The Good Soldier Svejk Read Online Free PDF

the sacristy, thinking it was the kitchen, and lay down on the altar, thinking he was at home in bed and he covered himself over with some of those counterpanes with scripture texts on them and he put the gospel and other sacred books under his head to keep it propped up. In the morning the verger found him and when he came to his senses, he told him in quite a cheerful sort of way that it was a mistake. 'A fine mistake,' said the verger, 'seeing as now we've got to have the church consecrated all over again because of it.' And here's another example I can give you of a mistake made by a police dog at Kladno. A wolf hound belonging to a Sergeant Roter, whom I daresay you've heard of. This Sergeant Roter used to train these dogs and make experiments on tramps, till at last all the tramps began to give the
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    Kladno district a wide berth. So he gave orders that the gendarmes must run in any suspicious person at all costs. Well, one day they ran in a fairly well-dressed man whom they found sitting on the stump of a tree in the woods. They at once snipped off a piece of his coat tails and let the police dogs have a sniff at it. Then they took the man into a brick works outside the town and let the trained dogs follow his tracks. The dogs found him and brought him back. Then the man had to climb a ladder into an attic, vault over a wall, jump into a pond, with the dogs after him. In the end it turned out that the man was a Czech radical M. P. who had taken a trip to the woods, through being so sick and tired of parliament. That's why I say that people have their failings, they make mistakes, whether they're learned men or just damned fools who don't know any better. Why, even cabinet ministers can make mistakes."
    The commission of medical authorities which had to decide whether Schweik's standard of intelligence did, or did not, conform to all the crimes with which he was charged, consisted of three extremely serious gentlemen with views which were such that the view of each separate one of them differed considerably from the views of the other two.
    They represented three distinct schools of thought with regard to mental disorders.
    If in the case of Schweik a complete agreement was reached between these diametrically opposed scientific camps, this can be explained simply and solely by the overwhelming impression produced upon them by Schweik who, on entering the room where his state of mind was to be examined and observing a picture of the Austrian ruler hanging on the wall, shouted : "Gentlemen, long live our Emperor, Franz Josef the First."
    The matter was completely clear. Schweik's spontaneous utterance made it unnecessary to ask a whole lot of questions, and there remained only some of the most important ones, the answers to which were to corroborate Schweik's real opinion, thus :
    "Is radium heavier than lead?"
    "I've never weighed it, sir," answered Schweik with his sweet smile.
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    "Do you believe in the end of the world?"
    "I have to see the end of the world first," replied Schweik in an offhand manner, "but I'm sure it won't come my way tomorrow."
    "Could you measure the diameter of the globe?"
    "No, that I couldn't, sir," answered Schweik, "but now I'll ask you a riddle, gentlemen. There's a three-storied house with eight windows on each story. On the roof there are two gables and two chimneys. There are two tenants on each story. And now, gentlemen, I want you to tell me in what year the house porter's grandmother died?"
    The medical authorities looked at each other meaningly, but nevertheless one of them asked one more question :
    "Do you know the maximum depth of the Pacific Ocean?"
    "I'm afraid I don't, sir," was the answer, "but it's pretty sure to be deeper than what the river is just below Prague."
    The chairman of the commission curtly asked, "Is that enough?" But one member inquired further:
    "How much is 12897 times 13863?"
    "729," answered Schweik without moving an eyelash.
    "I think that's quite