He's not a horse and he's not in a stable.
He's in the Temple of the Lord. Let me tell you that, ducks. Now then, where was I?
Yes,' he continued in German, 'about peace in your souls. Very good.
Bear in mind, you cattle, that you're human beings and that you must look through the dark clouds into the wide spaces and know that everything here lasts only for a moment, while God is for eternity.
Very good, wasn't it, gentlemen?' (He lapsed into German again.)
'I ought to pray for you day and night, that merciful God, you bloody imbeciles, may infuse your cold hearts with His spirit and wash away your sins with His holy mercy, that you may be His for evermore and that He may love you for ever, you blackguards. But that's just where you're wrong.
I'm not going to lead you into paradise.'
The chaplain hiccoughed.
'No, I won't,' he repeated obstinately.
'I won't do anything for you.
I wouldn't dream of it, because you are incorrigible scum.
On your ways you will not be guided by the grace of the Lord, the breath of God's love will not be wafted on to you, because the Lord would not dream of having anything to do with such twisters as you. Do you hear that, you down there below in those pants?'
Twenty pairs of pants looked up and said as with one voice:
'Humbly report, sir, we hear.'
'It's not enough just to hear,' the chaplain continued.
'Dark is the cloud of life and God's smile will not take away your woe, you bloody apes, for God's goodness has its bounds too.
And don't choke yourself, you bounder at the back there, or I'll have you locked up until you're black in the face! And you down there, don't think that you're in the tap room!
God is supremely merciful, but only to decent people and not to the scum of human society who won't be guided by His laws or by service regulations.
That's what I wanted to tell you.
You don't know how to pray, and you think that going to chapel is some kind of entertainment like being at a theatre or cinema.
But I'll knock that out of your heads so that you don't think that I'm here to amuse you and bring pleasure to your lives.
I'll send each one of you into solitary confinement, that's what I'll do, you sods.
I'm wasting my time on you and I see it's all quite useless.
If the field marshal himself or the archbishop had been here you wouldn't reform, you wouldn't incline to the Lord.
But all the same one of these days you'll remember how I was trying to do you some good.'
Among the twenty pants a sob could be heard.
It was Svejk, who had burst into tears.
The chaplain looked down.
There stood Svejk rubbing his eyes with his fist.
Round him were signs of gleeful appreciation.
Pointing to Svejk the chaplain continued: 'Let every one of you take an example from this man.
What is he doing?
He's crying.
Don't cry, I tell you, don't cry!
Do you want to reform?
That's not so easy for you, my lad.
You're crying now, but when you go back to your cell you'll be just as big a bastard as you were before.
You'll have to think a lot about the unending grace and mercy of God. You'll have to work hard to see that your sinful soul finds the right path to tread in this world. Just now we saw a man who wants to be reformed bursting into tears. And what do the rest of you do?
Nothing at all.
Over there someone's chewing something, as though his parents had been ruminants, and over there they're searching for lice in their shirts in the Temple of the Lord.
Can't you do your scratching at home?
Must you reserve it just for the divine service?
And, Staff Warder, you never notice anything either.
After all, you're all soldiers and not a lot of half-witted civilians. You've got to behave as befits soldiers even if you're in a church.
For Christ's sake, get on with searching for God, and do your searching for lice at home.
That's all I've got to say, you gutter-snipes, and I request you to behave yourselves at Mass, so that it doesn't happen as it did last time, when people in the back rows were bartering government linen for bread and then gorging it during the elevation of the Host.'
The chaplain came down from the pulpit and went off to the vestry, followed by the staff warder.
After a while the staff warder came out, went straight up to Svejk, pulled him out of the group of twenty pants and led him away to the vestry.
The chaplain was sitting very comfortably on a table and rolling a cigarette.
When Svejk came in, the chaplain said: