"Our battalion cannot win this world war all at once. Nihil nisi bene. The main thing for the conscientious historian like me is to draw up a plan of our victories. For example, here I describe how our battalion - this will perhaps be in two months' time - nearly crosses the Russian frontier, which is very strongly defended by, let's say, the Don regiments of the enemy, while a number of enemy divisions surround our positions. At first sight it looks like the enemy will make sausage-meat of us. But at this very moment Captain Sanger gives the following order to our battalion: "It's not the Lord's will that we should perish here. Let's flee." And so our battalion starts to flee, but when the enemy division, which has encircled us, sees that we are actually running after them, they begin to retreat in panic and fall into the hands of our army's reserves without firing a single shot. It is at this point really where the whole history of our battalion begins. From unimportant events, to speak like a prophet, Mr. Vanek, far reaching things develop. Our battalion goes from victory to victory. It will be interesting to read how it attacks the enemy while he is asleep. For this we obviously need the style of the Illustrated War News, which was published by Vilimek during the Russo-Japanese war. Well, as I said our battalion attacks the camp of the enemy while he is asleep. Each man of us seeks out an enemy and with all his force thrusts a bayonet into his chest. The finely sharpened bayonet goes through him like a knife through butter. Only here and there a rib cracks. The sleeping enemy jerk convulsively in their death spasms. For a moment they roll and goggle their eyes, but they are eyes which no longer see anything. Then they give their death rattle and their bodies stiffen. Bloody saliva appears on their lips, and with this it's all over and victory is on the side of our battalion. Or it will be even better in, say, three months' time, when our battalion captures the Tsar of Russia. But we'll talk about that later, Mr. Vanek. Meanwhile I must prepare in advance small episodes which testify to the battalion's unexampled heroism. I'll have to think out an entirely new war terminology for it. I've already invented one new term. I intend to write about the self-sacrificing resolution of our men, who are riddled through and through with splinters of shrapnel. As a result of an explosion of an enemy mine one of our sergeants, shall we say, of the 12th or 13th company, has his head blown off. 'By the way,' he said, hitting himself on the head, 'I nearly forgot, sergeant-major, or if we're to talk on civilian terms, Mr. Vanek, that you get me a list of all the officers and N.C.O.s. Give me the name of a sergeant-major of the 12th company. - Houska? Good. Houska now will have his head blown off by that mine. His head flies off, but his body still marches one or two steps forwards, takes aim and shoots down an enemy plane...."
The Good Soldier Svejk - FROM HATVAN TOWARDS THE GALICIAN FRONTIER
and...
"Or consider another case which happened on our street five or six years ago. A man called Mr. Karlik was living on the first floor. One story above lived a good man called Mikes who was a student at the conservatoire. He was very fond of women and among others began to run after the daughter of Mr. Karlik, who had a carriers' business and a confectionery shop as well as a bookbinding firm under a completely different name somewhere in Moravia. When Mr. Karlik learnt that the student was running after his daughter he went to see him in his flat and said to him: "You're not going to marry my daughter, you gutter snipe. I shan't give her to you!" "All right," Mr. Mikes replied, "if I can't marry her what do you expect me to do? Do you expect me to break myself in half?" Two months later Mr. Karlik called on him again and brought his wife with him. They both said to him with one accord: "You bastard, you've robbed our daughter of her honor." "Of course I have," he answered them. "I've taken the liberty of making a whore of her, madam." Then Mr. Karlik started shouting at him quite gratuitously that he'd told him that he must not marry her and that he wouldn't give her to him, but Mr. Mikes answered quite correctly that he was not going to marry her and that at that time they never discussed what he could do with her. There had been no bargaining about that. He would keep his word and they shouldn't worry as he wouldn't marry her. He was a man of character and not a straw in the wind. He would keep his word because when he said something it was sacred. And if he were persecuted for it it wouldn't matter to him because he had a clear conscience. His late mamma on her very deathbed had asked him to swear that he would never tell a lie in his life, and he had given her his hand of honor in promise and an oath like that was a valid one. In his family no one at all had told lies, and at school he had always the best marks for moral conduct. And so you can see from that that lots of things aren't allowed but yet can be done, and that "though our ways may be different, let our endeavors be the same."' |
