'Those sun spots are really very important,' put in Svejk.
'Once there was a sun spot like that and the very same day I was beaten up at U Banzetu at Nusle.
From that time whenever I went anywhere I always looked in the newspapers to see if a sun spot hadn't appeared.
And as soon as one did, then count me out, I said. I didn't go anywhere and that was the only way I managed to survive.
At the time when the volcano Mont-Pelle destroyed the whole island of Martinique, a professor wrote in Ndrodni Po!itika that he had long ago told readers about a big sun spot.
But Ndrodni Po!itika didn't get to the island in time, and so the people on it caught it proper.'
Meanwhile upstairs in the office the chaplain met a lady from the Association of Gentlewomen for the Religious Education of the Troops, an old repulsive siren, who went round the hospital from the early morning and distributed everywhere icons of saints, which the wounded and the sick soldiers threw into the spittoons.
And when she went round she infuriated everybody with her stupid chatter about their having honestly to repent their sins and really reform so that after death God could give them everlasting salvation.
She was pale when she talked with the chaplain.
She said that the war instead of ennobling soldiers made beasts of them.
Downstairs the patients had stuck their tongues out at her and told her she was a scarecrow and a frightful skinny old frump.
'Oh, how dreadful, chaplain,' she said in German.
'The people have been corrupted.'
And she described how she saw the religious education of a soldier.
Only when he believes in God and has religious feelings can a soldier fight bravely for His Imperial Majesty and not fear death, because then he knows that paradise awaits him.
She babbled on and said a few more stupid things like this, and it was clear that she was resolved not to let the chaplain go.
But he excused himself in a rather ungallant way.
'We're going home, Svejk!' he called to the guardhouse.
On the way back they made no splash.
'Next time anyone who likes can administer extreme unction,' said the chaplain.
'Fancy having to haggle about money for every soul you want to save.
Their accounts are the only thing they think about.'
Seeing a bottle of' consecrated' oil in Svejk's hand, he frowned:
'It would be better, Svejk, if you polished my boots and your own with this.'
'I'll see ifl can't oil the lock with it,' added Svejk. 'It squeaks frightfully when you come home at night.'
Thus ended the extreme unction which never was.
14
Svejk Batman to Lieutenant Lukas
1
Svejk's good fortune did not last long.
Unrelenting fate severed the friendly relations between him and the chaplain.
If until this event the chaplain had been a likeable person, what he now did was calculated to strip from him his likeable image.
The chaplain sold Svejk to Lieutenant Lukas, or, to be more correct, gambled him away at cards, just as they used to sell serfs in Russia in the old days.
It happened quite unexpectedly.
Lieutenant Lukas gave a splendid party and they played vingt-et-un.
The chaplain lost everything and said in the end:
'How much will you advance me on my batman?
He's a screaming half-wit and an interesting personality, a kind of non plus ultra.
You never had a batman like him before.'
'I'll advance you a hundred crowns,' Lieutenant Lukas offered.'
If I don't get them back the day after tomorrow, you can send me this rare specimen.
My own batman is a disgusting fellow. He's always groaning, writes letters home and at the same time steals what he can lay his hands on.
I've already beaten him, but it doesn't do any good.
I box his ears whenever I meet him, but that doesn't help either.
I've knocked out some of his front teeth, but even that hasn't improved the bastard.'
'Agreed, then,' said the chaplain light-heartedly.
'Either a hundred crowns the day after tomorrow or Svejk.'
And he gambled away those hundred crowns too and went home sadly.
He knew for certain and had never doubted that in two days he could not possibly rustle up those hundred crowns and that he had actually bartered Svejk away basely and despicably.
'I might just as well have said two hundred,' he said to himself angrily, but when he changed on to the tram which would soon take him home he had an attack of conscience and sentimentality.