Chapter XXII
The Old Patriot
In the Prague office of the People's Journal everyone was working at top speed. The telephone operator was yelling furiously into the telephone and quarrelling with the young lady at the Exchange. Scissors clicked and typewriters clattered, and Mr. Cyril Keval sat on the table and dangled his legs.
"I say, they're holding a meeting at Vaclavak," he said in a low voice. "Some Communist's up there preaching voluntary poverty. He's haranguing the people, telling them they ought to be like the lilies of the field. He's got a beard right down to his waist. What a frightful lot of long-bearded chaps there are about nowadays! All looking like apostles."
"Mhm," answered old Rejzek, turning over the papers from the Czechoslovak Press Bureau.
"What makes their beards grow so long?" Mr. Keval ruminated. "I say, Rejzek, I do believe the Absolute has something to do with that as well. Golly, Rejzek, I'm afraid of something of the sort growing on me. Just imagine it, right down to the waist!"
"Mhm," Mr. Rejzek said ponderously.
"The Free Thought Society is holding a service in Havliček Square to-day. Father Novaček is performing miracles in Tyl Square. There's sure to be a row between them, you'll see. Yesterday Novaček healed a man who had been lame from birth. Then they had a procession, and just think, the fellow who'd been lame gave a Jew an awful hiding. Broke three of his ribs or more. He was a Zionist, see."
"Mhm," remarked Mr. Rejzek, marking some items of news.
"There's certain to be a dust-up to-day, Rejzek," Keval expatiated. "The Progressives are holding a meeting in the Old Town Square. They've trotted out 'Away from Rome' again. And Father Novaček is organizing the Maccabeans; you know, a sort of Catholic armed guard. You wait, there will be a scrimmage. The Archbishop has forbidden Novaček to perform miracles, but his Reverence is like one possessed; he even goes and raises the dead."
"Mhm," said Mr. Rejzek, and went on marking copy.
"I had a letter from my mother," Cyril Keval confided in subdued tones. "At home in Moravia, you know, near Hustopec and thereabouts, they're simply raving mad with the Czechs—say they're heathen and heretics and idolaters and want to set up new gods, and all that stuff. They've shot a gamekeeper there because he was a Czech. I tell you, Rejzek, things are fairly seething everywhere."
"Mhm," came Mr. Rejzek's sign of acquiescence.
"They've even gone for each other in the synagogue," continued Mr. Keval. "The Zionists gave the people who believe in Baal a fearful licking. There were even three people killed. And have you heard about the split among the Communists? There you are, I nearly forgot about it; that's another grand mix-up. Now we're going to have the mystic Communists, a sort of left wing; then the Christians, Marians, Scientists, Resurrectionites, textile Knights of St. John, iron Knights, miner Knights, and about seven other parties. Now they're squabbling about the sick benefit funds and the workmen's dwellings. Just wait, I'm going to slip over to Hybernska Street this afternoon. My boy, the garrison was confined to barracks this afternoon; but in the meantime the Vršovice barracks have sent an ultimatum to the Černin barracks calling on them to recognize the Vršovice dogma of the Three Degrees of Salvation. If they don't accept the doctrine, they are to report for battle at Sandberk. The Dejvice artillerymen have gone to the Černin barracks to disband. The Vršovice garrison has barricaded itself in, the soldiers have planted machine-guns in the windows and declared war. They are being besieged by the Seventh Dragoons, the Castle Guard, and four light batteries. They've been given six hours, then the firing will begin. Rejzek, it's a real pleasure to be alive in these days."
"Mhm," said Mr. Rejzek.
"Yes, and at the University to-day," Keval went on quietly, "the natural science faculty and the history faculty came to blows. You know, the natural science faculty, being rather pantheistic, so to speak, disputes the Revelation. The professors conducted the fight, and Deal Radl himself carried the flag. The historians fortified the University Library in the Klementinum and defended themselves desperately, armed with books. Dean Radl got hit on the head with a bound volume of Velenovsky and was killed on the spot. Probably concussion of the brain. The Rector, Arne Novak, was seriously injured by a volume of Invention and Progress. Finally the historians buried the attacking party under the Collected Works of Jan Vrba. Now the sappers are at work on the scene of the battle, and so far they've recovered seven corpses, among them three lecturers. I don't think there were more than thirty buried though."
"Mhm," observed Mr. Rejzek.
"Then there's the Sparta Club, my boy," Keval rattled on with mild enthusiasm. "The Sparta has proclaimed that the only God is the Greek Zeus, whereas the Slavia votes for Svantovit, the old sun-god. On Sunday there's to be a match between the two Gods on the Letna. Besides their footballs, both clubs will bring hand-grenades, and the Slavia will also have machine-guns and the Sparta a twelve-centimetre gun. There's a terriffic rush for tickets. The supporters of both clubs will be armed. Rejzek, believe me, there will be a shindy! I bet Zeus will win."
"Mhm," said Mr. Rejzek, "but now you might have a look at the post."
"Well, I don't care," cried Cyril Keval. "A man can get used even to a God, can't he? What's the latest from the Press Bureau?"
"Nothing special," growled Mr. Rejzek. "Bloodshed at demonstrations in Rome. They're going for each other in Ulster—you know, the Irish Catholics. The St. Kilda agreement is being repudiated all round. Pogroms in Budapest; a schism in France—the Waldenses have bobbed up there again, and the Anabaptists in Münster. At Bologna an Anti-Pope has been elected, one Father Martin of the Barefoot Friars. And so on. Nothing of local interest. Have a look at the letters, will you."
Cyril Keval stopped talking and began opening the letters. There were a few hundred of them, but he had hardly read half a dozen when he was off once more.
"Look here, Rejzek," he began, "it's the same tale all the way through. Take this one for instance: From Chrudim. Dear Sir,—As an old subscriber to your esteemed journal, your readers and the whole of the public who are now being harassed by unprofitable disputes"—("He's left out 'will be interested,'" interpolated Mr. Keval)—"'in the remarkable miracle performed by our local pastor, the Rev. Father Zakoupil.' And so on. In Jicin it was the storekeeper of the Co-operative Society, and in Benesov it was the superintendent of schools. In Chotěboř it was even the widow Jirák, who keeps a tobacco shop. Have I to read all this stuff?"
Work went on again in silence for a while.
"Damn it, Rejzek," Keval burst out again, "I say, do you know what would be a real sensation? A giant gooseberry? A lovely canard? Why, if something were to happen quite in the natural way, without any miracle about it. But I don't think anyone would believe us. Wait a bit, I'll try to think up something natural."
Again there was a brief period of quiet.
"Rejzek," cried Keval mournfully, "I simply can't think up anything natural. When I think it over, everything is a miracle really. Whatever is, is a sort of magic."
Just then the editor-in-chief entered.
"Who did the cuttings from the Tribune? Here's a story in it that we haven't got."
"What sort of a story," asked Mr. Rejzek.
"In the Finance and Commerce Section. An American combine has bought up the Pacific Islands and is subletting them. A tiny coral atoll costs fifty thousand dollars a year. Big demand even from the Continent of Europe. Shares have gone up to two thousand seven hundred already. G. H. Bondy interested to the extent of one hundred and twenty millions. And we haven't got a word about it," said the editor-in-chief angrily, and slammed the door behind him.
"Rejzek," cried Keval, "here's an interesting letter: 'Dear Sir,—Forgive an old patriot, who can remember the evil times of oppression and the dark days of serfdom, if he raises a plaintive voice and begs you to use your skilful pen to make known to the Czech people the grief and sore anxiety we old patriots feel . . .' and so on. Farther on he says: 'In our ancient and glorious nation we see brother egged on against brother; innumerable parties, sects, and churches struggling together like wolves and destroying each other in their mutual hatred'—(must be some very old chap; his writing is terribly shaky)—'while our ancient enemy prowls around us like a roaring lion, filling the minds of our people with the German watchword of "Away from Rome," and supported by those mistaken patriots who set the interests of their party before the national unity for which we yearn. And we behold with anguish and sorrow the prospect of a new battle of Lipany, where Czech ranged against Czech under the cloak of different religious watchwords, will be left lying on the bloody field. And so, alas, the words of the Scriptures about a kingdom divided against itself will be fulfilled. And there shall be piercing and felling of many, as it is written in our own glorious and authentic cycles of chivalry.'"
"That's enough," said Mr. Rejzek.
"Wait a bit; here he talks about the hypertrophy of parties and churches. It is a hereditary Czech disease, he says. 'Of this there cannot be the slightest doubt, as Dr. Kramář used to say. And therefore, I solemnly adjure you at this twelfth hour, when great and terrible dangers confront us on every hand, to urge our people to band themselves together in a union of the whole nation for the defence of our country. If a religious bond be necessary for this union, then let us be neither Protestants nor Catholics nor Monists nor Abstainers, but let us adopt a single, Slav, powerful, and brotherly Orthodox faith, which will unite us in one great Slav family and will secure for us in these stormy times the protection of a powerful Slav ruler. Those who will not freely and whole-heartedly pay allegiance to this glorious pan-Slav ideal should be forced by Government authority, yea, and by every form of compulsion permissible in these exceptional circumstances, to abandon their partisan and sectarian interests in favour of the union of the whole nation.' And so on. Signed 'An Old Patriot.' What do you say to that?"
"Nothing," said Mr. Rejzek.
"I think that there's something in it," Mr. Keval began; but just then the telephone operator entered and said, "Munich on the 'phone. Some sort of civil or religious war broke out in Germany yesterday. Is it worth putting in the paper?"