You've got a villa at Zbraslav.
And you can go by steamer on the Vltava.
Do you know what the Vltava is?'
Svejk forced him to take off his boots and undress.
The chaplain obeyed with a protest directed to some unknown persons.
'You see, gentlemen,' he said to the cupboard and to the ficus, 'how my relations treat me.
'I don't know my relations,' he suddenly decided, getting into bed.
'Even if heaven and earth were to conspire against me, I don't know them ... ' And the room resounded with his snoring.
IV
It was during these days that Svejk went to visit his old charwoman, Mrs Muller.
In hi:> apartment Svejk found her cousin, who told him in tears that Mrs Muller had been arrested the same evening that she pushed Svejk off to the war in a bathchair.
They had courtmartialled the old lady and, finding no evidence against her, had taken her off to a concentration camp at Steinhof.
A card had already come from her.
Svejk took this precious household relic and read: Dear Aninka, We are enjoying ourselves very much here. We are all well.
The woman in the next bed to me has spotted ---and also there are here people with small---. Otherwise everything is in order.
We have plenty to eat and collect potato---for soup. I have heard that Mr Svejk is ah ·eady --- so find out somehow, where he is laid, so that after the war we can decorate his grave.
I forgot to tell you that in the righthand corner in the attic there is a little dog in a box, a miniature pinscher puppy.
But he hasn't had anything to eat for several weeks, ever since they came to fetch me because of--.- So I suppose that it's already too late and the little dog is also resting with --.
And across the whole letter there was a pink stamp in German:
'Censored, Imperial and Royal Concentration Camp, Steinhof.'
'And the little dog was really dead,' sobbed Mrs Muller's cousin, 'and you'd never recognize your apartment either.
I've got some dressmakers lodging there.
And they've turned it into a real lady's fashion parlour.
Everywhere there are fashion pictures on the walls and flowers in the windows.'
Mrs Muller's cousin was not to be comforted.
Amid continuous sobbing and lamentations she finally expressed the fear that Svejk had deserted from the army and wanted to ruin her too and bring her into misery.
Finally she spoke to him as though he were an infamous adventurer.
'That's really priceless,' said Svejk.
'I really love that.
And let me tell you, Mrs Kejr, that you are absolutely right about my getting out.
I had to kill fifteen sergeants and sergeant-majors.
But don't tell anybody .. .'
And Svejk left his home, which was so unwelcoming to him, saying:
'Mrs Kejr, I've got some collars and shirt-fronts at the laundry. Please fetch them for me so that when I come back from the war I'll have some mufti to put on.
And please see too that the moths don't get at my suits in the wardrobe.
And give my love to those young ladies who are sleeping in my bed.'
And then Svcjk went to pay a visit to The Chalice.
When Mrs Palivec saw him she declared that she wouldn't serve him, as he had probably deserted.
'My husband,' she started the same old gramophone record, 'was so careful and he's there; he's locked up, poor dear, all for nothing. And people like you arc free to roam about and desert from the army.
They were looking for you here again only last week. 'We are more cautious than you,' she concluded, 'and all the same we're in the soup.
Not everyone has your luck.'
This conversation was overheard by an elderly man, a locksmith from Smichov, who came up to Svejk and said:
'Excuse me, sir, do you mind waiting for me outside? I've got something to talk to you about.'
In the street he talked confidentially to Svejk, believing him to be a deserter on the basis of Mrs Palivec's opinion.
He told him that he had a son, who had deserted too and was with his grandmother at Jasenmi near Josefov.
Disregarding Svejk's assurances that he was not a deserter, he pressed a twenty-crown piece into his hand.
'That's a bit of first aid,' he said, dragging him into a wine restaurant at the corner.
'I understand you. You don't need to be afraid of me.'
Svejk returned late at night to the chaplain who had not yet come home.
He did not come till next morning, when he woke up Svejk and said: