“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 loo
ked 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 were 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 have 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 shortsighted, 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 deadlike 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 th
e 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.
The Red Laugh (Dedalus European Classics) Page 4
