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

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 grownup 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

… Today 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.