This breach of the public peace was stopped by a police officer who had been summoned by the asylum porter and who took Svejk off to the police station in Salmova Street.
5
Svejk at the Police Station in Salmova Street
After Svejk's beautiful, sunny days in the asylum came hours full of persecution.
Police Inspector Braun set the scene for his meeting with Svejk with all the cruelty of Roman lictors in the time of the charming Emperor Nero.
With the same ruthlessness as they said:
'Throw this scoundrel of a Christian to the lions', Inspector Braun said:
'Put him behind bars.'
Not a word more or less, except that Inspector Braun's eyes shone with a peculiarly perverted lust. ?vejk bowed and said proudly:
'I'm ready, gentlemen.
I believe behind bars means the same as a prison cell, and that's not too bad.'
'Don't make yourself too much at home here,' answered the police officer, whereupon Svejk piped up:
'I'm quite modest and grateful for anything you do for me.'
In the cell a man was sitting on a plank-bed deep in thought.
He sat listlessly, and it was clear from his expression that when the key grated in the lock of the cell he did not believe that the door would open to set him free.
'My compliments, Your Honour,' said Svejk, sitting down beside him on the plank-bed.
'What time might it be?'
'Time is not my master,' the thoughtful man answered.
'It's not too bad here,' Svejk continued:
'They've at least planed the wood on this plank-bed.'
The solemn man made no reply. He stood up and began to rush about in the tiny space between the door and the bed, as if he were hurrying to save something.
In the meantime ?vejk observed with interest the writings scrawled upon the walls.
There was one inscription in which an unknown prisoner solemnly pledged to heaven a fight to the death with the police.
It read:
'You won't half catch it.'
Another prisoner had written:
'Buzz off, you cops.'
Another merely recorded the plain fact:
'I was locked up here on 5 June 1913 and wasn't too badly treated.
Josef Marecek, tradesman from Vr5ovice.'
And there was another inscription which was earth-shaking in its profundity:
'Have mercy, Almighty God ... ' And underneath:
'Kiss my a-.'
The letter 'a' had been crossed out however and instead was written in capitals: 'COAT TAILS'.
Beside it some poetical soul had written the lines:
'I sit in sorrow by the stream. The sun is hid behind the fells. I watch the radiant mountain tops, Where my best beloved dwells.' The man who was rushing between the door and the plank-bed as though he was trying to win a marathon race stopped and breathlessly resumed his seat. He plunged his head in his hands and suddenly screamed:
'Let me out!'
'No, they won't let me out,' he said to himself. 'They won't. They won't.
I've been here since six o'clock this morning.'
He then had a fit of expansiveness, stood up erect and asked Svejk:
'You don't by any chance have a strap on you, so that I can end it all?'
'That's something I can very gladly help you with,' answered Svejk, undoing his belt.
'I've never yet seen anyone hang himself on a strap in a prison cell. 'Only it's a nuisance that there's no hook here,' he went on, looking around him.
'The window latch won't bear your weight, unless you hang yourself kneeling by the plank-bed, like the monk did in the Emmaus monastery, when he hanged himself on a crucifix because of a young Jewess.
I'm very fond of suicides, so just carry on. Well begun is half done.'
The gloomy man, into whose hands Svejk had pushed the strap, gave it one look, threw it into the corner and burst out crying, smearing his tears with his black hands and shrieking out:
'I've got little children! I'm here for drunkenness and immoral practices. My God, my poor wife, what will they say to me in the office?
I've got little children! I'm here for drunkenness and immoral practices' etc. etc. ad infinitum.
At last, however, he calmed down a little, went to the door and began to kick it and pound it with his fists.
From behind the door could be heard steps and a voice: