'Don't make a scandal,' Svejk rebuked him. 'Stop or else everyone will say you're tight.'
'I haven't touched a drop, old man,' answered the chaplain,
'I'm completely sober.'
But suddenly he stood up, saluted, and said in German:
'Humbly report, sir, I'm sozzled.
'I'm a filthy hog,' he repeated ten times in succession in hopeless and sincere despair.
And turning to Svejk he persistently begged and entreated:
'Throw me out of the car.
Why are you taking me with you?'
He sat clown again and muttered:
'Rings are forming round the moon. Captain, do you believe in the immortality of the soul?
Can a horse get to heaven?'
He started to laugh aloud, but in a moment again grew sad and looked apathetically at Svejk, saying:
'Excuse me, sir, I've seen you somewhere before.
Were you ever in Vienna?
I remember you from the seminary.'
He amused himself for a while by reciting Latin verses:
'Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo ...
'I can't go on,' he said.
'Throw me out.
Why won't you throw me out?
I won't do anything to myself.
'I want to fall on my nose,' he announced in a resolute tone.
'Sir,' he continued again imploringly, 'dear old man, give me one across the jaw.'
'One or several?' asked Svejk.
'Two?
Here you are .. .' " The chaplain counted the blows aloud as they came, beaming blissfully all the time. 'That does one a lot of good,' he said.
'It helps the stomach and promotes the digestion.
Give me another one.' 'Thank you very much,' he called, when Svejk immediately obliged him.
'I'm completely satisfied.
Tear open my waistcoat please.'
He expressed the most varied wishes.
He wanted Svejk to dislocate his leg, to throttle him for a bit, to cut his nails and to pull out his front teeth.
He exhibited yearnings for martyrdom, asking him to cut off his head and throw him in a sack into the Vltava.
'Some stars round my head would suit me very well,' he said with enthusiasm. 'I should need ten.'
1 Then he began to speak about the races and quickly went over to the ballet, which however did not detain him for long either.
'Do you dance the czardas?' he asked Svejk.
'Do you know the bear dance ?
Like this .. .'
He tried to jump in the air but fell on Svejk, who began to box him and then laid him out on the seat.
'I want something,' shouted the chaplain, 'but I don't know what.
Don't you know what I want?'
He hung his head in complete resignation.
'What business of mine is it what I want?' he said solemnly.
'And it's no business of yours either, is it, sir?
I don't know you.
How dare you rebuke me?
Do you know how to fence?'
For a moment he became more aggressive and tried to push Svejk off the seat.
Then when Svejk had calmed him down and had not scrupled to give him a taste of his physical superiority, the chaplain asked: