And indeed he fell blissfully asleep on the bed.
Then they woke him to offer him a mug of milk and a roll.
The roll was already cut up into little pieces and while one of the warders held both his arms, the other dipped the pieces of roll into the milk and fed him like a goose is fed on dumplings.
When they had finished feeding him, they took him under the arms and led him off to the W.C., where they asked him to perform his large and small bodily needs.
And Svejk talks with affection about this lovely moment too and I certainly do not need to reproduce his words describing what they did with him after that.
I will only mention that he said:
'One of them held me in his arms while I was doing it.'
When they brought him back, they put him to bed again and asked him once more to go to sleep.
But just as he had dozed off they woke him up and took him to the examination room, where, standing stark naked before two doctors, he was reminded of the glorious time when he was called up. The German word 'tauglich' or' fit for service' fell spontaneously from his lips.
'What are you saying?' asked one of the doctors.
'Take five paces forward and five to the rear.'
Svejk took ten.
'But I told you to take five,' said the doctor.
'A few paces more or less are all the same to me,' said Svejk.
After that the doctors asked him to sit down on a chair and one of them tapped him on the knee. Then he said to the other doctor that the reflexes were perfectly correct, whereupon the other shook his head and began to tap Svejk's knee himself, while the first doctor opened wide Svejk's eyelids and examined his pupils.
After that they went away to a table and let fall one or two expressions in Latin.
'Listen, can you sing?' one of them asked Svejk.
'Would you please sing us a song ? '
'With pleasure, gentlemen,' Svejk answered.
'I haven't any voice or musical ear, you know, but I'll have a shot. I'll do it to please you, if you want to be amused.'
And Svejk struck up:
'The little monk sat in the chair And scalding tears ran down his cheeks. Feverishly he tore his hair ...
'I'm afraid I don't know any more,' continued Svejk.
'If you like I can also sing you :
'Oh, 'tis heavy on my heart, My bosom heaves with leaden pain, As I sit here and gaze afar, To where I'm bound by love's sweet chain ... 'And I can't remember any more of that either,' sighed Svejk.
'I also know the first verse of
"Where is my home? "1 and
"General Windischgratz as the cock did crow". And a few folk songs too, like
"God save our Emperor and land",
"When we marched to Jaromer" and
"Hail to Thee, Holy Virgin, hail a thousand times" ...
The learned doctors exchanged glances, and one of them put the following question to Svejk:
'Have you ever had your mental condition examined?'
'In the army,' Svejk replied solemnly and proudly,
'I was officially certified by military doctors as a patent idiot.'
'I believe you're a malingerer!' the other doctor shouted at Svejk.
'What, me, gentlemen?' said Svejk, defending himself.' No, I assure you I'm no malingerer.
I'm a genuine idiot.
You only have to ask at Ceske Budcjovice or at the reserve command at Karlin.'
The elder of the two doctors waved his hand in a gesture of despair and pointing to Svejk said to the nurses:
'Give this man back his clothes and send him to the third class in the first corridor.
Then one of you come back and take all his papers to the office.
And tell them there to settle the case quickly, so that we don't have him round our necks for long.'
The doctors cast another devastating look at Svejk who backed deferentially to the door, bowing politely.
When one of the nurses asked him what nonsense he was up to now, he answered:
'As I'm not dressed, I'm naked and I wouldn't like to show these gentlemen anything, in case they should think me rude or vulgar.'
From the moment the nurses received orders to return Svejk's clothes to him, they no longer showed the slightest concern for him.
They told him to get dressed, and one of them took him to the third class where, during the few days it took the office to complete his discharge formalities, he had an opportunity of carrying on his agreeable observations.
The disappointed doctors gave him a certificate that he was a 'malingerer whose mind was affected', but as they discharged him before he was given any lunch it led to a minor scene.
Svejk declared that if they threw anyone out of a lunatic asylum they had no right to do so without giving him lunch.