'Don't cry, don't howl.
What can they do to me because of some shit on a picture of His Imperial Majesty?'
And thus it was that the good soldier Svejk intervened in the great war in his own sweet, charming way.
It will interest historians that he saw far into the future.
If the situation subsequently developed otherwise than he had expounded it at The Chalice we must bear in mind that he had never had any preparatory training in diplomacy.
2
The Good Soldier Svejk at Police Headquarters
The Sarajevo assassination had filled police headquarters with numerous victims.
They were brought in one after another, and the old inspector at the reception office said in his kindly tone:
'That Ferdinand is going to cost you dear.'
When they had locked Svejk up in one of the numerous cells on the first floor, he found six persons already assembled there.
Five of them were sitting round the table, and in a corner a middle-aged man was sitting on a bunk, as though trying to avoid the company of the others.
Svejk started asking them in turn why they had been arrested.
From the five sitting at the table he received almost exactly the same answer:
'Because of Sarajevo.'
'Because of Ferdinand.'
'Because of the murder of His Imperial Highness.'
'For Ferdinand.'
'Because they did away with His Imperial Highness at Sarajevo.'
The sixth, who was avoiding the company of the other five, said he did not want to have anything to do with them, in case any suspicion should fall on him. He was only detained here for attempted robbery with murder on a farmer Giles from Holice.
Svejk sat down at the table with the conspirators, who were recounting for at least the tenth time how they had got there.
All, except one, had been taken in a pub, a wine cellar or a cafe.
The exception was an unusually fat gentleman with glasses and tear-stained eyes, who had been arrested in his apartment, because two days before the murder at Sarajevo he had stood drinks to two Serbian students of engineering at the pub U Brejsky and had been seen by detective Brixi drunk in their company in Montmartre in Retezova Street where, as he had already confirmed by his signature on the police report, he had stood them drinks too.
In reply to all questions during the preliminary investigation at police headquarters he repeated the stereotyped moan:
'I keep a stationer's shop.'
Whereupon he received the equally stereotyped reply:
'That's no excuse.'
The short gentleman, who had been taken in the wine cellar, was a professor of history and was expounding to the landlord the history of various assassinations.
He was arrested at the very moment when he had completed a psychological analysis of every assassination and was saymg:
'The idea of an assassination is as simple as Columbus's egg.'
'Yes, just as simple as you're for Pankrac,' said the police inspector during the interrogation, capping his remark.
The third conspirator was the president of the charity organization Dobromil at Hodkovicky.
On the day the assassination took place Dobromil had organized a garden party with a concert.
The sergeant of the gendarmerie came to ask the public to go home, as Austria was in mourning, whereupon the president of Dobromil said good-naturedly:
'Just wait a moment until we have finished playing
"Hej Slovane".'
Now he was sitting there with bowed head and lamenting:
'In August we have new elections for the presidency.
If I'm not home by then I may not be elected.
It's the tenth time I'm president.
I'll never survive the shame.'
The late lamented Ferdinand played an odd trick on the fourth detainee, a man of sterling character and blameless reputation.
For two whole days he had avoided any talk about Ferdinand until in the evening in the cafe, while playing mari:i1P and trumping the king of spades with the seven of clubs, he said:
'Seven pips like at Sarajevo.'
The fifth man, who as he said himself was detained there' because of that murder of His Imperial Highness at Sarajevo', was so scared that his hair and beard were still standing on end and his head reminded one of a stable pinscher.
This man had not uttered a single word in the restaurant where he had been arrested. He had not even read the newspapers about the murder of Ferdinand and was sitting alone at the table, when a gentleman came up to him, sat down opposite him and said to him quickly:
'Have you read it?'
'No.'
'Do you know about it?'
'No.'