Short Fiction by Leonid Andreyev (fastest ebook reader TXT) 📕

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 wallpaper, 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 wallpaper: 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 wallpaper, 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 wallpaper 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