'Allow me to repeat once more, that the word "hope" is a great strength to man in his struggle with life.
And you don't lose hope.
How wonderful it is to have a definite ideal, to be an innocent, clean being, who lends money on bills of exchange and has the hope that he will be paid back at the right time.
To hope, to hope unremittingly that I shall pay you twelve hundred crowns, when I haven't even a hundred in my pocket!'
'And so you .. .' stammered the guest.
'Yes, and so I,' answered the chaplain.
The guest's face again assumed an obstinate and wrathful expression.
'Sir, this is fraud!' he said, getting up.
'Calm yourself, worthy sir.'
'It's fraud,' the visitor shouted obstinately.
'You have disgracefully abused my confidence.'
'Sir,' said the chaplain, 'a change of air will certainly do you good.
It is too sultry here. 'Svejk!' he called to the kitchen.
'This gentleman wants to go out in the fresh air.'
'Humbly report, sir,' came the answer from the kitchen,' I've already thrown that gentleman out once.'
'Repeat the operation!' came the order, which was executed quickly, briskly and ruthlessly.
'It's good, sir, that we got rid of him before he caused a scandal,' said Svejk, when he returned from the entrance hall, 'In Malesice there was once a pub-keeper, a literary fellow, who always had a quotation from the Holy Bible fur all occasions, and when he flogged anybody with a knout he always used to say:
"He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.
I'll teach you to fight in my pub." '
'You see, Svejk, what happens to a fellow who doesn't honour priests,' smiled the chaplain.
'St John Chrysostom said:
"Whoever honours a priest honours Christ.
Who humiliates a priest humiliates Christ the Lord, whose representative the priest is!" We must make thorough preparations for tomorrow.
Make some fried eggs and ham. Brew a claret punch, and then we'll devote ourselves to meditation, for, as it is said in the evening prayer, "By God's mercy all the snares of the enemy have been turned aside from this dwelling."
There are people in the world who are very obstinate and to their number belonged the man who had twice been thrown out of the chaplain's apartment.
Just as supper was ready someone rang the bell.
Svejk went to open the door and returned after a moment to report:
'He's here again, sir.
I've shut him up for the moment in the bathroom, so we can eat our supper in peace.'
'That's not right, Svejk,' said the chaplain. '
"A guest in the house is God in the house."
At banquets in old times they used to entertain themselves with monsters.
Bring him here so that he can amuse us.'
Svejk returned in a moment with the obstinate man who stared sullenly in front of him.
'Sit down,' the chaplain invited him politely.
'We're just finishing our supper.
We've had lobster, salmon and now fried eggs and ham as well.
We have marvellous blow-outs when people lend us money.'
'I hope that I am not here just for your amusement,' said the sullen man.
'This is the third time I've come.
I hope now that everything will be explained.'
'Humbly report, sir,' observed Svejk, 'he's a real leech, like that fellow Bousek from Liben.
Eighteen times in one evening they threw him out ofExners and he always came back saying he'd forgotten his pipe.
He crept in through the window, through the door, from the kitchen, over the wall into the saloon, through the cellar to the bar, and he would have come down the chimney if the firemen hadn't pulled him down off the roof.
He was so persistent that he would have made a good minister or parliamentary deputy.
They did for him what they could.'
The obstinate man, as though taking no notice of what was being said, repeated stubbornly:
'I want to have this matter cleared up and I demand a hearing.'
'That's granted to you,' said the chaplain.'
Speak, worthy sir.