The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book(s) Three & Four
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Then the march battalion of the ninety-firsters was again rounded up and boarded, taking their places in the railroad cars. In a little while, however, the Battalion messenger Matušic returned from the railroad station Command Headquarters with the news that they’d be hauling out only after three more hours. Therefore once again the rank-and-file, gathered by the call, was released from the cars. Just before the departure a very upset Lieutenant Dub entered the staff car and was requesting that Captain Ságner have Švejk locked up without delay. Lieutenant Dub, the long since established and in his milieu as a Gymnasium professor well known informer enjoyed getting into conversation with soldiers, whereby he was searching for their convictions, and at the same time doing it so that he could teach them a lesson and explain why they were fighting, what they were fighting for.
During his rounds he saw Švejk in the back, behind the railroad station building, standing by a lantern, looking with interest over a poster of some charitable military lottery. That poster was depicting how an Austrian soldier was pinning a bug-eyed bearded Cossack to a wall. Lieutenant Dub tapped Švejk on the shoulder and asked him how he liked it. "I dutifully report, Lieutenant, Sir," answered Švejk, "that it is idiocy. I have already seen many numskully posters, but I haven’t seen such dumb beast crud yet." "What about it then you don’t like?" asked Lieutenant Dub. "What I don’t like, Lieutenant, Sir, about the poster is how that soldier handles the weapons he’s been entrusted with; com’on, he can break that bayonet against the wall, and then it is also altogether pointless, he would be punished for it because that Russian has his hands up and is surrendering. He is captive, and one has to treat prisoners of war decently because, dispute it in vain, but they are people too." Lieutenant Dub then kept on searching for Švejk’s views and asked him: "So then you feel sorry for that Russian, isn’t that so?" "I feel sorry, Lieutenant, Sir, for both, the Russian on one hand because he’s pierced through, and the soldier on the other hand because he’d be locked up for it. Look, Lieutenant, Sir, he must have broken the bayonet doing it, that’s to be disputed in vain, it sure looks like a stone wall where he’s ramming it, and steel is brittle. This one time, on active duty still before the war, let me tell you, Lieutenant, Sir, we had this one Mister lieutenant in the company. Even an old souper couldn’t express himself as that Mister lieutenant did. On the training ground he used to tell us: ‘When there is ‘attention’, then you must be bugging your eyes out like a tomcat does when he is shitting into chopped straw.’ But otherwise he was a very nice man. Once on Baby Jesus’ birthday he’d gone crazy, bought a whole wagon of coconuts for the whole company, and since that time I’ve known how brittle bayonets are. Half the company broke their bayonets against the nuts and our Lieutenant Colonel had the whole company locked up, we were not allowed out of the garrison for three months, Mister lieutenant was under house arrest . . ." Lieutenant Dub directed an upset look into the carefree face of the good soldier Švejk and asked him angrily: "Do you know me?" "I do know you, Lieutenant, Sir." Lieutenant Dub rolled his eyes and quickly stomped several times: "I’m telling you that you don’t know me yet." Švejk replied again with that carefree calm, as if giving a report: "I do know you, Lieutenant, Sir, you are, I dutifully report, from our march battalion." "You don’t know me yet," Lieutenant Dub was screaming once again, "You know me perhaps from the good side, but wait until you get to know me from the bad side. I am mean, don’t think to yourself otherwise, I’ll drive everyone to tears. So, do you know me or don’t you know me?" "I do, Lieutenant, Sir." "I am telling you for the last time that you don’t know me, you ass, Mister. Do you have any brothers?" "I dutifully report, Lieutenant, Sir, that I have only one." Lieutenant Dub got jolted with anger at the sight of Švejk’s calm, carefree face, and not being in control of himself anymore, he cried out: "Then he too, that brother of yours, must be as dumb a beast as you are. What was he?" "A professor, Lieutenant, Sir. He too was in the military and passed the officer exam." Lieutenant Dub looked at Švejk as if he wanted to pierce him through. Švejk withstood the mean look of Lieutenant Dub with dignified balance so that for the time being the whole discourse between him and the Lieutenant ended with the word ‘Fall out!" Each went his own way and each thought his own way.
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About the Book
This is the last volume of the The Fateful Adventures Of The Good Soldier Švejk During The World War containing Book Three and Book Four. Jaroslav Hašek planned to write six books but passed away before completing Book Four. That is why the book is considered unfinished. Yet, it can be argued the author, under pressure from his deteriorating health, indeed completed his thoughts and "closed the books" on the book that made him famous quite well.
About the Author
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In these "politically correct" times Jaroslav Hašek and his book have been charged at times by a few individuals as being antisemitic. The Hebrew translator of the work, Ruth Bondi, exclaimed in a phone conversation between Tel Aviv and Chicago in her native Czech: "To je hovadina!", "That is beastly crud!", a somewhat polite Czech equivalent of "That is B.S.!" "Ruth Bondi was born in Prague. . . .She came to Israel in 1948, after spending most of the war years in Ghetto Terezín, or Theresienstadt by its German name. When Bondi was a child, Hasek was practically forbidden literature; it was not allowed to poison children's minds with Švejk stories. It wasn't until she became resident of the Ghetto that she began to learn about the tremendous importance of Švejk. People in the Ghetto quoted Švejk all the time, and some could actually recite whole chapters by heart; the spirit of Švejk was so fitting to Ghetto life that one writer began to write the new adventures of Švejk in the Ghetto: He stands in the wrong line at city hall, has his ID stamped with the letter "J," and ends up in Terezín. The book was not completed as the writer died in the whereabouts of Auschwitz."from the Animal Review Makes the Scene: Švejk by Avner Shats |
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