The Good Soldier Svejk (29 page)

1.

Schweik's Misadventures on the Train.

There were three passengers in a second-class compartment of the Prague-Budejovice express. Lieutenant Lukash, opposite whom an elderly and entirely bald gentleman was sitting, and Schweik, who was standing modestly in the corridor and was just preparing to listen to a fresh storm of abuse from Lieutenant Lukash, who, regardless of the presence of the bald-headed civilian, kept yelling at Schweik throughout the journey that he was a God-forsaken idiot and similar things.

The cause of the trouble was a trifling matter, a slight discrepancy in the number of pieces of luggage that Schweik was looking after.

"One of our trunks has been stolen, you say," snarled the lieutenant at Schweik. "That's a fine thing to tell anyone, you jackass."

"Beg to report, sir," announced Schweik softly, "it has been stolen, all the same. There's a lot of crooks knocking about at railway stations, and I expect one of them most likely took a fancy to your trunk and then he most likely took advantage of my back being turned when I left the luggage to come and tell you that the luggage was all right. He must have pinched that trunk just at a moment when the coast was clear. They're always on the look-out for a chance like that. Two years ago, at the North-Western station, they stole a young lady's perambulator with a baby girl wrapped up inside, and they went and handed the baby over at the police station in our street, where they said they'd found it left in a doorway. And then the papers called that poor young lady an inhuman monster."

And Schweik declared with emphasis :

"People always have pinched things at railway stations and they always will. You just can't get away from it."

"It strikes me, Schweik," observed the lieutenant, "that you'll come to a very bad end. I still can't make out whether you only act the fool or whether you were born a fool. What was in that trunk?"

"Nothing at all, sir," replied Schweik, with his eyes glued to the bald head of the civilian, who was sitting opposite to the lieutenant, and who appeared to be taking no interest whatever in the matter, but was reading the
Neue Freie Press.
"All that was in that trunk was a looking glass from the bedroom and an iron clothes hanger from the passage, so that we didn't really lose anything, because the looking glass and the hanger belonged to the landlord."

Seeing the lieutenant make a very wry face, Schweik continued in an affable tone :

"Beg to report, sir, that I never knew beforehand that they'd pinch that trunk, and as regards the looking glass and the hanger, I sent word to the landlord that we'd let him have them back when we come home from the war. There's plenty of looking glasses

and hangers in the enemy countries, so we needn't be out of pocket with the landlord. As soon as we take a town -"

"Shut up, Schweik," the lieutenant shouted. "I'll deal with you when we get to Budejovice. Do you know I'm going to have you locked up?"

"Beg to report, sir, I don't," said Schweik blandly. "You never mentioned anything to me about it before, sir."

The lieutenant gritted his teeth, sighed, took a copy of the
Bohemia
from his pocket and began to read news about great victories, the exploits of the German submarine "E" in the Mediterranean, and when he had come to a report about a new German invention for blowing cities up by means of special triple detonating bombs dropped from aeroplanes, he was interrupted by the voice of Schweik, who was addressing the bald-headed gentleman:

"Excuse me, guv'nor, but ain't you Mr. Purkrâbek, agent of the Slavia Bank?"

When the bald-headed gentleman made no reply, Schweik said to the lieutenant :

"Beg to report, sir, I once read in the paper that the average man has 60,000 to 70,000 hairs on his head and that many examples show black hair is thinner as a rule."

And he continued remorselessly :

"Then there was a doctor who said that loss of hair was due to mental disturbance during confinements."

But now a dreadful thing happened. The bald-headed gentleman jumped toward Schweik and shouted :
"Marsch heraus, du Schweinskerl
,"
¹
and having hustled him into the corridor, returned to the carriage, where he gave the lieutenant a little surprise by introducing himself.

Evidently there had been a mistake. The bald-headed man was not Mr. Purkrâbek, agent of the Slavia Bank, but merely Major-General von Schwarzburg. The major-general was just proceeding in mufti on a series of garrison inspections and was now about to pay a surprise visit to Budejovice.

He was the most fearsome inspector general who had ever

¹
"Get out of it, you dirty swine."

walked the earth, and if he found anything amiss, the following dialogue would ensue between him and the garrison commandant:

"Have you got a revolver?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then. If I were in your place, I'd know what to do with it. This isn't a garrison, it's a pigsty."

And, as a matter of fact, there were always a certain number who shot themselves after one of his inspections, whereupon Major-General von Schwarzburg would always observe with satisfaction :

"That's the style ! That's what I call a soldier."

It looked as if he disliked anyone to remain alive after his inspection. He had a mania for transferring officers to the most unpleasant places. On the slightest pretext, an officer was already saying good-bye to his garrison and was on his way to the frontiers of Montenegro or to some drink-sodden, forlorn outpost in the filthy wilds of Galicia.

He now said to Lieutenant Lukash :

"Where did you attend the cadet school?"

"At Prague."

"So you attended a cadet school and are not aware that an officer is responsible for his subordinate? That's a nice state of affairs. And then you carry on a conversation with your orderly as if he were a close friend of yours. You allow him to talk without being asked. That's an even nicer state of affairs. In the third place, you allow him to insult your superior officers. And that caps all. What is your name?"

"Lukash."

"And what regiment are you in?"

"I was -"

"I'm not asking where you were but where you are."

"In the 91st regiment, sir. They transferred me -"

"Oh, they transferred you, did they? Quite right, too. It won't do you any harm to get to the front as soon as possible with the 91st regiment."

"That's already settled, sir."

The major-general now held a lecture about how, of recent

years, he had observed that officers talk to their subordinates in a familiar manner and this he held to be a dangerous tendency, inasmuch as it promoted the spread of democratic principles. The private soldier must keep himself to himself, he must tremble before his superior officer, he must fear him. Officers must keep the rank-and-file at a distance of ten paces from them and not allow them to think independently or, indeed, to think at all. There was a time when officers put the fear of God into the rank-and-file, but nowadays -.

The major-general made a hopeless gesture with his hand.

"Nowadays the majority of officers absolutely coddle the rank-and-file. That's all I wanted to say."

The major-general picked up his newspaper again and engrossed himself in it. Lieutenant Lukash, as white as a sheet, went out into the corridor to settle accounts with Schweik.

He found him by the window, looking as blissful and contented as a baby a month old who has drunk its fill and is now dropping off to sleep.

The lieutenant stopped, beckoned to Schweik and pointed to an empty compartment. He entered at Schweik's heels and closed the door.

"Schweik," he said solemnly, "the time has now come for you to get the biggest hiding on record. What on earth did you interfere with that bald-headed gentleman for? Do you know that's Major-General von Schwarzburg?"

"Beg to report, sir," announced Schweik, with the air of a martyr, "never in my life have I had the least intention of insulting anyone and it's news to me about him being a major-general. As true as I stand here, he's the living image of Mr. Purkrâbek, agent of the Slavia Bank. He used to come to our pub and once, when he fell asleep at a table, some joker wrote on his bald head with a copying-ink pencil : 'Please note our scheme for safeguarding your children's future as per schedule IIIc enclosed.' Well, they all cleared off, and I was left alone with him, and it was just my luck that when he woke up and saw himself in the glass, he didn't half get ratty and he wanted to give me a good hiding, too."

The word "too" glided with such a touchingly gentle accent of

reproach from Schweik's lips that the lieutenant let his arm drop.

But Schweik continued :

"There was no need for that gentleman to get into such a wax over a little mistake like that. It's an absolute fact he's supposed to have 60,000 to 70,000 hairs, like the average man has, just as the article said. It never struck me there was such a thing as a bald-headed major-general. Well, that's what they call a tragic mistake, the same as anybody might make when he passes a remark and somebody else takes it in a wrong way without giving him a chance to explain. I used to know a tailor who -"

Lieutenant Lukash gave one more look at Schweik and then left the compartment. He returned to his former seat, and after a few minutes Schweik's guileless countenance appeared in the doorway :

"Beg to report, sir, we'll be at Tâbor in five minutes. The train stops there for five minutes. Wouldn't you care to order a little snack of something? Years and years ago they used to have very good -"

The lieutenant jumped up furiously and in the corridor he said to Schweik :

"Let me tell you once more that the less I see of you, the better I shall like, it. If I had my way I'd never set eyes on you again, and you can take it from me that I won't if I can damn well help it. Don't let me see anything of you. Keep out of my sight, you blithering jackass, you."

"Very good, sir."

Schweik saluted, turned smartly to the right-about, in the military manner, and then went to the end of the corridor, where he sat down in a corner on the guard's seat and entered into a conversation with a railwayman.

"There's a question I'd like to ask you, boss."

The railwayman, who evidently was in no mood for conversation, nodded listlessly.

"I used to know a chap named Hofmann," began Schweik, "and he always made out that these alarm signals never act, what I mean to say, that nothing would happen if you pulled this handle. To tell you the honest truth, I never gave the matter another

thought, but as soon as I spotted this alarm outfit here, I thought I'd like to know what's what like, in case I should ever need it."

Schweik stood up and accompanied the railwayman to the alarm brake marked : "In case of danger."

The railwayman considered it his duty to explain to Schweik exactly what the alarm mechanism consisted of.

"He was right when he said you've got to pull this here handle, but he was kidding you when he made out it don't act. The train always stops, because this is connected with all the carriages and the engine. The alarm brake has to act."

While he was saying this, they both had their hands on the handle of the lever and then—how it happened must remain a mystery—they pulled it and the train stopped.

They were quite unable to agree as to who had actually done it and made the alarm signal work.

Schweik declared that he couldn't have done it, not being a guttersnipe.

"It's a fair marvel to me," he said good-humouredly to the guard, "why the train stopped so sudden. It was going, then all at once it stopped. I'm more upset about it than what you are."

A solemn gentleman took the guard's part and said he'd heard the soldier start a conversation about alarm signals.

On the other hand, Schweik kept harping upon his good name and insisted that it was no advantage to him for the train to be late, because he was on his way to the front.

"The station master'll tell you all about it," declared the guard. "This'll cost you twenty crowns."

Meanwhile the passengers could be seen climbing down from the carriages, the head guard blew a whistle, and a lady in a panic started running with a portmanteau across the railway track into the fields.

"It's well worth twenty crowns, that it is," said Schweik stolidly, maintaining complete composure. "It's cheap at the price."

Just then the head guard joined the audience.

"Well, it's about time we made a move," said Schweik. "It's a nuisance when a train's late. If it was in peace time it wouldn't matter so much, but now that there's a war on, all the trains are carrying troops, major-generals, lieutenants, orderlies. It's a

risky business being late like that. Napoleon was five minutes late at Waterloo and, emperor or no emperor, he got himself into a mess just the same."

At this moment Lieutenant Lukash pushed his way through the group. He was ghastly pale and all he could utter was the word"Schweik!"

Schweik saluted and explained :