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 halfwords 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 cutoff 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!⁠ ⁠…” + 