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Title: The red laugh: fragments of a discovered manuscript
Author: Leonid Andreyev
Translator: Alexandra Linden
Release Date: June 23, 2020 [EBook #62460]
Language: English
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THE RED LAUGH
_FRAGMENTS OF A DISCOVERED MANUSCRIPT_
BY
LEONIDAS ANDREIEF
_Translated from the Russian by_ ALEXANDRA LINDEN
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1905
_Protected under the Berne Convention in accordance with Article III.
as modified by the Paris additional Act of May 4, 1896._
PREFACE
Leonidas Andreief, the author of _The Red Laugh_ and of some volumes
of short stories, was born at Orel in 1871. He studied first at the
college of his own town, then at St Petersburg University. As a
student at St Petersburg, he made a miserable livelihood by giving
infrequent lessons at wretched rates, and his first literary efforts
belong to this period. His first short story, the subject of which
was, in fact, autobiographical--the sorry life of the poor student,
always half starving--was derisively rejected. But he gained entry
into an important St Petersburg review with another and characteristic
short story, _Silence_, and with it won the attention of the Russian
literary world. Now his popularity in Russia almost transcends that
of Gorky. Russian critics have said of Andreief, as Victor Hugo said
of the author of the _Fleurs du Mal_, that he has "invented a new
thrill," and Andreief seems, indeed, to be most at home in a region of
horror, though it is very much psychologised horror, a horror full of
fine shades. _The Red Laugh_ is a literary outcome of the late war in
Manchuria; it sets forth the anachronism of war as that anachronism is
felt by a writer of genius.
O.
THE RED LAUGH
PART I
FRAGMENT I
..... Horror and madness.
I felt it for the first time as we were marching along the
road--marching incessantly for ten hours without stopping, never
diminishing our step, never waiting to pick up those that had fallen,
but leaving them to the enemy, that was moving behind us in a compact
mass only three or four hours later effacing the marks of our feet by
their own.
It was very sultry. I do not know how many degrees there were--120°,
140°, or more--I only know that the heat was incessant, hopelessly
even and profound. The sun was so enormous, so fiery and terrible,
that it seemed as if the earth had drawn nearer to it and would soon
be burnt up altogether in its merciless rays. Our eyes had ceased to
look. The small shrunk pupil, as small as a poppyseed, sought in
vain for darkness under the closed eyelid; the sun pierced the thin
covering and penetrated into the tortured brain in a blood-red glow.
But, nevertheless, it was better so: with closed eyelids, and for a
long time, perhaps for several hours, I walked along with my eyes shut,
hearing the multitude moving around me: the heavy, uneven tread of
many feet, men's and horses, the grinding of iron wheels, crushing the
small stones, somebody's deep strained breathing and the dry smacking
of parched lips. But I heard no word. All were silent, as if an army
of dumb people was moving, and when anyone fell down, he fell in
silence; others stumbled against his body, fell down and rose mutely,
and, without turning their heads, marched on, as though these dumb men
were also blind and deaf. I stumbled and fell several times and then
involuntarily opened my eyes, and all that I saw seemed a wild fiction,
the terrible raving of a mad world. The air vibrated at a white-hot
temperature, the stones seemed to be trembling silently, ready to flow,
and in the distance, at a curve of the road, the files of men, guns
and horses seemed detached from the earth, and trembled like a mass of
jelly in their onward progress, and it seemed to me that they were not
living people that I saw before me, but an army of incorporate shadows.
The enormous, near, terrible sun lit up thousands of tiny blinding suns
on every gun-barrel and metal plate, and these suns, as fiery-white and
sharp as the white-hot points of the bayonets, crept into your eyes
from every side. And the consuming, burning heat penetrated into your
body--into your very bones and brain--and at times it seemed to me that
it was not a head that swayed upon my shoulders, but a strange and
extraordinary globe, heavy and light, belonging to somebody else, and
horrible.
And then--then I suddenly remembered my home: a corner of my room, a
scrap of light-blue wall-paper, and a dusty untouched water-bottle
on my table--on my table, which has one leg shorter than the others,
and had a small piece of paper folded under it. While in the next
room--and I cannot see them--are my wife and little son. If I had had
the power to cry out, I would have done so--so wonderful was this
simple and peaceful picture--the scrap of light-blue wall-paper and
dusty untouched water-bottle. I know that I stood still and lifted up
my arms, but somebody gave me a push from behind, and I quickly moved
on, thrusting the crowd aside, and hastening whither I knew not, but
feeling now neither heat nor fatigue. And I marched on thus for a long
time through the endless mute files, past red sunburnt necks, almost
touching the helplessly lowered hot bayonets, when suddenly the thought
of what I was doing, whither I was hastening, stopped me. I turned
aside in the same hasty way, forced my way to the open, clambered
across a gulley and sat down on a stone in a preoccupied manner, as if
that rough hot stone was the aim of all my strivings.
And then I felt it for the first time. I clearly perceived that all
these people, marching silently on in the glaring sun, torpid from
fatigue and heat, swaying and falling--that they were all mad. They
did not know whither they were going, they did not know what that sun
was for, they did not know anything. It was not heads that they had
on their shoulders, but strange and terrible globes. There--I saw a
man in the same plight as I, pushing his way hurriedly through the
rows and falling down; there--another, and a third. Suddenly a horse's
head appeared above the throng with bloodshot and senseless eyes and a
wide-open grinning mouth, that only hinted at a terrible unearthly cry;
this head appeared, fell down, and for an instant the crowd stopped,
growing denser in that spot; I could hear hoarse, hollow voices, then a
shot, and again the silent endless march continued.
An hour passed as I sat on that stone, but the multitude still moved
on past me, and the air and earth and the distant phantom-like ranks
trembled as before. And again the burning heat pierced my body and I
forgot what for an instant I had pictured to myself; and the multitudes
moved on past me, but I did not know who they were. An hour ago I was
alone on the stone, but now I was surrounded by a group of grey people:
some lying motionless, perhaps dead; others were sitting up and staring
vacantly at those passing by. Some had guns and resembled soldiers;
others were stripped almost naked, and the skin on their bodies was so
livid, that one did not care to look at it. Not far from me someone was
lying with his bared back upturned.
One could see by the unconcerned manner in which he had buried his face
in the sharp burning sand, by the whiteness of the palm of his upturned
hand, that he was dead, but his back was as red as if he were alive,
and only a slight yellowish tinge, like one sees on smoked meat, spoke
of death. I wanted to move away from him, but I had not the strength,
and, tottering from weakness, I continued looking at the endless
phantom-like swaying files of men. By the condition of my head I knew
that I should soon have a sunstroke too, but I awaited it calmly, as in
a dream, where death seems only a stage on the path of wonderful and
confused visions.
And I saw a soldier part from the crowd and direct his steps in a
decided manner towards us. For an instant I lost sight of him in a
ditch, but when he reappeared and moved on towards us, his gait was
unsteady, and in his endeavours to control his restlessly tossing body,
one felt he was using his last strength. He was coming so straight upon
me that I grew frightened and, breaking through the heavy torpor that
enveloped my brain, I asked: "What do you want?"
He stopped short, as if it was only a word that he was waiting for, and
stood before me, enormous, bearded, in a torn shirt. He had no gun, his
trousers hung only by one button, and through a slit in them one could
see his white body. He flung his arms and legs about and he was visibly
trying to control them, but could not: the instant he brought his arms
together, they fell apart again.
"What is the matter? You had better sit down," I said.
But he continued standing, vainly trying to gather himself together,
and stared at me in silence. Involuntarily I got up from the stone
and, tottering, looked into his eyes--and saw an abyss of horror and
insanity in them. Everybody's pupils were shrunk--but his had dilated
and covered his whole eye: what a sea of fire he must have seen through
those enormous black windows! Maybe I had only imagined it, maybe in
his look there was only death,--but no, I was not mistaken: in those
black, bottomless pupils, surrounded by a narrow orange-coloured rim,
like a bird's eye, there was more than death, more than the horror of
death. "Go away!" I cried, falling back. "Go away!" And as if he was
only waiting for a word, enormous, disorderly and mute as before, he
suddenly fell down upon me, knocking me over. With a shudder I freed my
legs from under him, jumped up and longed to run--somewhere away from
men into the sunlit, unpeopled and quivering distance, when suddenly,
on the left-hand side, a cannon boomed forth from a hill-top, and
directly after it two others, like an echo. And somewhere above our
heads a shell flew past with a gladsome, many-voiced scr-e-e-ch and
howl.
We were outflanked.
The murderous heat, fear and fatigue disappeared instantly. My thoughts
cleared, my mind grew clear and sharp, and, when I ran up, out of
breath, to the files of men drawing up, I saw serene, almost joyous
faces, heard hoarse, but loud voices, orders, jokes. The sun seemed to
have drawn itself up higher so as not to be in the way, and had grown
dim and still--and again a shell, like a witch, cut the air with a
gladsome scr-e-e-ch.
I came up....
FRAGMENT II
... Nearly all the horses and men. The same in the eighth battery. In
our twelfth battery, towards the end of the third day, there remained
only three guns--all the others being disabled--six men and one
officer, myself. We had neither slept nor eaten for twenty hours; for
three days and nights a Satanic roar and howl enveloped us in a cloud
of insanity, isolated us from the earth, the sky and ourselves--and we,
the living, wandered about like lunatics. The dead--they lay still,
while we moved about doing our duty, talking and laughing, and we
were--like lunatics. All our movements were quick and certain, our
orders clear, the execution of them precise, but if you had suddenly
asked any one of us who we were, undoubtedly we should not have been
able to find an answer in our troubled brain. As in a dream all faces
seemed familiar, and all that was going on seemed quite familiar and
natural--as if it had happened before; but when I looked closely at any
face or gun, or began listening to the din, I was struck by the novelty
and endless mystery of everything. Night approached imperceptibly, and
before we had time to notice it and wonder where it had come from, the
sun was again burning above our heads. And only from those who came
to our battery we learnt that it was the third day of the battle that
was dawning, and instantly forgot it again: to us it appeared as one
endless day without any beginning, sometimes dark, sometimes bright,
but always incomprehensible and blind. And nobody was afraid of death,
for nobody understood what death was.
On the third or fourth night--I do not remember which--I lay down for
a minute behind the breastwork, and, as soon as I shut my eyes, the
same familiar and extraordinary picture stood before them: the scrap
of light-blue wall-paper and the dusty untouched water-bottle on my
table. While in the next room--and I could not see them--were my wife
and little son. But this time a lamp with a green shade was burning on
the table, so it must have been evening or night. The picture stood
motionless, and I contemplated it very calmly and attentively for a
long time, letting my eyes rest on the light reflected in the crystal
of the water-bottle, and on the wall-paper, and wondered why my son
was not asleep: for it was night and time for him to go to bed. Then
I again began examining the wall-paper: every spiral, silvery flower,
square and line--and never imagined that I knew my room so well. Now
and then I opened my eyes and saw the black sky with beautiful fiery
stripes upon it, then shut them again and saw once more the wall-paper,
the bright water-bottle, and wondered why my son was not asleep, for
it was night and time for him to go to bed. Once a shell burst not far
from me, making my legs give a jerk, and somebody cried out loudly,
louder than the bursting of the shell, and I said to myself: "Somebody
is killed," but I did not get up and did not tear my eyes away from the
light-blue wall-paper and the water-bottle.
Afterwards I got up, moved about, gave orders, looked at the men's
faces, trained the guns, and kept on wondering why my son was not
asleep. Once I asked the sergeant, and he explained it to me at length
with great detail, and we kept nodding our heads. And he laughed, and
his left eyebrow kept twitching, while his eye winked cunningly at
somebody behind us. Behind us were somebody's feet--and nothing more.
By this time it was quite light, when suddenly there fell a drop of
rain. Rain--just the same as at home, the most ordinary little drops of
rain. But it was so sudden and out of place, and we were so afraid of
getting wet, that we left our guns, stopped firing, and tried to find
shelter anywhere we could.
The sergeant with whom I had only just been speaking got under the
gun-carriage and dozed off, although he might have been crushed any
minute; the stout artilleryman, for some reason or other, began
undressing a corpse, while I began running about the battery in
search of something--a cloak or an umbrella. And the same instant
over the whole enormous area, where the rain-cloud had burst, a
wonderful stillness fell. A belated shrapnel-shot shrieked and burst,
and everything grew still--so still that one could hear the stout
artilleryman panting and the drops of rain splashing upon the stones
and guns. And this soft and continuous sound, that reminded one of
autumn--the smell of the moist earth and the stillness--seemed to
tear the bloody, savage nightmare asunder for an instant; and when
I glanced at the wet, glistening gun it unexpectedly reminded me of
something dear and peaceful--my childhood, or perhaps my first love.
But in the distance a gun boomed forth particularly loud, and the spell
of the momentary lull disappeared; the men began coming out of their
hiding-places as suddenly as they had hid themselves; a gun roared,
then another, and once again the weary brain was enveloped by bloody,
indissoluble gloom. And nobody noticed when the rain stopped. I only
remember seeing the water rolling off the fat, sunken yellow face of
the killed artilleryman; so I supposed it rained for rather a long
time....
* * * * *
... Before me stood a young volunteer, holding his hand to his cap
and reporting to me that the general wanted us to retain our position
for only two hours more, when we should be relieved. I was wondering
why my son was not in bed, and answered that I could hold on as much
as he wished. But suddenly I became interested in the young man's
face, probably because of its unusual and striking pallor. I never saw
anything whiter than that face: even the dead have more colour than
that young, beardless face had. I suppose he became terrified on his
way to us, and could not recover himself; and in holding his hand to
his cap he was only making an effort to drive away his mad fear by a
simple and habitual gesture.
"Are you afraid?" I asked, touching his elbow. But his elbow seemed as
if made of wood, and he only smiled and remained silent. Better to say,
his lips alone were twitching into a smile, while his eyes were full of
youth and terror only--nothing more.
"Are you afraid?" I repeated kindly. His lips twitched, trying to frame
a word, and the same instant there happened something incomprehensible,
monstrous and supernatural. I felt a draught of warm air upon my right
cheek that made me sway--that is all--while before my eyes, in place of
the white face, there was something short, blunt and red, and out of it
the blood was gushing as out of an uncorked bottle, such as is drawn on
badly executed signboards. And that short, red and flowing "something"
still seemed to be smiling a sort of smile, a toothless laugh--a red
laugh.
I recognised it--that red laugh. I had been searching for it, and I had
found it--that red laugh. Now I understood what there was in all those
mutilated, torn, strange bodies. It was a red laugh. It was in the
sky, it was in the sun, and soon it was going to overspread the whole
earth--that red laugh!
While they, with precision and calmness, like lunatics....
FRAGMENT III
They say there are a great number of madmen in our army as well as in
the enemy's. Four lunatic wards have been opened. When I was on the
staff our adjutant showed me....
FRAGMENT IV
... Coiled round like snakes. He saw the wire, chopped through at
one end, cut the air and coil itself round three soldiers. The barbs
tore their uniforms and stuck into their bodies, and, shrieking, the
soldiers spun round in frenzy, two of them dragging the third, who was
already dead, after them. Then only one remained alive, and he tried to
push the two that were dead away from him; but they trailed after him,
whirling and rolling over each other and over him; and suddenly all
three became motionless.
He told me that no less than two thousand men were lost at that one
wire entanglement. While they were hacking at the wire and getting
entangled in its serpentine coils, they were pelted by an incessant
rain of balls and grape-shot. He assured me it was very terrifying, and
if only they had known in which direction to run, that attack would
have ended in a panic flight. But ten or twelve continuous lines of
wire, and the struggle with it, a whole labyrinth of pitfalls with
stakes driven in at the bottom, had muddled them so, that they were
quite incapable of defining the direction of escape.
Some, like men blind, fell into the funnel-shaped pits, and hung upon
the sharp stakes, pierced through the stomach, twitching convulsively
and dancing like toy clowns; they were crushed down by fresh bodies,
and soon the whole pit filled to the edges, and presented a writhing
mass of bleeding bodies, dead and living. Hands thrust themselves out
of it in all directions, the fingers working convulsively, catching at
everything; and those who once got caught in that trap could not get
back again: hundreds of fingers, strong and blind, like the claws of
a lobster, gripped them firmly by the legs, caught at their clothes,
threw them down upon themselves, gouged out their eyes and throttled
them. Many seemed as if they were intoxicated, and ran straight at the
wire, got caught in it, and remained shrieking, until a bullet finished
them.
Generally speaking, they all seemed like people intoxicated: some swore
dreadfully, others laughed when the wire caught them by the arm or leg
and died there and then. He himself, although he had had nothing to eat
or drink since the morning, felt very queer. His head swam, and there
were moments when the feeling of terror in him changed to wild rapture,
and from rapture again to terror. When somebody struck up a song at his
side, he caught up the tune, and soon a whole unanimous chorus broke
forth. He did not remember what they sang, only that it was lively in
a dancing strain. Yes, they sang, while all around them was red with
blood. The very sky seemed to be red, and one could have thought that
a catastrophe had overwhelmed the universe--a strange disappearance of
colours: the light-blue and green and other habitual peaceful colours
had disappeared, while the sun blazed forth in a red flare-light.
"The red laugh," said I.
But he did not understand.
"Yes, and they laughed, as I told you before, like people intoxicated.
Perhaps they even danced. There was something of the sort. At least the
movements of those three resembled dancing."
He remembers distinctly, when he was shot through the chest and fell,
his legs twitched for some time until he lost consciousness, as if he
were dancing to music. And at the present moment, when he thinks of
that attack, a strange feeling comes over him: partly fear and partly
the desire to experience it all over again.
"And get another ball in your chest?" asked I.
"There now, why should I get a ball each time. But it would not be half
bad, old boy to get a medal for bravery."
He was lying on his back with a waxen face, sharp nose, prominent
cheek-bones and sunken eyes. He was lying looking like a corpse and
dreaming of a medal! Mortification had already set in; he had a high
temperature, and in three days' time he was to be thrown into the grave
to join the dead; nevertheless he lay smiling dreamily and talking
about a medal.
"Have you telegraphed to your mother?" I asked.
He glanced at me with terror, animosity and anger, and did not answer.
I was silent, and then the groans and ravings of the wounded became
audible. But when I rose to go, he caught my hand in his hot, but still
strong one, and fixed his sunken burning eyes upon me in a lost and
distressed way.
"What does it all mean, ay? What does it all mean?" asked he in a
frightened and persistent manner, pulling at my hand.
"What?"
"Everything ... in general. Now, she is waiting for me. But I cannot.
My country--is it possible to make her understand, what my country
means."
"The red laugh," answered I.
"Ah! you are always joking, but I am serious. It is indispensable to
explain it; but is it possible to make her understand? If you only
knew what she says in her letters!--what she writes! And you know her
words--are grey-haired. And you--" he looked curiously at my head,
pointed his finger and suddenly breaking into a laugh said: "Why, you
have grown bald. Have you noticed it?"
"There are no looking-glasses here."
"Many have grown bald and grey. Look here, give me a looking-glass.
Give me one! I feel white hair growing out of my head. Give me a
looking-glass!" He became delirious, crying and shouting out, and I
left the hospital.
That same evening we got up an entertainment--a sad and strange
entertainment, at which, amongst the guests, the shadows of the dead
assisted. We decided to gather in the evening and have tea, as if we
were at home, at a picnic. We got a samovar, we even got a lemon and
glasses, and established ourselves under a tree, as if we were at
home, at a picnic. Our companions arrived noisily in twos and threes,
talking, joking and full of gleeful expectation--but soon grew silent,
avoiding to look at each other, for there was something fearful in this
meeting of spared men. In tatters, dirty, itching as if we were covered
by a dreadful ringworm, with hair neglected, thin and worn, having lost
all familiar and habitual aspect, we seemed to see each other for the
first time as we gathered round the samovar, and seeing each other, we
grew terrified. In vain I looked for a familiar face in this group of
disconcerted men--I could not find one. These men, restless, hasty and
jerky in their movements, starting at every sound, constantly looking
for something behind their backs, trying to fill up that mysterious
void into which they were too terrified to look, by superfluous
gesticulations--were new, strange men, whom I did not know. And their
voices sounded different, articulating the words with difficulty in
jerks, easily passing into angry shouts or senseless, irrepressible
laughter at the slightest provocation. And everything around us was
strange to us. The tree was strange, and the sunset strange, and the
water strange, with a peculiar taste and smell, as if we had left the
earth and entered into a new world together with the dead--a world of
mysterious phenomena and ominous sombre shadows. The sunset was yellow
and cold; black, unillumined, motionless clouds hung heavily over it,
while the earth under it was black, and our faces in that ill-omened
light seemed yellow, like the faces of the dead. We all sat watching
the samovar, but it went out, its sides reflecting the yellowishness
and menace of the sunset, and it seemed also an unfamiliar, dead and
incomprehensible object.
"Where are we!" asked somebody, and uneasiness and fear sounded in his
voice. Somebody sighed; somebody convulsively cracked his fingers;
somebody laughed; somebody jumped up and began walking quickly round
the table. These last days one could often meet with such men, that
were always walking hastily, almost running, at times strangely
silent, at times mumbling something in an uncanny way.
"At the war," answered he who had laughed, and again burst into a
hollow, lingering laugh, as if something was choking him.
"What is he laughing at?" asked somebody, indignantly. "Look here, stop
it!"
The other choked once more, gave a titter and stopped obediently.
It was growing dark, the cloud seemed to be settling down on the
earth, and we could with difficulty distinguish each other's yellow
phantom-like faces. Somebody asked,--
"And where is Fatty-legs?"
"Fatty-legs" we called a fellow-officer, who, being short, wore
enormous water-tight boots.
"He was here just now. Fatty-legs, where are you?"
"Fatty-legs, don't hide. We can smell your boots."
Everybody laughed, but their laugh was interrupted by a rough,
indignant voice that sounded out of the darkness,--
"Stop that! Are you not ashamed? Fatty-legs was killed this morning
reconnoitring."
"He was here just now. It must be a mistake."
"You imagined it. Heigh-ho! you there, behind the samovar, cut me a
slice of lemon."
"And me!"
"And me!"
"The lemon is finished."
"How is that, boys?" sounded a gentle, hurt voice, full of distress and
almost crying; "why, I only came for the sake of the lemon."
The other again burst into a hollow and lingering laugh, and nobody
checked him. But he soon stopped. He gave a snigger, and was silent.
Somebody said,--
"To-morrow we begin the advance on the enemy."
But several voices cried out angrily,--
"Nonsense, advance on the enemy indeed!"
"But you know yourself--"
"Shut up. As if we cannot talk of something else."
The sunset faded. The cloud lifted, and it seemed to grow lighter; the
faces became more familiar, and he, who kept circling round us, grew
calmer and sat down.
"I wonder what it's like at home now?" asked he, vaguely, and in his
voice there sounded a guilty smile.
And once again all became terrible, incomprehensible and strange--so
intensely so, that we were filled with horror, almost to the verge
of losing consciousness. And we all began talking and shouting at the
same time, bustling about, moving our glasses, touching each other's
shoulders, hands, knees--and all at once became silent, giving way
before the incomprehensible.
"At home?" cried somebody out of the darkness. His voice was hoarse and
quivering with emotion, fear and hatred. And some of the words would
not come out, as if he had forgotten how to say them.
"A home? What home? Why, is there home anywhere? Don't interrupt me
or else I shall fire. At home I used to take a bath every day--can
you understand?--a bath with water--water up to the very edges. While
now--I do not even wash my face every day. My head is covered with
scurf, and my whole body itches and over it crawl, crawl.... I am going
mad from dirt, while you talk of--home! I am like an animal, I despise
myself, I cannot recognise myself, and death is not at all terrifying.
You tear my brain with your shrapnel-shots. Aim at what you will, all
hit my brain--and you can speak of--home. What home? Streets, windows,
people, but I would not go into the street now for anything. I should
be ashamed to. You brought a samovar here, but I was ashamed to look at
it."
The other laughed again. Somebody called out,--
"D--n it all! I shall go home."
"Home?"
"You don't understand what duty is!"
"Home? Listen! he wants to go home!"
There was a burst of laughter and of painful shouts--and again all
became silent--giving way before the incomprehensible. And then not
only I, but every one of us felt _that_. It was coming towards us out
of those dark, mysterious and strange fields; it was rising from out
of those obscure dark ravines, where, maybe, the forgotten and lost
among the stones were still dying; it was flowing from the strange,
unfamiliar sky. We stood around the dying-out samovar in silence,
losing consciousness from horror, while an enormous, shapeless shadow
that had risen above the world, looked down upon us from the sky with
a steady and silent gaze. Suddenly, quite close to us, probably at
the Commander's house, music burst forth, and the frenzied, joyous,
loud sounds seemed to flash out into the night and stillness. The band
played with frenzied mirth and defiance, hurriedly, discordantly,
too loudly, and too joyously, and one could feel that those who
were playing, and those who were listening, saw as we did, that same
enormous, shapeless shadow, risen above the world. And it was clear the
player on the trumpet carried in himself, in his very brain and ears,
that same enormous dumb shadow. The abrupt and broken sound tossed
about, jumping and running away from the others, quivering with horror
and insanity in its lonesomeness. And the other sounds seemed to be
looking round at it, so clumsily they ran, stumbling, falling, and
again rising in a disorderly crowd--too loud, too joyous, too close to
the black ravines, where most probably the forgotten and lost among the
boulders were still dying.
And we stood for a long time around the cold samovar and were silent.
FRAGMENT V
... I was already asleep when the doctor roused me by pushing me
cautiously. I woke, and jumping up, cried out, as we all did when
anybody wakened us, and rushed to the entrance of our tent. But the
doctor held me firmly by the arm, excusing himself,--
"I frightened you, forgive me. I know you want to sleep...."
"Five days and nights ..." I muttered, dozing off. I fell asleep and
slept, as it seemed to me for a long time, when the doctor again began
speaking, poking me cautiously in the ribs and legs.
"But it is very urgent. Dear fellow, please--it is so pressing. I keep
thinking ... I cannot ... I keep thinking, that some of the wounded
were left...."
"What wounded? Why, you were bringing them in the whole day long. Leave
me in peace. It is not fair--I have not slept for five days!"
"Dear boy, don't be angry," muttered the doctor, awkwardly putting
my cap on my head; "everybody is asleep, it's impossible to rouse
anybody. I've got hold of an engine and seven carriages, but we're in
want of men. I understand.... Dear fellow, I implore you. Everybody
is asleep and everybody refuses. I'm afraid of falling asleep myself.
I don't remember when I slept last. I believe I'm beginning to have
hallucinations. There's a dear fellow, put down your feet, just
one--there--there...."
The doctor was pale and tottering, and one could see that if he were
only to lie down for an instant he would fall asleep and remain so
without waking for several days running. My legs sank under me, and
I am certain I fell asleep as I walked--so suddenly and unexpectedly
appeared before us a row of black outlines--the engine and carriages.
Near them, scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, some men were
wandering about slowly and silently. There was not a single light
either on the engine or carriages, and only the shut ash-box threw a
dim reddish light on to the rails.
"What is this?" asked I, stepping back.
"Why, we are going in the train. Have you forgotten? We are going in
the train," muttered the doctor.
The night was chilly and he was trembling from cold, and as I looked at
him I felt the same rapid tickling shiver all over my body.
"D--n you!" I cried loudly. "Just as if you couldn't have taken
somebody else."
"Hush! please, hush!" and the doctor caught me by the arm.
Somebody out of the darkness said,--
"If you were to fire a volley from all the guns, nobody would stir.
They are all asleep. One could go up and bind them all. Just now I
passed quite close to the sentry. He looked at me and did not say a
word, never stirred. I suppose he was asleep too. It's a wonder he does
not fall down."
He who spoke yawned and his clothes rustled, evidently he was
stretching himself. I leant against the side of the carriage, intending
to climb up--and was instantly overcome by sleep. Somebody lifted me
up from behind and laid me down, while I began pushing him away with
my feet, without knowing why, and again I fell asleep, hearing as in a
dream fragments of a conversation:
"At the seventh verst."
"Have you forgotten the lanterns?"
"No, he won't go."
"Give them here. Back a little. That's it."
The carriages were jerking backwards and forwards, something was
rattling. And gradually, because of all these sounds and because I
was lying comfortably and quietly, sleep deserted me. But the doctor
was sound asleep, and when I took him by the hand, it was like the
hand of a corpse, heavy and limp. The train was now moving slowly and
cautiously, shaking slightly, as if groping its way. The student acting
as hospital orderly lighted the candle in the lantern, lighting up the
walls and the black aperture of the entrance, and said angrily,--
"D--n it! Much they need us by this time. But you had better wake him,
before he falls into a sound sleep, for then you won't be able to do
anything with him. I know by myself."
We roused the doctor and he sat up, rolling his eyes vacantly. He tried
to lie down again, but we did not let him.
"It would be good to have a drop of vodki now," said the student.
We drank a mouthful of brandy, and all sleepiness disappeared
entirely. The big black square of the door began to grow pink, then
red--somewhere from behind the hills appeared an enormous mute flare of
a conflagration: as if the sun was rising in the middle of the night.
"It's far away. About twenty versts."
"I feel cold," said the doctor, snapping his teeth.
The student looked out of the door and beckoned me to come up to him.
I looked out: at different points of the horizon motionless flares of
similar conflagration stood out in a mute row: as if dozens of suns
were rising simultaneously. And now the darkness was not so great.
The distant hills were growing more densely black, sharply outlined
against the sky in a broken and wavy contour, while in the foreground
all was flooded with a red soft glow, silent and motionless. I glanced
at the student; his face was tinged by the same red fantastic colour of
blood, that had changed itself into air and light.
"Are there many wounded?" asked I.
He waved his hand.
"A great many madmen. More so than wounded."
"Real madmen?"
"What others can there be?"
He was looking at me, and his eyes wore the same fixed, wild
expression, full of cold horror, that the soldier's had, who died of
sunstroke.
"Stop that," said I, turning away.
"The doctor is mad also. Just look at him."
The doctor had not heard. He was sitting cross-legged, like a Turk,
swaying to and fro, soundlessly moving his lips and finger-tips. And
in his gaze there was the same fixed, stupefied, blunt, stricken
expression.
"I feel cold," said he, and smiled.
"Hang you all!" cried I, moving away into a corner of the carriage.
"What did you call me up for?"
Nobody answered. The student stood gazing out at the mute spreading
glow, and the back of his head with its curly hair was youthful; and
when I looked at him, I do not know why, but I kept picturing to myself
a delicate woman's hand passing through that hair. And this image was
so unpleasant, that a feeling of hatred sprang up in my breast, and I
could not look at him without a feeling of loathing.
"How old are you?" I asked, but he did not turn his head and did not
answer.
The doctor kept on rocking himself.
"I feel cold."
"When I think," said the student, without turning round, "when I think
that there are streets, houses, a University...."
He broke off, as if he had said all and was silent. Suddenly the train
stopped almost instantaneously, making me knock myself against the
wall, and voices were to be heard. We jumped out. In front of the very
engine upon the rails lay something, a not very large lump, out of
which a leg was projecting.
"Wounded?"
"No, dead. The head is torn off. Say what you will, but I will light
the head-light. Otherwise we shall be crushing somebody."
The lump with the protruding leg was thrown aside; for an instant the
leg lifted itself up, as if it wanted to run through the air, and all
disappeared in a black ditch. The head-light was lit and the engine
instantly grew black.
"Listen!" whispered somebody, full of silent terror.
How was it that we had not heard it before! From everywhere--the exact
place could not be defined--a groan, unbroken and scraping, wonderfully
calm in its breadth, and even indifferent, as it seemed, was borne upon
us. We had heard many cries and groans, but this resembled none of
those heard before. On the dim reddish surface our eyes could perceive
nothing, and therefore the very earth and sky, lit up by a never-rising
sun, seemed to be groaning.
"The fifth verst," said the engine-driver.
"That is where it comes from," and the doctor pointed forwards. The
student shuddered, and slowly turned towards us.
"What is it? It's terrible to listen to!"
"Let's move on."
We walked along in front of the engine, throwing a dense shadow upon
the rails, but it was not black but of a dim red colour, lit up by the
soft motionless flares, that stood out mutely at the different points
of the black sky. And with each step we made, that wild unearthly
groan, that had no visible source, grew ominously, as if it was the red
air, the very earth and sky, that were groaning. In its ceaselessness
and strange indifference it recalled at times the noise of grasshoppers
in a meadow--the ceaseless noise of grasshoppers in a meadow on a
warm summer day. And we came upon dead bodies oftener and oftener. We
examined them rapidly and threw them off the rails--those indifferent,
calm, limp bodies, that left dark oily stains where the blood had
soaked into the earth where they had lain. At first we counted them,
but soon got muddled, and ceased. They were many--too many for that
ominous night, that breathed cold and groans from each fibre of its
being.
"What does it mean?" cried the doctor, and threatened somebody with his
fist. "Just listen...."
We were nearing the sixth verst, and the groans were growing distinct
and sharp, and we could almost feel the distorted mouths, from which
those terrible sounds were issuing.
We looked anxiously into the rosy gloom, so deceitful in its fantastic
light, when suddenly, almost at our feet, beside the rails, somebody
gave a loud, calling, crying, groan. We found him instantly, that
wounded man, whose face seemed to consist only of two eyes, so big they
appeared, when the light of the lantern fell on his face. He stopped
groaning, and rested his eyes on each of us and our lanterns in turn,
and in his glance there was a mad joy at seeing men and lights--and a
mad fear that all would disappear like a vision. Perhaps he had seen
men with lanterns bending over him many times, but they had always
disappeared in a bloody confused nightmare.
We moved on, and almost instantly stumbled against two more wounded,
one lying on the rails, the other groaning in a ditch. As we were
picking them up, the doctor, trembling with anger, said to me: "Well?"
and turned away. Several steps farther on we met a man wounded
slightly, who was walking alone, supporting one arm with the other. He
was walking with his head thrown back, straight towards us, but seemed
not to notice us, when we drew aside to let him pass. I believe he did
not see us. He stopped for an instant near the engine, turned aside,
and went past the train.
"You had better get in!" cried the doctor, but he did not answer.
These were the first that we found, and they horrified us. But later
on we came upon them oftener and oftener along the rails or near
them, and the whole field, lit up by the motionless red flare of the
conflagrations, began stirring as if it were alive, breaking out into
loud cries, wails, curses and groans. All those dark mounds stirred
and crawled about like half-dead lobsters let out of a basket, with
outspread legs, scarcely resembling men in their broken, unconscious
movements and ponderous immobility. Some were mute and obedient, others
groaned, wailed, swore and showed such a passionate hate towards us
that were saving them, as if _we_ had brought about that bloodly,
indifferent night, and been the cause of all those terrible wounds and
their loneliness amidst the night and dead bodies.
The train was full, and our clothes were saturated with blood, as if
we had stood for a long time under a rain of blood, while the wounded
were still being brought in, and the field, come to life, was stirring
wildly as before.
Some of the wounded crawled up themselves, some walked up tottering and
falling. One soldier almost ran up to us. His face was smashed, and
only one eye remained, burning wildly and terribly, and he was almost
naked, as if he had come from the bath-room. Pushing me aside, he
caught sight of the doctor, and rapidly seized him by the chest with
his left hand.
"I'll smash your snout!" he cried, shaking the doctor, and added slowly
and mordantly a coarse oath. "I'll smash your snouts! you rabble!"
The doctor broke away from the soldier, and advancing towards him,
cried chokingly,--
"I will have you court-martialled, you scoundrel! To prison with you!
You're hindering my work! Scoundrel! Brute!"
We pulled them apart, but the soldier kept on crying out for a long
time: "Rabble! I'll smash your snout!"
I was beginning to get exhausted, and went a little way off to have
a smoke and rest a bit. The blood, dried to my hands, covered them
like a pair of black gloves, making it difficult for me to bend my
fingers, so that I kept dropping my cigarettes and matches. And when
I succeeded in lighting my cigarette, the tobacco smoke struck me as
novel and strange, with quite a peculiar taste, the like of which I
never experienced before or after. Just then the ambulance student with
whom I had travelled came up to me, and it seemed to me as if I had
met with him several years back, but where I could not remember. His
tread was firm as if he were marching, and he was staring through me at
something farther on and higher up.
"And they are sleeping," said he, as it seemed, quite calmly.
I flew into a rage, as if the reproach was addressed to me.
"You forget, that they fought like lions for ten days."
"And they are sleeping," he repeated, looking through me and higher up.
Then he stooped down to me and shaking his finger, continued in the
same dry and calm way: "I will tell you--I will tell you...."
"What?"
He stooped still lower towards me, shaking his finger meaningly, and
kept repeating the words as if they expressed a completed idea,--
"I will tell you--I will tell you. Tell them...." And still looking at
me in the same severe way, he shook his finger once more, then took out
his revolver and shot himself in the temple. And this did not surprise
or terrify me in the least. Putting my cigarette into the left hand, I
felt his wound with my fingers, and went back to the train.
"The student has shot himself. I believe he is still alive," said I to
the doctor. The latter caught hold of his head and groaned.
"D--n him!... There is no room. There, that one will go and shoot
himself too, soon. And I give you my word of honour," cried he, angrily
and menacingly, "I will do the same! Yes! And let me beg you--just walk
back. There is no room. You can lodge a complaint against me if you
like."
And he turned away, still shouting, while I went up to the other who
was about to commit suicide. He was an ambulance man, and also, I
believe, a student. He stood, pressing his forehead against the wall of
the carriage, and his shoulders shook with sobs.
"Stop!" said I, touching his quivering shoulder. But he did not turn
round or answer, and continued crying. And the back of his head was
youthful, like the other student's, and as terrifying, and he stood in
an absurd manner with his legs spread out like a person drunk, who is
sick; and his neck was covered with blood; probably he had clutched it
with his own hands.
"Well?" said I, impatiently.
He pushed himself away from the carriage and, stooping like an old man,
with his head bent down, he went away into the darkness, away from all
of us. I do not know why, but I followed him, and we walked along for
a long time away from the carriages. I believe he was crying, and a
feeling of distress stole over me, and I wanted to cry too.
"Stop!" I cried, standing still.
But he walked on, moving his feet ponderously, bent down, looking like
an old man with his narrow shoulders and shuffling gait. And soon he
disappeared in the reddish haze, that resembled light and yet lit
nothing. And I remained alone. To the left of me a row of dim lights
floated past--it was the train. I was alone--amidst the dead and dying.
How many more remained? Near me all was still and dead, but farther
on the field was stirring, as if it were alive--or so it seemed to me
in my loneliness. But the moan did not grow less. It spread along the
earth--high-pitched, hopeless, like the cry of a child or the yelping
of thousands of cast-away puppies, starving and cold. Like a sharp,
endless, icy needle it pierced your brain and slowly moved backwards
and forwards--backwards and forwards....
FRAGMENT VI
... They were our own men. During the strange confusion of all
movements that reigned in both armies, our own and the enemy's, during
the last month, frustrating all orders and plans, we were sure it
was the enemy that was approaching us, namely, the 4th corps. And
everything was ready for an attack, when somebody clearly discerned our
uniforms, and ten minutes later our guess had become a calm and happy
certainty: they were our own men. They apparently had recognised us
too: they advanced quite calmly, and that calm motion seemed to express
the same happy smile of an unexpected meeting.
And when they began firing, we did not understand for some time what
it meant, and still continued smiling--under a hail of shrapnel and
bullets, that poured down upon us, snatching away at one stroke
hundreds of men. Somebody cried out by mistake and--I clearly
remember--we all saw that it was the enemy, that it was his uniform and
not ours, and instantly answered the fire. About fifteen minutes after
the beginning of that strange engagement both my legs were torn off,
and I recovered consciousness in the hospital after the amputation.
I asked how the battle had ended, and received an evasive, reassuring
answer, by which I could understand that we had been beaten; and
afterwards, legless as I was, I was overcome by joy at the thought that
now I would be sent home, that I was alive--alive for a long time to
come, alive forever. And only a week later I learnt some particulars,
that once more filled me with doubts and a new, unexperienced feeling
of terror. Yes, I believe they were our own men after all--and it was
with one of our shells, fired out of one of our guns by one of our
men, that my legs had been torn off. And nobody could explain how
it had happened. Something occurred, something darkened our vision,
and two regiments, belonging to the same army, facing each other at
a distance of one verst, had been destroying each other for a whole
hour in the full conviction that it was the enemy they had before
them. Later on the incident was remembered and spoken of reluctantly
in half-words and--what is most surprising of all--one could feel
that many of the speakers did not admit the mistake even then. That
is to say, they admitted it, but thought that it had occurred later
on, that in the beginning they really had the enemy before them, but
that he disappeared somewhere during the general fray, leaving us in
the range of our own shells. Some spoke of it openly, giving precise
explanations, which seemed to them plausible and clear. Up to this
very minute I cannot say for certain how the strange blunder began,
as I saw with equal clearness first our red uniforms and then their
orange-coloured ones. And somehow very soon everybody forgot about the
incident, forgot about it to such an extent that it was spoken of as
a real battle, and in that sense many accounts were written and sent
to the papers in all good faith; I read them when I was back home. At
first the public's attitude towards us, the wounded in that engagement,
was rather strange--we seemed to be less pitied than those wounded in
other battles, but soon even that disappeared too. And only new facts,
similar to the one just described, and a case in the enemy's army, when
two detachments actually destroyed each other almost entirely, having
come to a hand-to-hand fight during the night--gives me the right to
think that a mistake did occur.
Our doctor, the one that did the amputation, a lean, bony old man,
tainted with tobacco smoke and carbolic acid, everlastingly smiling
at something through his yellowish-grey thin moustache, said to me,
winking his eye,--
"You're in luck to be going home. There's something wrong here."
"What is it?"
"Something's going wrong. In our time it was simpler."
He had taken part in the last European war almost a quarter of a
century back and often referred to it with pleasure. But this war he
did not understand, and, as I noticed, feared it.
"Yes, there's something wrong," sighed he, and frowned, disappearing in
a cloud of tobacco smoke. "I would leave too, if I could."
And bending over me he whispered through his yellow smoked moustache,--
"A time will come when nobody will be able to go away from here. Yes,
neither I nor anybody," and in his old eyes, so close to me, I saw
the same fixed, dull, stricken expression. And something terrible,
unbearable, resembling the fall of thousands of buildings, darted
through my head, and growing cold from terror, I whispered,--
"The red laugh."
And he was the first to understand me. He hastily nodded his head and
repeated,--
"Yes. The red laugh."
He sat down quite close to me and looking round began whispering
rapidly, in a senile way, wagging his sharp, grey little beard.
"You are leaving soon, and I will tell you. Did you ever see a fight
in an asylum? No? Well, I saw one. And they fought like sane people.
You understand--like sane people." He significantly repeated the last
phrase several times.
"Well, and what of that?" asked I, also in a whisper, full of terror.
"Nothing. Like sane people."
"The red laugh," said I.
"They were separated by water being poured over them."
I remembered the rain that had frightened us so, and got angry.
"You are mad, doctor!"
"Not more than you. Not more than you in any case."
He hugged his sharp old knees and chuckled; and, looking at me over
his shoulder and still with the echo of that unexpected painful
laugh on his parched lips, he winked at me slyly several times, as
if we two knew something very funny, that nobody else knew. Then
with the solemnity of a professor of black magic, giving a conjuring
performance, he lifted his arm and, lowering it slowly, carefully
touched with two fingers that part of the blanket, under which my legs
would have been, if they had not been cut off.
"And do you understand this?" he asked mysteriously.
Then, in the same solemn and significant manner, he waved his hand
towards the row of beds on which the wounded were lying, and repeated,--
"And can you explain this?"
"The wounded?" said I. "The wounded?"
"The wounded," repeated he, like an echo. "The wounded. Legless and
armless, with pierced sides, smashed-in chests and torn-out eyes. You
understand it? I am very glad. So I suppose you will understand this
also?"
With an agility, quite unexpected for his age, he flung himself down
and stood on his hands, balancing his legs in the air. His white
working clothes turned down, his face grew purple and, looking at me
fixedly with a strange upturned gaze, he threw at me with difficulty a
few broken words,--
"And this ... do you ... also ... understand?"
"Stop!" whispered I in terror, "or else I will cry out."
He turned over into a natural position, sat down again near my bed, and
taking breath, remarked instinctively,--
"And nobody can understand it."
"Yesterday they were firing again."
"Yes, they were firing yesterday and the day before," said he, nodding
his head affirmatively.
"I want to go home!" said I in distress. "Doctor, dear fellow, I want
to go home. I cannot remain here any longer. At times I cannot bring
myself to believe that I have a home, where it is so good."
He was thinking of something and did not answer, and I began to cry.
"My God, I have no legs. I used to love my bicycle so, to walk and run,
and now I have no legs. I used to dance my boy on the right foot and he
laughed, and now.... Curse you all! What shall I go home for? I am only
thirty.... Curse you all!"
And I sobbed and sobbed, as I thought of my dear legs, my fleet, strong
legs. Who took them away from me, who dared to take them away!
"Listen," said the doctor, looking aside. "Yesterday I saw a mad
soldier that came to us. An enemy's soldier. He was stripped almost
naked, beaten and scratched and hungry as an animal, his hair was
unkempt, as ours is, and he resembled a savage, primitive man or
monkey. He waved his arms about, made grimaces, sang and shouted
and wanted to fight. He was fed and driven out again--into the open
country. Where could we have kept him? Days and nights they wander
about the hills, backwards and forwards in all directions, keeping to
no path, having no aim or resting-place, all in tatters like ominous
phantoms. They wave their arms, laugh, shout and sing, and when they
come across anybody they begin to fight, or, maybe, without noticing
each other, pass by. What do they eat? Probably nothing, or, maybe,
they feed on the dead bodies together with the beasts, together with
those fat wild dogs, that fight in the hills and yelp the whole night
long. At night they gather about the fires like monstrous moths or
birds awakened by a storm, and you need only light a fire to have in
less than half-an-hour a dozen noisy, tattered wild shapes, resembling
chilled monkeys, gathering around it. Sometimes they are fired at by
mistake, sometimes on purpose, for they make you lose all patience with
their unintelligible, terrifying cries...."
"I want to go home!" cried I, shutting my ears.
But new terrible words, sounding hollow and phantom-like, as if they
were passing through a layer of wadding, kept hammering at my brain.
"They are many. They die by hundreds in the precipices and pitfalls,
that are made for sound and clever men, in the remnants of the barbed
wire and on the stakes; they take part in the regular battles and fight
like heroes--always in the foremost ranks, always undaunted, but often
turn against their own men. I like them. At present I am only beginning
to go mad, and that is why I am sitting and talking to you, but when
my senses leave me entirely, I will go out into the open country--I
will go out into the open country, and I will give a call--I will give
a call, I will gather those brave ones, those knights-errant, around
me, and declare war to the whole world. We will enter the towns and
villages in a joyous crowd, with music and songs, leaving in our wake a
trail of red, in which everything will whirl and dance like fire. Those
that remain alive will join us, and our brave army will grow like an
avalanche, and will cleanse the whole world. Who said that one must not
kill, burn or rob?..."
He was shouting now, that mad doctor, and seemed to have awakened by
his cries the slumbering pain of all those around him with their
ripped-open chests and sides, torn-out eyes and cut-off legs. The ward
filled with a broad, rasping, crying groan, and from all sides pale,
yellow, exhausted faces, some eyeless, some so monstrously mutilated
that it seemed as if they had returned from hell, turned towards us.
And they groaned and listened, and a black shapeless shadow, risen up
from the earth, peeped in cautiously through the open door, while the
mad doctor went on shouting, stretching out his arms.
"Who said one must not kill, burn, or rob? We will kill and burn and
rob. We, a joyous careless band of braves, we will destroy all; their
buildings, universities and museums, and merry as children, full
of fiery laughter, we will dance on the ruins. I will proclaim the
madhouse our fatherland; all those that have not gone mad--our enemies
and madmen; and when I, great, unconquerable and joyous, will begin to
reign over the whole world, its sole lord and master, what a glad laugh
will ring over the whole universe."
"The red laugh!" cried I, interrupting him. "Help. Again I hear the red
laugh!"
"Friends!" continued the doctor, addressing himself to the groaning
mutilated shadows. "Friends! we shall have a red moon and a red sun,
and the animals will have a merry red coat, and we will skin all those
that are too white--that are too white.... You have not tasted blood?
It is slightly sticky and slightly warm, but it is red and has such a
merry red laugh!..."
FRAGMENT VII
... It was godless and unlawful. The red cross is respected by the
whole world, as a thing sacred, and they saw that it was a train full
of harmless wounded and not soldiers, and they ought to have warned us
of the mine. The poor fellows, they were dreaming of home....
FRAGMENT VIII
... Around a samovar, around a real samovar, out of which the steam was
rising as out of an engine--the glass on the lamp had even grown dim,
there was so much steam. And the cups were the same, blue outside and
white inside, very pretty little cups, a wedding present. My wife's
sister gave them--she is a very kind and good woman.
"Is it possible they are all whole?" asked I, incredulously, mixing the
sugar in my glass with a clean silver spoon.
"One was broken," said my wife, absently; she was holding the tap open
just then and the water was running out easily and prettily.
I laughed.
"What's it about?" asked my brother.
"Oh, nothing. Wheel me into the study just once more. You may as well
trouble yourself for the sake of a hero. You idled away your time while
I was away, but now that is over. I'll bring you to order," and I began
singing, as a joke of course,--"My friends, we're bravely hurrying
towards the foe...."
They understood the joke and smiled, only my wife did not lift up her
face, she was wiping the cups with a clean embroidered cloth. And in
the study I saw once again the light-blue wall-paper, a lamp with a
green shade and a table with a water-bottle upon it. And it was a
little dusty.
"Pour me some water out of this," ordered I, merrily.
"But you've just had tea."
"That doesn't matter, pour me out some. And you," said I to my wife,
"take our son and go into the next room for a minute. Please."
And I drank the water with delight in small sips, while my wife and
son were in the next room, and I could not see them.
"That's all right. Now come here. But why is he not in bed by this
time?"
"He is so glad you have come home. Darling, go to your father."
But the child began to cry and hid himself at his mother's feet.
"Why is he crying?" asked I, in perplexity, and looked around, "why are
you all so pale and silent, following me like shadows?"
My brother burst into a loud laugh and said, "We are not silent."
And my sister said, "We are talking the whole time."
"I will go and see about the supper," said my mother, and hurriedly
left the room.
"Yes, you are silent," I repeated, with sudden conviction. "Since
morning I have not heard a word from you; I am the only one who chats,
laughs, and makes merry. Are you not glad to see me then? And why do
you all avoid looking at me? Have I changed so? Yes, I am changed. But
I do not see any looking-glasses about. Have you put them all away?
Give me a looking-glass."
"I will bring you one directly," answered my wife, and did not come
back for a long time, and the looking-glass was brought by the maid.
I looked into it, and--I had seen myself before in the train, at the
station--it was the same face, grown older a little, but the most
ordinary face. While they, I believe, expected me to cry out and
faint--so glad were they when I asked calmly,--
"What is there so unusual in me?"
Laughing louder and louder, my sister left the room hurriedly, and my
brother said with calm assurance: "Yes, you have not changed much, only
grown slightly bald."
"You can be thankful that my head is not broken," answered I,
unconcernedly. "But where do they all disappear?--first one, then
another. Wheel me about the rooms, please. What a comfortable armchair,
it does not make the slightest sound. How much did it cost? You bet
I won't spare the money: I will buy myself such a pair of legs,
better.... My bicycle!"
It was hanging on the wall, quite new, only the tyres were limp for
want of pumping. A tiny bit of mud had dried to the tyre of the back
wheel--the last time I had ridden it. My brother was silent and did not
move my chair, and I understood his silence and irresoluteness.
"Only four officers remained alive in our regiment," said I, surlily.
"I am very lucky.... You can take it for yourself--take it away
to-morrow."
"All right, I will take it," agreed my brother submissively. "Yes,
you are lucky. Half of the town is in mourning. While legs--that is
really...."
"Of course I am not a postman."
My brother stopped suddenly and asked,--
"But why does your head shake?"
"That's nothing. The doctor said it will pass."
"And your hands too?"
"Yes, yes. And my hands too. It will all pass. Wheel me on, please, I
am tired of remaining still."
They upset me, those discontented people, but my gladness returned to
me when they began making my bed; a real bed, a handsome bed, that I
had bought just before our wedding four years ago. They spread a clean
sheet, then they shook the pillows and turned down the blanket, while I
watched the solemn proceedings, my eyes full of tears with laughing.
"And now undress me and put me to bed," said I to my wife. "How good it
is!"
"This minute, dear."
"Quicker!"
"This minute, dear."
"Why; what are you doing?"
"This minute, dear."
She was standing behind my back, near the toilette table, and I vainly
tried to turn my head so as to see her. And suddenly she gave a cry,
such a cry as one hears only at the war,--
"What does it all mean?"
She rushed towards me, put her arms round me, and fell down, hiding her
head near the stumps of my cut-off legs, from which she turned away
with horror, and again pressed herself against them, kissing them, and
crying,--
"What have you become? Why, you are only thirty years old. You were
young and handsome. What does it all mean? How cruel men are. What
is it for? For whom is it necessary? You, my gentle, poor darling,
darling...."
At her cry they all ran up--my mother, sister, nurse--and they all
began crying and saying something or other, and fell at my feet
wailing. While on the threshold stood my brother, pale, terribly pale,
with a trembling jaw, and cried out in a high-pitched voice,--
"I shall go mad with you all. I shall go mad!"
While my mother grovelled at my chair and had not the strength to cry,
but only gasped, beating her head against the wheels. And there stood
the clean bed with the well-shaken pillows and turned-down blanket, the
same bed that I bought just before our wedding four years ago....
FRAGMENT IX
... I was sitting in a warm bath, while my brother was pacing up and
down the small room in a troubled manner, sitting down, getting up
again, catching hold of the soap and towel, bringing them close up to
his short-sighted eyes and again putting them back in their places. At
last he stood up with his face to the wall and picking at the plaster
with his finger, continued hotly.
"Judge for yourself: one cannot teach people mercy, sense, logic--teach
them to act consciously for tens and hundreds of years running with
impunity. And, in particular, to act consciously. One can become
merciless, lose all sensitiveness, get accustomed to blood and tears
and pain--for instance butchers, and some doctors and officers do,
but how can one renounce truth, after one has learnt to know it? In
my opinion it is impossible. I was taught from infancy not to torture
animals and be compassionate; all the books that I read told me the
same, and I am painfully sorry for all those that suffer at your cursed
war. But time passes, and I am beginning to get accustomed to all those
deaths, sufferings and all this blood; I feel that I am getting less
sensitive, less responsive in my everyday life and respond only to
great stimulants, but I cannot get accustomed to war; my brain refuses
to understand and explain a thing that is senseless in its basis.
Millions of people gather at one place and, giving their actions order
and regularity, kill each other, and it hurts everybody equally, and
all are unhappy--what is it if not madness?" My brother turned round
and looked at me inquiringly with his short-sighted, artless eyes.
"The red laugh," said I merrily, splashing about.
"I will tell you the truth," and my brother put his cold hand
trustingly on my shoulder, but quickly pulled it back, as if he was
frightened at its being naked and wet. "I will tell you the truth; I am
very much afraid of going mad. I cannot understand what is happening.
I cannot understand it, and it is dreadful. If only anybody could
explain it to me, but nobody can. You were at the front, you saw it
all--explain it to me."
"Deuce take you," answered I jokingly, splashing about.
"There, and you too," said my brother, sadly. "Nobody is capable of
helping me. It's dreadful. And I am beginning to lose all understanding
of what is permissible and what is not, what has sense and what is
senseless. If I were to seize you suddenly by the throat, at first
gently, as if caressing you, and then firmly, and strangle you, what
would that be?"
"You are talking nonsense. Nobody does such things."
My brother rubbed his cold hands, smiled softly, and continued,--
"When you were away there were nights when I did not sleep, could
not sleep, and strange ideas entered my head--to take a hatchet, for
instance, and go and kill everybody--mother, sister, the servants, our
dog. Of course they were only fancies, and I would never do so."
"I should hope not," smiled I, splashing about.
"Then, again, I am afraid of knives, of all that is sharp and shining;
it seems to me that if I were to take up a knife I should certainly
kill somebody with it. Now, is it not true--why should I not plunge it
into somebody, if it were sharp enough?"
"The argument is sufficient. What a queer fellow you are, brother! Just
open the hot-water tap."
My brother opened the tap, let in some hot water, and continued,--
"Then, again, I am afraid of crowds--of men, when many of them gather
together. When of an evening I hear a noise in the street--a loud
shout, for instance--I start and believe that ... a massacre has
begun. When several men stand together, and I cannot hear what they
are talking about, it seems to me that they will suddenly cry out,
fall upon each other, and blood will flow. And you know"--he bent
mysteriously towards my ear--"the papers are full of murders--strange
murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there
are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get
muddled. Just feel my head, how hot it is. It is on fire. And sometimes
it gets cold, and everything freezes in it, grows benumbed, and changes
into a terrible dead-like piece of ice. I must go mad; don't laugh,
brother, I must go mad. A quarter of an hour has passed, it's time for
you to get out of your bath."
"A little bit more. Just a minute."
It was so good to be sitting again in that bath and listening to
the well-known voice, without reflecting upon the words, and to see
all the familiar, simple and ordinary things around me: the brass,
slightly-green tap, the walls, with the familiar pattern, and all the
photographic outfit laid out in order upon the shelves. I would take up
photography again, take simple, peaceful landscapes and portraits of my
son walking, laughing and playing. One could do that without legs. And
I would take up my writing again--about clever books, the progress of
human thought, beauty, and peace.
"Ho, ho, ho!" roared I, splashing about.
"What is the matter with you?" asked my brother, growing pale and full
of fear.
"Nothing. I am glad to be home."
He smiled at me as one smiles at a child or on one younger than
oneself, although I was three years older than he, and grew thoughtful,
like a grown-up person or an old man who has great, burdensome old
thoughts.
"Where can one fly to?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "Every day,
at about the same hour, the papers close the circuit, and all mankind
gets a shock. This simultaneousness of feelings, tears, thoughts,
sufferings and horror deprives me of all stay, and I am like a chip of
wood tossing about on the waves, or a bit of dust in a whirlwind. I am
forcibly torn away from all that is habitual, and there is one terrible
moment every morning, when I seem to hang in the air over the black
abyss of insanity. And I shall fall into it, I must fall into it. You
don't know all, brother. You don't read the papers, and much is held
back from you--you don't know all, brother."
I took all his words for rather a gloomy joke--the usual attitude
towards all those who, being touched by insanity, have an inkling of
the insanity of war, and gave us a warning. I considered it as a joke,
as if I had forgotten for the moment, while I was splashing about in
the hot water, all that I had seen over there. "Well, let them hold
things back from me, but I must get out of the bath, anyway," said I
lightly, and my brother smiled and called my man, and together they
lifted me out of my bath and dressed me. Afterwards I had some fragrant
tea, which I drank out of my cut-glass tumbler, and said to myself
that life was worth living even without a pair of legs; and then they
wheeled me into the study up to my table and I prepared for work.
Before the war I was on the staff of a journal, reviewing foreign
literature, and now, disposed within my reach, lay a heap of those
dear, sweet books in yellow, blue and brown covers. My joy was so
great, my delight so profound, that I could not make up my mind to
begin reading them, and I merely fingered the books, passing my hand
caressingly over them. I felt a smile spread over my face, most
probably a very silly smile, but I could not keep it back, as I
contemplated admiringly the type, the vignettes, the severe beautiful
simplicity of the drawings. How much thought and sense of beauty there
was in them all! How many people had to work and search, how much
talent and taste were needed to bring forth that letter, for instance,
so simple and elegant, so clever, harmonious and eloquent in its
interlaced lines.
"And now I must set to work," said I, seriously, full of respect for
work.
And I took up my pen to write the heading and, like a frog tied to a
string, my hand began plunging about the paper. The pen stuck into the
paper, scratched it, jerked about, slipped irresistibly aside, and
brought forth hideous lines, broken, crooked, devoid of all sense. And
I did not cry out or move, I grew cold and still as the approaching
terrible truth dawned upon me; while my hand danced over the brightly
illuminated paper, and each finger shook in such hopeless, living,
insane horror, as if they, those fingers, were still at the front and
saw the conflagrations and blood, and heard the groans and cries of
undescribable pain. They had detached themselves from me, those madly
quivering fingers, they were alive, they had become ears and eyes; and,
growing cold from horror, without the strength to move or cry out, I
watched their wild dance over the clean, bright white page.
And all was quiet. They thought I was working, and had shut all the
doors, so as not to interrupt me by any sound--and I was alone in the
room, deprived of the power of moving, obediently watching my shaking
hands.
"It is nothing," said I aloud, and in the stillness and loneliness of
the study my voice sounded hollow and nasty like the voice of a madman.
"It is nothing. I will dictate. Why, Milton was blind when he wrote his
_Paradise Regained_. I can think, and that is the chief thing, in fact
it is all."
And I began inventing a long clever phrase about the blind Milton, but
the words got confused, fell away as out of a rotten printing frame,
and when I came to the end of the phrase I had forgotten the beginning.
Then I tried to remember what made me begin, and why I was inventing
that strange senseless phrase about Milton, and could not.
"_Paradise Regained, Paradise Regained_," I repeated, and could not
understand what it meant.
And then I saw that I often forgot very many things, that I had become
strangely absent-minded, and confused familiar faces; that I forgot
words even in a simple conversation, and sometimes, remembering a word,
I could not understand its meaning. And I clearly pictured to myself my
daily existence. A strange short day, cut off like my legs, with empty
mysterious spaces, long hours of unconsciousness or apathy, about which
I could remember nothing.
I wanted to call my wife, but could not remember her name--and this did
not surprise or frighten me. Softly I whispered,--
"Wife!"
The incoherent, unusual word sounded softly and died away without
bringing any response. And all was quiet. They were afraid of
disturbing me at my work by any careless sound, and all was quiet--a
perfect study for a savant--cosy, quiet, disposing one to meditation
and creative energy. "Dear ones, how solicitous they are of me!" I
thought tenderly.
... And inspiration, sacred inspiration, came to me. The sun burst
forth in my head, and its burning creative rays darted over the whole
world, dropping flowers and songs--flowers and songs. And I wrote on
through the whole night, feeling no exhaustion, but soaring freely
on the wings of mighty, sacred inspiration. I was writing something
great--something immortal--flowers and songs--flowers and songs....
PART II
FRAGMENT X
... Happily he died last week on Friday. I say "happily," and repeat
that my brother's death was a great blessing to him. A cripple with
no legs, palsied, with a smitten soul, he was terrible and piteous in
his senseless creative ecstasy. Ever since that night he wrote for
two months, without leaving his chair, refusing all food, weeping and
scolding whenever we wheeled him away from his table even for a short
time. He moved his dry pen over the paper with wonderful rapidity,
throwing aside page after page, and kept on writing and writing. Sleep
deserted him, and only twice did we succeed in putting him to bed for
a few hours, thanks to a strong narcotic, but, later, even a narcotic
was powerless to conquer his senseless creative ecstasy. At his order
the curtains were kept drawn over all the windows the whole day long
and the lamp was allowed to burn, giving the illusion of night, while
he wrote on, smoking one cigarette after another. Apparently he was
happy, and I never happened to meet any healthy person with such an
inspired face--the face of a prophet or of a great poet. He became
extremely emaciated, with the waxen transparency of a corpse or of an
ascetic, and his hair grew quite grey; he began his senseless work
a comparatively young man, but finished it an old one. Sometimes he
hurried on his work, writing more than usual, and his pen would stick
into the pages and break, but he never noticed it; at such times one
durst not touch him, for at the slightest contact he was overtaken
by fits of tears and laughter; but sometimes, very rarely, he rested
blissfully from his work and talked to me affably, each time asking the
same questions: Who was I, what was my name, and since when had I taken
up literature.
And then he would condescendingly tell, always using the same words,
what an absurd fright he had had at the thought that he had lost his
memory and was incapable of work, and how splendidly he had refuted the
insane supposition there and then by beginning his great immortal work
about the flowers and songs.
"Of course I do not count upon being recognised by my contemporaries,"
he would say proudly and unassumingly at the same time, putting his
trembling hand on the heap of empty sheets, "but the future--the
future--will understand my idea."
He never once remembered the war or his wife and son; the mirage of
his endless work engrossed his attention so undividedly that it is
doubtful whether he was conscious of anything else. One could walk
and talk in his presence--he noticed nothing, and not for an instant
did his face lose its expression of terrible tension and inspiration.
In the stillness of the night, when everybody was asleep and he alone
wove untiringly the endless thread of insanity, he seemed terrible,
and only his mother and I ventured to approach him. Once I tried to
give him a pencil instead of his dry pen, thinking that perhaps he
really wrote something, but on the paper there remained only hideous
lines, broken, crooked, devoid of any sense. And he died in the night
at his work. I knew my brother well, and his insanity did not come as
a surprise to me: the passionate dream of work that filled all his
letters from the war and was the stay of his life after his return, had
to come into inevitable collision with the impotence of his exhausted,
tortured brain, and bring about the catastrophe. And I believe that
I have succeeded in reconstructing with sufficient accuracy the
successive feelings that brought him to the end during that fatal
night. Generally speaking, all that I have written down concerning the
war is founded upon the words of my dead brother, often very confused
and incoherent; only a few separate episodes were burnt into his brain
so deeply and indelibly that I could cite the very words that he used
in telling me them. I loved him, and his death weighs upon me like
a stone, oppressing my brain by its senselessness. It has added one
more loop to the incomprehensible that envelops my head like a web,
and has drawn it tight. The whole family has left for the country on a
visit to some relatives, and I am alone in the house--the house that
my brother loved so. The servants have been paid off, and only the
porter from the next door comes every morning to light the fires, while
the rest of the time I am alone, and resemble a fly caught between
two window-frames,[1] plunging about and knocking myself against a
transparent but insurmountable obstacle. And I feel, I know, that I
shall never leave the house. Now, when I am alone, the war possesses
me wholly and stands before me like an inscrutable mystery, like a
terrible spirit, to which I can give no form. I give it all sorts of
shapes: of a headless skeleton on horseback, of a shapeless shadow,
born in a black thundercloud, mutely enveloping the earth, but not one
of them can give me an answer and extinguish the cold, constant, blunt
horror that possesses me.
[1] In Russia the windows have double panes during the winter
for the purpose of keeping out the cold.--_Trans._
I do not understand war, and I must go mad, like my brother, like
the hundreds of men that are sent back from there. And this does not
terrify me. The loss of reason seems to me honourable, like the death
of a sentry at his post. But the expectancy, the slow and infallible
approach of madness, the instantaneous feeling of something enormous
falling into an abyss, the unbearable pain of tortured thought.... My
heart has grown benumbed, it is dead, and there is no new life for it,
but thought--is still alive, still struggling, once mighty as Samson,
but now helpless and weak as a child, and--I am sorry for my poor
thought. There are moments when I cannot endure the torture of those
iron clasps that are compressing my brain; I feel an irrepressible
longing to run out into the street, into the marketplace, where there
are people and cry out,--
"Stop the war this instant--or else...."
But what "else" is there? Are there any words that can make them come
to their senses? Words, in answer to which one cannot find just such
other loud and lying words? Or must I fall upon my knees before them
and burst into tears? But then, hundreds of thousands are making the
earth resound with their weeping, but does that change anything? Or,
perhaps, kill myself before them all? Kill myself. Thousands are dying
every day, but does that change anything?
And when I feel my impotence, I am seized with rage--the rage of war,
which I hate. Like the doctor, I long to burn down their houses with
all their treasures, their wives and children; to poison the water
which they drink; to raise all the killed from their graves and throw
the corpses into their unclean houses on to their beds. Let them sleep
with them as with their wives or mistresses!
Oh, if only I were the Devil! I would transplant all the horrors that
hell exhales on to their earth. I would become the lord of all their
dreams, and, when they cross their children with a smile before falling
asleep, I would rise up before them a black vision.... Yes, I must go
mad--only let it come quicker--let it come quicker....
FRAGMENT XI
... Prisoners, a group of trembling, terrified men. When they were led
out of the train the crowd gave a roar--the roar of an enormous savage
dog, whose chain is too short and not strong enough. The crowd gave a
roar and was silent, breathing deeply, while they advanced in a compact
group with their hands in their pockets, smiling with their white lips
as if currying favour, and stepping out in such a manner as if somebody
was just going to strike them with a long stick under their knees from
behind. But one of them walked at a short distance from the others,
calm, serious, without a smile, and when my eyes met his black ones I
saw bare open hatred in them. I saw clearly that he despised me and
thought me capable of anything; if I were to begin killing him, unarmed
as he was, he would not have cried out or tried to defend or right
himself--he considered me capable of anything.
I ran along together with the crowd, to meet his gaze once more, and
only succeeded as they were entering a house. He went in the last,
letting his companions pass before him, and glanced at me once more.
And then I saw such pain, such an abyss of horror and insanity in his
big black eyes, as if I had looked into the most wretched soul on earth.
"Who is that with the eyes?" I asked of a soldier of the escort.
"An officer--a madman. There are many such."
"What is his name?"
"He does not say. And his countrymen don't know him. A stranger they
picked up. He has been saved from hanging himself once already, but
what is there to be done!" ... and the soldier made a vague gesture and
disappeared in the door.
And now, this evening I am thinking of him. He is alone amidst the
enemy, who, in his opinion, are capable of doing anything with him, and
his own people do not know him. He keeps silence and waits patiently
for the moment when he will be able to go out of this world altogether.
I do not believe that he is mad, and he is no coward; he was the
only one who held himself with dignity in that group of trembling,
terrified men, whom apparently he does not regard as his own people.
What is he thinking about? What a depth of despair must be in the
soul of that man, who, dying, does not wish to name himself. Why give
his name? He has done with life and men, he has grasped their real
value and notices none around him, either his own people or strangers,
shout, rage and threaten as they will. I made inquiries about him. He
was taken in the last terrible battle, during which several tens of
thousands of men lost their lives, and he showed no resistance when he
was being taken prisoner; he was unarmed for some reason or other, and,
when the soldier, not having noticed it, struck him with his sword, he
did not get up or try to act in self-defence. But the wound, unhappily
for him, was a slight one.
But, maybe, he is really mad? The soldier said there were many such....
FRAGMENT XII
... It is beginning. When I entered my brother's study yesterday
evening he was sitting in his armchair at his table heaped with books.
The hallucination disappeared the moment I lighted a candle, but for
a long time I could not bring myself to sit down in the armchair that
he had occupied. At first it was terrifying--the empty rooms in which
one was constantly hearing rustlings and crackings were the cause of
this dread, but afterwards I even liked it--better he than somebody
else. Nevertheless, I did not leave the armchair the whole evening;
it seemed to me that if I were to get up he would instantly sit down
in my place. And I left the room very quickly without looking round.
The lamps ought to have been lit in all the rooms, but was it worth
while? It would have been perhaps worse if I had seen anything by
lamp-light--as it was, there was still room for doubt.
To-day I entered with a candle and there was nobody in the armchair.
Evidently it must have been only a shadow. Again I went to the
station--I go there every morning now--and saw a whole carriage full of
our mad soldiers. It was not opened, but shunted on to another line,
and I had time to see several faces through the windows. They were
terrible, especially one. Fearfully drawn, the colour of a lemon, with
an open black mouth and fixed eyes, it was so like a mask of horror
that I could not tear my eyes away from it. And it stared at me, the
whole of it, and was motionless, and glided past together with the
moving carriage, just as motionless, without the slightest change,
never transferring its gaze for an instant. If it were to appear before
me this minute in that dark door, I do not believe I should be able to
hold out. I made inquiries: there were twenty-two men. The infection is
spreading. The papers are hushing up something and, I believe, there
is something wrong in our town too. Black, closely-shut carriages have
made their appearance--I counted six during one day in different parts
of the town. I suppose I shall also go off in one of them one of these
days.
And the papers clamour for fresh troops and more blood every day, and I
am beginning to understand less and less what it all means. Yesterday I
read an article full of suspicion, stating that there were many spies
and traitors amongst the people, warning us to be cautious and mindful,
and that the wrath of the people would not fail to find out the guilty.
What guilty, and guilty of what? As I was returning from the station in
the tram, I heard a strange conversation, I suppose in reference to the
same article.
"They ought to be all hung without any trial," said one, looking
scrutinisingly at me and all the passengers. "Traitors ought to be
hung, yes."
"Without any mercy," confirmed the other. "They've been shown mercy
enough!"
I jumped out of the tram. The war was making everybody shed tears, and
they were crying too--why, what did it mean? A bloody mist seemed to
have enveloped the earth, hiding it from our gaze, and I was beginning
to think that the moment of the universal catastrophe was approaching.
The red laugh that my brother saw. The madness was coming from over
there, from those bloody burnt-out fields, and I felt its cold breath
in the air. I am a strong man and have none of those illnesses that
corrupt the body, bringing in their train the corruption of the brain
also, but I see the infection catching me, and half of my thoughts
belong to me no longer. It is worse than the plague and its horrors.
One can hide from the plague, take measures, but how can one hide from
all-penetrating thought, that knows neither distances nor obstacles?
In the daytime I can still fight against it, but during the night I
become, as everybody else does, the slave of my dreams--and my dreams
are terrible and full of madness....
FRAGMENT XIII
... Universal mob-fights, senseless and sanguinary. The slightest
provocation gives rise to the most savage club-law, knives, stones,
logs of wood coming into action, and it is all the same who is being
killed--red blood asks to be let loose, and flows willingly and
plentifully.
There were six of them, all peasants, and they were being led by three
soldiers with loaded guns. In their quaint peasant's dress, simple
and primitive like a savage's, with their quaint countenances, that
seemed as if made of clay and adorned with felted wool instead of
hair, in the streets of a rich town, under the escort of disciplined
soldiers--they resembled slaves of the antique world. They were being
led off to the war, and they moved along in obedience to the bayonets
as innocent and dull as cattle led to the slaughter-house. In front
walked a youth, tall, beardless, with a long goose neck, at the end of
which was a motionless little head. His whole body was bent forward
like a switch, and he stared at the ground under his feet so fixedly
as if his gaze penetrated into the very depths of the earth. The last
in the group was a man of small stature, bearded and middle-aged; he
had no desire of resistance, and there was no thought in his eyes, but
the earth attracted his feet, gripped them tightly, not letting them
loose, and he advanced with his body thrown back, as if struggling
against a strong wind. And at each step the soldier gave him a push
with the butt-end of his rifle, and one leg, tearing itself from the
earth, convulsively thrust itself forward, while the other still stuck
tightly. The faces of the soldiers were weary and angry, and evidently
they had been marching so for a long time; one felt they were tired and
indifferent as to how they carried their guns and how they marched,
keeping no step, with their feet turned in like countrymen. The
senseless, lingering and silent resistance of the peasants seemed to
have dimmed their disciplined brains, and they had ceased to understand
where they were going and what their goal was.
"Where are you leading them to?" I asked of one of the soldiers. He
started, glanced at me, and in the keen flash of his eyes I felt the
bayonet as distinctly as if it were already at my breast.
"Go away!" said the soldier; "go away, or else...."
The middle-aged man took advantage of the moment and ran away; he ran
with a light trot up to the iron railings of the boulevard and sat
down on his heels, as if he were hiding. No animal would have acted so
stupidly, so senselessly. But the soldier became savage. I saw him go
close up to him, stoop down and, thrusting his gun into the left hand,
strike something soft and flat with the right one. And then again. A
crowd was gathering. Laughter and shouts were heard....
FRAGMENT XIV
... In the eleventh row of stalls. Somebody's arms were pressing
closely against me on my right- and left-hand side, while far around me
in the semi-darkness stuck out motionless heads, tinged with red from
the lights upon the stage. And gradually the mass of people, confined
in that narrow space, filled me with horror. Everybody was silent,
listening to what was being said on the stage or, perhaps, thinking
out his own thoughts, but as they were many, they were more audible,
for all their silence, than the loud voices of the actors. They were
coughing, blowing their noses, making a noise with their feet and
clothes, and I could distinctly hear their deep, uneven breathing,
that was heating the air. They were terrible, for each of them could
become a corpse, and they all had senseless brains. In the calmness of
those well-brushed heads, resting upon white, stiff collars, I felt a
hurricane of madness ready to burst every second.
My hands grew cold as I thought how many and how terrible they were,
and how far away I was from the entrance. They were calm, but what
if I were to cry out "Fire!" ... And full of terror, I experienced
a painfully passionate desire, of which I cannot think without
my hands growing cold and moist. Who could hinder me from crying
out--yes, standing up, turning round and crying out: "Fire! Save
yourselves--fire!"
A convulsive wave of madness would overwhelm their still limbs. They
would jump up, yelling and howling like animals; they would forget that
they had wives, sisters, mothers, and would begin casting themselves
about like men stricken with sudden blindness, in their madness
throttling each other with their white fingers fragrant with scent.
The lights would be turned on, and somebody with an ashen face would
appear upon the stage, shouting that all was in order and that there
was no fire, and the music, trembling and halting, would begin playing
something wildly merry--but they would be deaf to everything--they
would be throttling, trampling, and beating the heads of the women,
demolishing their ingenious, cunning head-dresses. They would tear
at each other's ears, bite off each other's noses, and tear the very
clothes off each other's bodies, feeling no shame, for they would be
mad. Their sensitive, delicate, beautiful, adorable women would scream
and writhe helplessly at their feet, clasping their knees, still
believing in their generosity--while they would beat them viciously
upon their beautiful upturned faces, trying to force their way towards
the entrance. For men are always murderers, and their calmness and
generosity is the calmness of a well-fed animal, that knows itself out
of danger.
And when, having made corpses of half their number, they would gather
at the entrance in a trembling, tattered group of shamefaced animals,
with a false smile upon their lips, I would go on to the stage and say
with a laugh,--
"It has all happened because you killed my brother." Yes, I would say
with a laugh: "It has all happened because you killed my brother."
I must have whispered something aloud, for my neighbour on the
right-hand side moved angrily in his chair and said,--
"Hush! You are interrupting."
I felt merry and wanted to play a joke. Assuming a warning severe
expression, I stooped towards him.
"What is it?" he asked suspiciously. "Why do you look at me so?"
"Hush, I implore you," whispered I with my lips. "Do you not perceive a
smell of burning? There is a fire in the theatre."
He had enough power of will and good sense not to cry out. His face
grew pale, his eyes starting out of their sockets and almost protruding
over his cheeks, enormous as bladders, but he did not cry out. He rose
quietly and, without even thanking me, walked totteringly towards the
entrance, convulsively keeping back his steps. He was afraid of the
others guessing about the fire and preventing him getting away--him,
the only one worthy of being saved.
I felt disgusted and left the theatre also; besides I did not want to
make known my _incognito_ too soon. In the street I looked towards that
part of the sky where the war was raging; everything was calm, and
the night clouds, yellow from the lights of the town, were slowly and
calmly drifting past.
"Perhaps it is only a dream, and there is no war?" thought I, deceived
by the stillness of the sky and town.
But a boy sprang out from behind a corner, crying joyously,--
"A terrible battle. Enormous losses. Buy a list of telegrams--night
telegrams!"
I read it by the light of the street lamp. Four thousand dead. In the
theatre, I should say, there were not more than one thousand. And the
whole way home I kept repeating--"Four thousand dead."
Now I am afraid of returning to my empty house. When I put my key into
the lock and look at the dumb, flat door, I can feel all its dark
empty rooms behind it, which, however, the next minute, a man in a
hat would pass through, looking furtively around him. I know the way
well, but on the stairs I begin lighting match after match, until I
find a candle. I never enter my brother's study, and it is locked with
all that it contains. And I sleep in the dining-room, whither I have
shifted altogether: there I feel calmer, for the air seems to have
still retained the traces of talking and laughter and the merry clang
of dishes. Sometimes I distinctly hear the scraping of a dry pen--and
when I lay down on my bed....
FRAGMENT XV
... That absurd and terrible dream. It seemed as if the skull had been
taken off my brain and, bared and unprotected, it submissively and
greedily imbibed all the horrors of those bloody and senseless days.
I was lying curled up, occupying only five feet of space, while my
thought embraced the whole world. I saw with the eyes of all mankind,
and listened with its ears; I died with the killed, sorrowed and wept
with all that were wounded and left behind, and, when blood flowed out
of anybody's body, I felt the pain of the wound and suffered. Even all
that had not happened and was far away, I saw as clearly as if it had
happened and was close by, and there was no end to the sufferings of my
bared brain.
Those children, those innocent little children. I saw them in the
street playing at war and chasing each other, and one of them was
already crying in a high-pitched, childish voice--and something shrank
within me from horror and disgust. And I went home; night came on--and
in fiery dreams, resembling midnight conflagrations, those innocent
little children changed into a band of child-murderers.
Something was ominously burning in a broad red glare, and in the smoke
there swarmed monstrous, misshapen children, with heads of grown-up
murderers. They were jumping lightly and nimbly, like young goats at
play, and were breathing with difficulty, like sick people. Their
mouths, resembling the jaws of toads or frogs, opened widely and
convulsively; behind the transparent skin of their naked bodies the
red blood was coursing angrily--and they were killing each other at
play. They were the most terrible of all that I had seen, for they were
little and could penetrate everywhere.
I was looking out of the window and one of the little ones noticed me,
smiled, and with his eyes asked me to let him in.
"I want to go to you," he said.
"You will kill me."
"I want to go to you," he said, growing suddenly pale, and began
scrambling up the white wall like a rat--just like a hungry rat. He
kept losing his footing, and squealed and darted about the wall with
such rapidity, that I could not follow his impetuous, sudden movements.
"He can crawl in under the door," said I to myself with horror, and
as if he had guessed my thought, he grew thin and long and, waving
the end of his tail rapidly, he crawled into the dark crack under the
front door. But I had time to hide myself under the blanket, and heard
him searching for me in the dark rooms, cautiously stepping along with
his tiny bare feet. He approached my room very slowly, stopping now
and then, and at last entered it; but I did not hear any sound, either
rustle or movement for a long time, as if there was nobody near my
bed. And then somebody's little hand began lifting up the edge of the
coverlet, and I could feel the cold air of the room upon my face and
chest. I held the blanket tightly, but it persisted in lifting itself
up on all sides; and all of a sudden my feet became so cold, as if I
had dipped them into water. Now they were lying unprotected in the
chill darkness of the room, and he was looking at them.
In the yard, behind the house, a dog barked and was silent, and I heard
the trail of its chain as it went into its kennel. But he still watched
my naked feet and kept silence; I knew he was there by the unendurable
horror that was binding me like death with a stony, sepulchral
immobility. If I could have cried out, I would have awakened the whole
town, the whole world, but my voice was dead within me, and I lay
submissive and motionless, feeling the little cold hands moving over my
body and nearing my throat.
"I cannot!" I groaned, gasping and, waking up for an instant, I saw
the vigilant darkness of the night, mysterious and living, and again I
believe I fell asleep....
"Don't fear," said my brother, sitting down upon my bed, and the bed
creaked, so heavy he was dead. "Never fear, you see it is a dream. You
only imagine that you were being strangled, while in reality you are
asleep in the dark rooms, where there is not a soul, and I am in my
study writing. Nobody understood what I wrote about, and you derided me
as one insane, but now I will tell you the truth. I am writing about
the red laugh. Do you see it?"
Something enormous, red and bloody, was standing before me, laughing a
toothless laugh.
"That is the red laugh. When the earth goes mad, it begins to laugh
like that. You know, the earth has gone mad. There are no more flowers
or songs on it; it has become round, smooth and red like a scalped
head. Do you see it?"
"Yes, I see it. It is laughing."
"Look what its brain is like. It is red, like bloody porridge, and is
muddled."
"It is crying out."
"It is in pain. It has no flowers or songs. And now--let me lie down
upon you."
"You are heavy and I am afraid."
"We, the dead, lie down on the living. Do you feel warm?"
"Yes."
"Are you comfortable?"
"I am dying."
"Awake and cry out. Awake and cry out. I am going away....."
FRAGMENT XVI
.....To-day is the eighth day of the battle. It began last Friday,
and Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have
passed--and Friday has come again and is gone--and it is still going
on. Both armies, hundreds of thousands of men, are standing in front of
each other, never flinching, sending explosive, crashing projectiles
without stopping, and every instant living men are turned into corpses.
The roar and incessant vibration of the air has made the very sky
shudder and gather black thunderclouds above their heads,--while they
continue to stand in front of each other, never flinching and still
killing each other. If a man does not sleep for three nights, he
becomes ill and loses his memory, but they have not slept for a whole
week and are all mad. That is why they feel no pain, do not retreat,
and go on fighting until they have killed all to the last man. They say
that some of the detachments came to the end of their ammunition, but
still they fought on, using their fists and stones, and biting at each
other like dogs. If the remnants of those regiments return home, they
will have canine teeth like wolves--but they will not return, they have
gone mad and die, every man of them. They have gone mad. Everything is
muddled in their heads, and they cease to understand anything! If they
were to be turned round suddenly and sharply, they would begin firing
at their own men, thinking that they were firing at the enemy.
Strange rumours--strange rumours that are told in a whisper, those
repeating them turning white from horror and dreadful forebodings.
Brother, brother, listen what is being told of the red laugh! They
say phantom regiments have appeared, large bands of shadows, the
exact copy of living men. At night, when the men forget themselves
for an instant in sleep, or in the thick of the day's fight, when the
bright day itself seems a phantom, they suddenly appear, firing out of
phantom guns, filling the air with phantom noises; and men, living but
insane men, astounded by the suddenness of the attack, fight to the
death against the phantom enemy, go mad from horror, become grey in an
instant and die. The phantoms disappear as suddenly as they appear,
and all becomes still, while the earth is strewn with fresh mutilated
bodies. Who killed them? You know, brother, who killed them. When
there is a lull between two battles and the enemy is far off, suddenly
in the darkness of the night there resounds a solitary, frightened
shot. And all jump up and begin firing into the darkness, into the
silent dumb darkness, for a long time, for whole hours. Whom do they
see there? Whose terrible, silent shape, full of horror and madness
appears before them? You know, brother, and I know, but men do not know
yet, but they have a foreboding, and ask, turning pale: "Why are there
so many madmen? Before there never used to be so many."
"Before there never used to be so many madmen," they say, turning pale,
trying to believe that now it is as before, and that the universal
violence done to the brains of humanity would have no effect upon their
weak little intellects.
"Why, men fought before and always have fought, and nothing of the sort
happened. Strife is a law of nature," they say with conviction and
calmness, growing pale, nevertheless, seeking for the doctor with their
eyes, and calling out hurriedly: "Water, quick, a glass of water!"
They would willingly become idiots, those people, only not to feel
their intellect reeling and their reason succumbing in the hopeless
combat with insanity.
In those days, when men over there were constantly being turned
into corpses, I could find no peace, and sought the society of my
fellow-men; and I heard many conversations and saw many false smiling
faces, that asserted that the war was far off and in no way concerned
them. But much oftener I met naked, frank horror, hopeless, bitter
tears and frenzied cries of despair, when the great Mind itself cried
out of man its last prayer, its last curse, with all the intensity of
its power,--
"Whenever will the senseless carnage end?"
At some friends', whom I had not seen for a long time, perhaps several
years, I unexpectedly met a mad officer, invalided from the war. He was
a schoolfellow of mine, but I did not recognise him: if he had lain
for a year in his grave, he would have returned more like himself than
he was then. His hair was grey and his face quite white, his features
were but little changed,--but he was always silent, and seemed to
be listening to something, and this stamped upon his face a look of
such formidable remoteness, such indifference to all around him, that
it was fearful to talk to him. His relatives were told he went mad
in the following circumstances: they were in the reserve, while the
neighbouring regiment was ordered to make a bayonet charge. The men
rushed shouting "Hurrah" so loudly as almost to drown the noise of the
cannon,--and suddenly the guns ceased firing, the "Hurrah" ceased also,
and a sepulchral stillness ensued: they had run up to the enemy and
were charging him with their bayonets. And his reason succumbed to that
stillness.
Now he is calm when people make a noise around him, talk and shout, he
listens and waits, but if only there is a moment's silence, he catches
hold of his head, rushes up to the wall or against the furniture, and
falls down in a fit resembling epilepsy. He has many relations, and
they take turns and surround him with sound, but there remain the
nights, long solitary nights--but here his father, a grey-haired old
man, slightly wandering in his mind too, helped. He hung the walls
of his son's room with loudly ticking clocks, that constantly struck
the hour at different times, and at present he is arranging a wheel,
resembling an incessantly-going rattle. None of them lose hope that he
will recover, as he is only twenty-seven, and their house is even gay.
He is dressed very cleanly--not in his uniform--great care is taken
of his appearance and he is even handsome with his white hair, young,
thoughtful face and well-bred, slow, tired movements.
When I was told all, I went up and kissed his hand, his white languid
hand, which will never more be lifted for a blow--and this did not seem
to surprise anybody very much. Only his young sister smiled at me with
her eyes, and afterwards showed me such attention that it seemed as if
I were her betrothed and she loved me more than anybody in the world.
She showed me such attention that I very nearly told her about my dark
empty rooms, in which I am worse than alone--miserable heart, that
never loses hope.... And she managed that we remained alone.
"How pale you are and what dark rings you have under your eyes," she
said kindly. "Are you ill? Are you grieving for your brother?"
"I am grieving for everybody. And I do not feel well."
"I know why you kissed my brother's hand. They did not understand.
Because he is mad, yes?"
"Yes, because he is mad."
She grew thoughtful and looked very much like her brother, only younger.
"And will you," she stopped and blushed, but did not lower her eyes,
"will you let me kiss your hand?"
I kneeled before her and said: "Bless me."
She paled slightly, drew back and whispered with her lips,--
"I do not believe."
"And I also."
For an instant her hand touched my head, and the instant was gone.
"Do you know," she said, "I am leaving for the war."
"Go? But you will not be able to bear it."
"I do not know. But they need help, the same as you or my brother. It
is not their fault. Will you remember me?"
"Yes. And you?"
"And I will remember you too. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye for ever!"
And I grew calm and felt happier, as if I had passed through the most
terrible that there is in death and madness. And yesterday, for the
first time, I entered my house calmly without any fear, and opened my
brother's study and sat for a long time at his table. And when in the
night I suddenly awoke as if from a push, and heard the scraping of
the dry pen upon the paper, I was not frightened, but thought to myself
almost with a smile,--
"Work on, brother, work on! Your pen is not dry, it is steeped in
living human blood. Let your paper seem empty--in its ominous emptiness
it is more eloquent of war and reason than all that is written by the
most clever men. Work on, brother, work on!"
... And this morning I read that the battle is still raging, and again
I was possessed with a dread fear and a feeling of something falling
upon my brain. It is coming, it is near; it is already standing upon
the threshold of these empty, light rooms. Remember, remember me, dear
girl; I am going mad. Thirty thousand dead, thirty thousand dead!...
FRAGMENT XVII
... A fight is going on in the town. There are dark and fearful
rumours....
FRAGMENT XVIII
This morning, looking through the endless list of killed in the
newspaper, I saw a familiar name; my sister's affianced husband,
an officer called for military service at the same time as my dead
brother, was killed. And, an hour later, the postman handed me a
letter addressed to my brother, and I recognised the handwriting of the
deceased on the envelope: the dead was writing to the dead. But still
it was better so than the dead writing to the living. A mother was
pointed out to me who kept receiving letters from her son for a whole
month after she had read of his terrible death in the papers: he had
been torn to pieces by a shell. He was a fond son, and each letter was
full of endearing and encouraging words and youthful, naïve hopes of
happiness. He was dead, but wrote of life with a fearful accuracy every
day, and the mother ceased to believe in his death; and when a day
passed without any letter, then a second and a third, and the endless
silence of death ensued, she took a large old-fashioned revolver
belonging to her son in both hands, and shot herself in the breast. I
believe she survived, but I am not sure; I never heard.
I looked at the envelope for a long time, and thought: He held it
in his hands, he bought it somewhere, he gave the money to pay for
it, and his servant went to fetch it from some shop; he sealed and
perhaps posted it himself. Then the wheel of the complex machine called
"post" came into action, and the letter glided past forest, fields
and towns, passing from hand to hand, but rushing infallibly towards
its destination. He put on his boots that last morning, while it went
gliding on; he was killed, but it glided on; he was thrown into a pit
and covered up with dead bodies and earth, while it still glided on
past forests, fields and towns, a living phantom in a grey, stamped
envelope. And now I was holding it in my hands.
Here are the contents of the letter. It was written with a pencil on
scraps of paper, and was not finished: something interfered.
"... Only now do I understand the great joy of war, the ancient,
primitive delight of killing man--clever, scheming, artful man,
immeasurably more interesting than the most ravenous animal. To be
ever taking life is as good as playing at lawn-tennis with planets
and stars. Poor friend, what a pity you are not with us, but are
constrained to weary away your time amidst an unleavened daily
existence! In the atmosphere of death you would have found all that
your restless, noble heart yearned for. A bloody feast--what truth
there is in this somewhat hackneyed comparison! We go about up to our
knees in blood, and this red wine, as my jolly men call it in jest,
makes our heads swim. To drink the blood of one's enemy is not at all
such a stupid custom as we think: they knew what they were doing....
"... The crows are cawing. Do you hear, the crows are cawing. From
whence have they all gathered? The sky is black with them; they settle
down beside us, having lost all fear, and follow us everywhere; and
we are always underneath them, like under a black lace sunshade or a
moving tree with black leaves. One of them approached quite close to my
face and wanted to peck at it: he thought, most probably, that I was
dead. The crows are cawing, and this troubles me a little. From whence
have they all gathered?...
"... Yesterday we stabbed them all sleeping. We approached stealthily,
scarcely touching the ground with our feet, as if we were stalking wild
ducks. We stole up to them so skilfully and cautiously that we did not
touch a corpse and did not scare one single crow. We stole up like
shadows, and the night hid us. I killed the sentry myself--knocked him
down and strangled him with my hands, so as not to let him cry out. You
understand: the slightest sound, and all would have been lost. But he
did not cry out; he had no time, I believe, even to guess that he was
being killed.
"They were all sleeping around the smouldering fires--sleeping
peacefully, as if they were at home in their beds. We hacked about
us for more than an hour, and only a few had time to awake before
they received their death-blow. They howled, and of course begged for
mercy. They used their teeth. One bit off a finger on my left hand,
with which I was incautiously holding his head. He bit off my finger,
but I twisted his head clean off: how do you think--are we quits? How
they did not all wake up I cannot imagine. One could hear their bones
crackling and their bodies being hacked. Afterwards we stripped all
naked and divided their clothes amongst ourselves. My friend, don't get
angry over a joke. With your susceptibility you will say this savours
of marauding, but then we are almost naked ourselves; our clothes are
quite worn-out. I have been wearing a woman's jacket for a long time,
and resemble more a ... than an officer of a victorious army. By the
bye, you are, I believe, married, and it is not quite right for you
to read such things. But ... you understand? Women. D--n it, I am
young, and thirst for love! Stop a minute: I believe it was you who
was engaged to be married? It was you, was it not, who showed me the
portrait of a young girl and told me she was your promised bride?--and
there was something sad, something very sad and mournful underneath
it. And you cried. That was a long time ago, and I remember it but
confusedly; there is no time for softness at war. And you cried. What
did you cry about? What was there written that was as sad and mournful
as a drooping flower? And you kept crying and crying.... Were you not
ashamed, an officer, to cry?
"... The crows are cawing. Do you hear, friend, the crows are cawing.
What do they want?"
Further on the pencil-written lines were effaced and it was impossible
to decipher the signature. And strange to say the dead man called forth
no compassion in me. I distinctly pictured to myself his face, in which
all was soft and delicate as a woman's: the colour of his cheeks,
the clearness and morning freshness of the eyes, the beard so bushy
and soft, that a woman could almost have adorned herself with it. He
liked books, flowers and music, feared all that was coarse, and wrote
poetry,--my brother, as a critic, declared that he wrote very good
poetry. And I could not connect all that I knew and remembered of him
with the cawing crows, bloody carnage and death.
... The crows are cawing....
And suddenly for one mad, unutterably happy instant, I clearly saw
that all was a lie and that there was no war. There were no killed,
no corpses, there was no anguish of reeling, helpless thought. I was
sleeping on my back and seeing a dream, as I used to in my childhood:
the silent dread rooms, devastated by death and terror, and myself with
a wild letter in my hand. My brother was living, and they were all
sitting at the tea-table, and I could hear the noise of the crockery.
... The crows are cawing....
No, it is but true. Unhappy earth, it is true. The crows are cawing.
It is not the invention of an idle scribbler, aiming at cheap effects,
or of a madman, who has lost his senses. The crows are cawing. Where
is my brother? He was noble-hearted and gentle and wished no one evil.
Where is he? I am asking you, you cursed murderers. I am asking you,
you cursed murderers, crows sitting on carrion, wretched, imbecile
animals, before the whole world. For you are animals. What did you kill
my brother for? If you had a face, I would give you a blow upon it, but
you have no face, you have only the snout of a wild beast. You pretend
that you are men, but I see claws under your gloves and the flat skull
of an animal under your hat; hidden beneath your clever conversation I
hear insanity rattling its rusty chains. And with all the power of my
grief, my anguish and dishonoured thought--I curse you, you wretched,
imbecile animals!
FRAGMENT THE LAST
"... We look to you for the regeneration of human life!"
So shouted a speaker, holding on with difficulty to a small pillar,
balancing himself with his arm, and waving a flag with a large
inscription half-hidden in its folds: "Down with the war!"
"You, who are young, you, whose lives are only just beginning, save
yourselves and the future generations from this horror, from this
madness. It is unbearable, our eyes are drowned with blood. The sky
is falling upon us, the earth is giving way under our feet. Kind
people...."
The crowd was buzzing enigmatically and the voice of the speaker was
drowned at times in the living threatening noise.
"... Suppose I am mad, but I am speaking the truth. My father and
brother are rotting over there like carrion. Make bonfires, dig pits
and destroy, bury all your arms. Demolish all the barracks, and strip
all the men of their bright clothes of madness, tear them off. One
cannot bear it.... Men are dying...."
Somebody very tall gave him a blow and knocked him off the pillar; the
flag rose once again and fell. I had no time to see the face of the
man who struck him, as instantly everything turned into a nightmare.
Everything became commotion, became agitated and howled; stones and
logs of wood went flying through the air, fists, that were beating
somebody, appeared above the heads. The crowd, like a living, roaring
wave, lifted me up, carried me along several steps and threw me
violently against a fence, then carried me back and away somewhere, and
at last pressed me against a high pile of wood, that inclined forwards,
threatening to fall down upon somebody's head. Something crackled
and rattled against the beams in rapid dry succession; an instant's
stillness--and again a roar burst forth, enormous, open-mouthed,
terrible in its overwhelming power. And then the dry rapid crackling
was heard again and somebody fell down near me with the blood flowing
out of a red hole where his eye had been. And a heavy log of wood came
whirling through the air and struck me in the face, and I fell down and
began crawling, whither I knew not, amidst the trampling feet, and
came to an open space. Then I climbed over some fences, breaking all
my nails, clambered up piles of wood; one pile fell to pieces under
me and I fell amidst a cataract of thumping logs; at last I succeeded
with difficulty in getting out of a closed-in space--while behind me
all crashed, roared, howled and crackled, trying to overtake me. A
bell was ringing somewhere; something fell with a thundering crash, as
if it were a five-storey house. The twilight seemed to have stopped
still, keeping back the night, and the roar and shots, as if steeped in
red, had driven away the darkness. Jumping over the last fence I found
myself in a narrow, crooked lane resembling a corridor, between two
obscure walls, and began running. I ran for a long time, but the lane
seemed to have no outlet: it was terminated by a wall, behind which
piles of wood and scaffolding rose up black against the sky. And again
I climbed over the mobile, shifting piles, falling into pits, where all
was still and smelt of damp wood, getting out of them again into the
open, not daring to look back, for I knew quite well what was happening
by the dull reddish colour that tinged the black beams and made them
look like murdered giants. My smashed face had stopped bleeding and
felt numbed and strange, like a mask of plaster; and the pain had
almost quite disappeared. I believe I fainted and lost consciousness in
one of the black holes into which I had fallen, but I am not certain
whether I only imagined it or was it really so, as I can only remember
myself running.
I rushed about the unfamiliar streets, that had no lamps, past the
black death-like houses for a long time, unable to find my way out of
the dumb labyrinth. I ought to have stopped and looked around me to
define the necessary direction, but it was impossible to do so: the
still distant din and howl was following at my heels and gradually
overtaking me; sometimes, at a sudden turning, it struck me in the
face, red and enveloped in clouds of livid, curling smoke, and then I
turned back and rushed on until it was at my back once more. At one
corner I saw a strip of light, that disappeared at my approach: it was
a shop that was being hastily closed. I caught a glimpse of the counter
and a barrel through a wide chink, but suddenly all became enveloped in
a silent, crouching gloom. Not far from the shop I met a man, who was
running towards me, and we almost collided in the darkness, stopping
short at the distance of two steps from each other. I do not know who
he was: I only saw the dark alert outline.
"Are you coming from over there?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And where are you running to?"
"Home."
"Ah! Home?"
He was silent for an instant and suddenly flung himself upon me, trying
to bring me to the ground, and his cold fingers searched hungrily for
my throat, but got entangled in my clothes. I bit his hand, loosened
myself from his grip and set off running through the deserted streets
with him after me, stamping loudly with his boots, for a long time.
Then he stopped--I suppose the bite hurt him.
I do not know how I hit upon my street. It had no lamps either and the
houses had not a single light, as if they were dead, and I would have
run past without recognising it, if I had not by chance lifted my eyes
and seen my house. But I hesitated for some time: the house in which
I had lived for so many years seemed to me unfamiliar in that strange
dead street, in which my loud breathing awakened an extraordinary
and mournful echo. Then I was seized by a sudden wild terror at
the thought that I had lost my key when I fell, and I found it with
difficulty, although it was there all the time in the pocket of my
coat. And when I turned the lock the echo repeated the sound so loudly
and extraordinarily, as if all the doors of those dead houses in the
whole street had opened simultaneously.
... At first I hid myself in the cellar, but it was terrible and dull
down there, and something began darting before my eyes, so I quietly
stole into the rooms. Groping my way in the dark I locked all the
doors and after a short meditation decided to barricade them with the
furniture, but the sound of the furniture being moved was terribly
loud in the empty rooms and terrified me. "I shall await death thus.
It's all the same," I decided. There was some water, very warm water
in the water-jug, and I washed my face in the dark and wiped it with a
sheet. The parts that were smashed galled and smarted much, and I felt
a desire to look at myself in the looking-glass. I lit a match--and in
its uneven, faint light there glanced at me from out of the darkness
something so hideous and terrible, that I hastily threw the match upon
the floor. I believe my nose was broken. "It makes no difference now,"
said I to myself. "Nobody will mind."
And I felt gay. With strange grimaces and contortions of the body, as
if I were personating a thief on the stage, I went into the larder and
began searching for food. I clearly saw the unsuitableness of all my
grimaces, but it pleased me so. And I ate with the same contortions,
pretending that I was very hungry.
But the darkness and quiet frightened me. I opened the window into
the yard and began listening. At first, probably as the traffic had
ceased, all seemed to me to be quite still. And I heard no shots. But
soon I clearly distinguished a distant din of voices: shouts, the crash
of something falling, a laugh. The sounds grew louder perceptibly. I
looked at the sky; it was livid and sweeping past rapidly. And the
coach-house opposite me, and the paving of the streets, and the dog's
kennel, all were tinged with the same reddish glare. I called the dog
softly,--
"Neptune!"
But nothing stirred in the kennel, and near it I distinguished in the
livid light a shining piece of broken chain. The distant cries and
noise of something falling kept on growing, and I shut the window.
"They are coming here!" I said to myself, and began looking for some
place to hide myself. I opened the stoves, fumbled at the grate, opened
the cupboards, but they would not do. I made the round of all the
rooms, excepting the study, into which I did not want to look. I knew
he was sitting in his armchair at his table, heaped with books, and
this was unpleasant to me at that moment.
Gradually it began to appear that I was not alone: around me people
were silently moving about in the darkness. They almost touched me, and
once somebody's breath sent a cold thrill through the back of my head.
"Who is there?" I asked in a whisper, but nobody answered.
And when I moved on they followed me, silent and terrible. I knew that
it was only a hallucination because I was ill and apparently feverish,
but I could not conquer my fear, from which I was trembling all over as
if I had the ague. I felt my head: it was hot as if on fire.
"I had better go there," said I to myself. "He is one of my own people
after all."
He was sitting in his armchair at his table, heaped with books, and
did not disappear as he did the last time, but remained seated. The
reddish light was making its way through the red drawn curtains into
the room, but did not light up anything, and he was scarcely visible. I
sat down at a distance from him on the couch and waited. All was still
in the room, while from outside the even buzzing noise, the crash of
something falling and disjointed cries were borne in upon us. And they
were nearing us. The livid light became brighter and brighter, and I
could distinguish him in his armchair--his black, iron-like profile,
outlined by a narrow stripe of red.
"Brother!" I said.
But he kept silence, immobile and black, like a monument. A board
cracked in the next room and suddenly all became so extraordinarily
still, as it is where there are many dead. All the sounds died away
and the livid light itself assumed a scarcely perceptible shade of
deathliness and stillness and became motionless and a little dim. I
thought the stillness was coming from my brother and told him so.
"No, it is not from me," he answered. "Look out of the window."
I pulled the curtains aside and staggered back.
"So that's what it is!" said I.
"Call my wife; she has not seen that yet," ordered my brother.
She was sitting in the dining-room sewing something and, seeing my
face, rose obediently, stuck her needle into her work and followed me.
I pulled back the curtains from all the windows and the livid light
flowed in through the broad openings unhindered, but somehow did not
make the room any lighter: it was just as dark and only the big red
squares of the windows burned brightly.
We went up to the window. Before the house there stretched an even,
fiery red sky, without a single cloud, star or sun, and ended at the
horizon, while below it lay just such an even dark red field, and
it was covered with dead bodies. All the corpses were naked and lay
with their legs towards us, so that we could only see their feet and
triangular heads. And all was still; apparently they were all dead, and
there were no wounded left behind in that endless field.
"Their number is growing," said my brother.
He was standing at the window also, and all were there: my mother,
sister and everybody that lived in the house. I could not distinguish
their faces, and could recognise them only by their voices.
"It only seems so," said my sister.
"No, it's true. Just look."
And, truly, there seemed to be more bodies. We looked attentively for
the reason and found it: at the side of a corpse, where there was a
free space, a fresh corpse suddenly appeared: apparently the earth was
throwing them up. And all the unoccupied spaces filled rapidly, and the
earth grew lighter from the light pink bodies, that were lying side by
side with their feet towards us. And the room grew lighter filled with
a light pink dead light.
"Look, there is not enough room for them," said my brother.
And my mother answered,--
"There is one here already."
We looked round: behind us on the floor lay a naked, light pink body
with its head thrown back. And instantly at its side there appeared a
second, and a third. And the earth threw them up one after the other,
and soon the orderly rows of light pink dead bodies filled all the
rooms.
"They are in the nursery too," said the nurse. "I saw them."
"We must go away," said my sister.
"But we cannot pass," said my brother.
"Look!"
And sure enough, they were lying close together, arm to arm, and their
naked feet were touching us. And suddenly they stirred and swayed and
rose up in the same orderly rows: the earth was throwing up new bodies,
and they were lifting the first ones upwards.
"They will smother us!" said I. "Let us save ourselves through the
window."
"We cannot!" cried my brother. "We cannot! Look what is there!"
... Behind the window, in a livid, motionless light, stood the Red
Laugh.
THE END
EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND COY. LIMITED
PRINTERS
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