The other new guest was the landlord Palivec. When he saw his friend .Svejk, he woke him up and called out in the most tragic tones:
'Now I'm here too!'
Svejk shook his hand cordially and said:
'I'm glad about that, really I am.
I knew that gentleman would keep his word when he said that they'd come for you.
Punctiliousness like that is a good thing.'
But Palivec remarked that punctiliousness of that sort was not worth a shit and lowering his voice asked .Svejk whether the other gentlemen under arrest were thieves, because it might harm his business . .Svejk explained to him that all of them belonged to the same party arrested because of the Archduke, except the man who had been arrested for attempted robbery with murder on a farmer Giles from Holice.
Palivec took umbrage at this and said that he was not here for any pip-squeak of an Archduke but because of His Imperial Majesty.
And because the others began to show interest he told them how his flies had defiled His Imperial Majesty.
'They fouled him up for me, the vermin,' he said, ending the description of his adventure, 'and finally they got me locked up.
I'll never forgive those flies for that,' he added menacingly.
Svejk went back to bed, but he did not sleep long because they came to take him away for questioning.
And so, mounting the staircase to the 3rd Department for questioning, .Svejk carried his cross up on to the hill of Golgotha, sublimely unconscious of his martyrdom.
Observing the notice that spitting in the corridors was prohibited, he asked the policeman to allow him to spit in the spittoon, and, beaming with his natural simplicity, said as he came into the office:
'A very good evening to you all, gentlemen.'
Instead of a reply, someone pummelled him under the ribs and stood him in front of a table, behind which there sat a gentleman with a cold official face and features of such bestial cruelty that he might have just fallen out of Lombroso's book, Criminal Types.
He gave Svejk a bloodthirsty look and said:
'Take that idiotic expression off your face.'
'I can't help it,' replied Svejk solemnly.
'I was discharged from the army for idiocy and officially certified by a special commission as an idiot.
I'm an official idiot.'
The gentleman of the criminal type ground his teeth:
'What you're accused of and you've committed proves you've got all your wits about you.'
And now he proceeded to enumerate to Svejk a whole series of different crimes, beginning with high treason and ending with abuse of His Majesty and members of the Imperial Family.
The central gem of this collection was Svejk's approval of the murder of the Archduke Ferdinand, from which there branched out a string of fresh crimes, among which the shining light was the crime of incitement, as it had all happened in a public place.
'What do you say to that?' the gentleman with features of bestial cruelty asked triumphantly.
'There's a lot of it,' Svejk replied innocently.
'You can have too much of a good thing.'
'So there you are, then, you admit it's true?'
'I admit everything.
You've got to be strict.
Without strictness no one would ever get anywhere.
When I was in the army .. .'
'Shut your mug!' shouted the police commissioner, 'and speak only when you're questioned!
Do you understand?'
'Of course I understand,' said Svejk.
'Humbly report, I understand and am able to orientate myself in everything you are pleased to say, sir.'
'Whom are you in contact with?'
'My charwoman, your honour.'
'And you don't have any friends in political circles here?'
'Yes, I do, your honour.
I subscribe to the afternoon edition of Ndrodni Politika - "The Bitch".'
'Get out!' the gentleman with the bestial appearance roared at Svejk.
As they were leading him out of the office, Svejk said:
'Good night, your honour.'
Back in his cell Svejk told all the detainees that this kind of interrogation was fun. 'They shout at you a bit and finally they kick you out.
'In the old days,' continued Svejk, 'it used to be worse.
I once read in a book how the accused had to walk on red-hot iron and drink molten lead, to prove whether they were innocent or not.
Or else they put their legs into Spanish boots or strung them up on the ladder if they wouldn't confess. Or they burnt their hips with a fireman's torch like they did to StJohn of Nepomuk.'
They say that when they did it to him he screamed like blue murder and didn't stop until they had thrown him from Eliska's bridge in a watertight sack.