sorts. Just you have too much to drink and get them to play the Austrian hymn and you'll see what you'll start saying. You'll think of such a lot of things about the Emperor that if only half of them were true, it'd be enough to disgrace him for the rest of his life. Not that the old gentleman deserves it. Why, look at it this way. He lost his son Rudolf at a tender age when he was in the prime of life. His wife was stabbed with a file ; then Johann Orth got lost and his brother, the Emperor of Mexico, was shot in a fortress up against a wall. Now, in his old age, they've shot his uncle. Things like that get on a man's nerves. And then some drunken chap takes it into his head to call him names. If war was to break out to-day, I'd go of my own accord and serve the Emperor to my last breath."

Schweik took a deep gulp and continued :

"Do you think the Emperor's going to put up with that sort of thing? Little do you know him. You mark my words, there's got to be war with the Turks. Kill my uncle, would you? Then take this smack in the jaw for a start. Oh, there's bound to be war. Serbia and Russia'll help us. There won't half be a bust-up."

At this prophetic moment Schweik was really good to look upon. His artless countenance, smiling like the full moon, beamed with enthusiasm. The whole thing was so utterly clear to him.

"Maybe," he continued his delineation of the future of Austria, "if we have war with the Turks, the Germans'll attack us, because the Germans and the Turks stand by each other. They're a low lot, the scum of the earth. Still, we can join France, because they've had a grudge against Germany ever since '71. And then there'll be lively doings. There's going to be war. I can't tell you more than that."

Bretschneider stood up and said solemnly :

"You needn't say any more. Follow me into the passage and there I'll say something to you."

Schweik followed the plainclothes policeman into the passage

where a slight surprise awaited him when his fellow-toper showed him his badge and announced that he was now arresting him and would at once convey him to the police headquarters. Schweik endeavoured to explain that there must be some mistake ; that he was entirely innocent ; that he hadn't uttered a single word capable of offending anyone.

But Bretschneider told him that he had actually committed several penal offences, among them being high treason.

Then they returned to the saloon bar and Schweik said to Mr. Palivec :

"I've had five beers and a couple of sausages with a roll. Now let me have a cherry brandy and I must be off, as I'm arrested."

Bretschneider showed Mr. Palivec his badge, looked at Mr. Palivec for a moment and then asked :

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"And can your wife carry on the business during your absence?"

"Yes."

"That's all right, then, Mr. Palivec," said Bretschneider breezily. "Tell your wife to step this way ; hand the business over to her, and we'll come for you in the evening."

"Don't you worry about that," Schweik comforted him. "I'm being run in only for high treason."

"But what about me?" lamented Mr. Palivec. "I've been so careful what I said."

Bretschneider smiled and said triumphantly :

"I've got you for saying that the flies left their trade-mark on the Emperor. You'll have all that stuff knocked out of your head."

And Schweik left The Flagon in the company of the plainclothes policeman. When they reached the street Schweik, fixing his good-humoured smile upon Bretschneider's countenance, inquired :

"Shall I get off the pavement?"

"How d'you mean?"

"Why, I thought now I'm arrested I mustn't walk on the pavement."

When they were passing through the entrance to the police headquarters, Schweik said :

"Well, that passed off very nicely. Do you often go to The Flagon?"

And while they were leading Schweik into the reception bureau, Mr. Palivec at The Flagon was handing over the business to his weeping wife, whom he was comforting in his own special manner :

"Now stop crying and don't make all that row. What can they do to me on account of the Emperor's portrait where the flies left their trade-mark?"

And thus Schweik, the good soldier, intervened in the World War in that pleasant, amiable manner which was so peculiarly his. It will be of interest to historians to know that he saw far into the future. If the situation subsequently developed otherwise than he expounded it at The Flagon, we must take into account the fact that he lacked a preliminary diplomatic training.

2.

Schweik, the Good Soldier, at the Police Headquarters.

The Sarajevo assassination had filled the police headquarters with numerous victims. They were brought in, one after the other, and the old inspector in the reception bureau said in his good-humoured voice: "This Ferdinand business is going to cost you dear." When they had shut Schweik up in one of the numerous dens on the first floor, he found six persons already assembled there. Five of them were sitting round the table, and in a corner a middle-aged man was sitting on a mattress as if he were holding aloof from the rest.

Schweik began to ask one after the other why they had been arrested.

From the five sitting at the table he received practically the same reply :

"That Sarajevo business." "That Ferdinand business." "It's all through that murder of the Archduke." "That Ferdinand affair." "Because they did the Archduke in at Sarajevo."

The sixth man who was holding aloof from the other five said that he didn't want to have anything to do with them because he didn't want any suspicion to fall on him. He was there only for attempted robbery with violence.

Schweik joined the company of conspirators at the table, who were telling each other for at least the tenth time how they had got there.

All, except one, had been caught either in a public house, a wineshop or a café. The exception consisted of an extremely fat gentleman with spectacles and tear-stained eyes who had been arrested in his own home because two days before the Sarajevo outrage he had stood drinks to two Serbian students, and had been observed by Detective Brix drunk in their company at the Montmartre night club where, as he had already confirmed by his signature on the report, he had again stood them drinks.