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Title: The Red Laugh

Author: Leonid Andreyev

Translator: Shimei Futabatei

Release date: October 1, 2010 [eBook #34013]
Most recently updated: February 24, 2021

Language: Japanese

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34013

Credits: Produced by Sachiko Hill and Kaoru Tanaka

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 血笑記 ***

Produced by Sachiko Hill and Kaoru Tanaka. (This file was produced from images generously made available by Kindai Digital Library)

by Leonid Andreyev

Translated by Futabatei Shimei

The Red Laugh

The Red Laugh

Translated by Futabatei Shimei

(Part I, Fragment I)

　...madness and terror.

　I first felt it when we were retreating along a certain highway. We had been marching for over ten hours without rest, without slackening our pace, leaving the fallen behind. The enemy was pursuing in massed formation. The footprints we just left would be trampled out by the enemy's footprints three or four hours later. It was hot. How many degrees—forty, fifty, perhaps even more—I couldn't say, but it was simply a boundless, bottomless heat with no prospect of ever cooling. The sun was huge, blazing like fire, terrifying, and seemed to draw near the earth, threatening to envelop us in its merciless heat and burn us to cinders. If only one could keep one's eyes open. Small, narrowed pupils like poppy seeds sought shade beneath closed eyelids, but there was no shade; the light pierced the thin skin and sent blood-red rays into my exhausted brain. Yet closing my eyes brought relief, so for a long time—perhaps for hours—I walked with my eyes shut, listening to the sounds of the column retreating around me. I could hear the heavy, uneven tread of men and horses, the sound of iron wheels grinding over stones, someone's painful, spent sighs, and the dry sound of parched lips smacking. Everyone was silent. It was like an army of mutes marching. When men fell, they fell silently. Those who stumbled and fell over them rose silently and went on without a backward glance. It was as if they were not only mute but deaf and blind as well. I too stumbled and fell several times, and each time I involuntarily opened my eyes—and what I saw was an inhuman, hollow spectacle, as if the world had gone mad and was muttering delirious talk in its agony. The burning air wavered, the melting stones swayed silently, and in the distance, the column of men, cannons, and horses turning the corner seemed to leave the earth, moving soundlessly, trembling like jelly—they did not look like living things; their bodies were like ghosts of smoke. The huge, terrifying sun, right before my nose, lodged its light in gun barrels and metal fittings, reflecting countless tiny suns, and that dazzling light struck my eyes from the side and from beneath my feet, spitting white flames and flashing with a sharpness like gazing at the white-hot point of a bayonet. The scorching heat that seemed to wither everything in its path seeped into my flesh, pierced my bones, and penetrated my marrow, until at times I felt that what hung upon my torso was not a head but some strange, unknowable thing—heavy yet light, round and uncanny—and it seemed somehow not my own, which was faintly unsettling.

　And then, at that moment, my home suddenly floated before my eye. In the corner of the room, a corner of the light blue wallpaper was visible, and on the table, a bottle of water sat untouched, covered in dust. This was my desk, and because it was lame, a piece of paper was rolled up and placed under the shorter leg. In the next room, though I couldn't see them, my wife and child seemed to be there. If I could have made a sound, I might have shouted out loud—it was a corner of light blue wallpaper, a dusty untouched bottle, nothing out of the ordinary or striking, yet it was that which so startled my eye.

　I still remember it—I stopped, raised both hands, and was knocked flying from behind by a thud. I stepped forward briskly—and already forgetting the heat and the fatigue, in a fluster, pushing through the crowd, I went on, not knowing where. Through the endless, silent ranks of people, seeing the necks that seemed about to blaze red to left and right, brushing almost against the hot bayonets hanging limply, I advanced a good distance, until I stopped, wondering what I was doing and where I was hurrying so. Then I turned about quickly, forced my way out of the column, crossed a hollow, and sat down on a stone there in agitation—as if I had been struggling all along toward this rough, scorched stone.

　It was then that I first realized it. Amid the scorching sunlight, weakened by the heat, utterly exhausted, those who walked on in silence, staggering and collapsing—these were all madmen. Where they were going, why they were being baked by the sun, no one knew; no one knew anything at all. What sat upon their shoulders was not a head but some strange, uncanny thing. And then I saw one man, just like me, break out of the column in a fluster and collapse with a thud; then another, then another, one after another—and above the heads of the crowding people, a horse's head appeared. With bloodshot, frantic eyes, lips drawn back to the gums, they seemed to be uttering eerie, monstrous screams, yet no sound reached my ears. A head would appear, then a body would topple with a thud, and for a while a crowd would gather there. They all halted, shouted something in hoarse, hollow voices, and then a single boom of gunfire rang out, and again they fell silent and moved on, continuing without end. I sat on the stone for perhaps an hour, and all the while human figures passed ceaselessly before my eyes; the sky swayed, the earth trembled, and in the distance the shadows of the columns, moving on like ghosts, seemed to quiver. The heat that would wither one's bones pierced deeper into the flesh, and whatever flashed before my eyes was instantly forgotten. The human figures passing before me never ceased for a moment, yet I could not tell who any of them were. An hour ago I had been the only one sitting on this stone, but now a cluster of gray people had gathered around me. Some lay prone on the ground, unmoving—they might have been dead. Others sat on stones like me, their faces vacant, watching the passersby. Those carrying guns looked like soldiers, but some were nearly naked, their skin dyed with sappanwood in a hue revolting to behold. Right there, someone lay face down, bare-backed. Some even pressed their faces against the rough, hot stones with utter indifference, and when I saw their upturned palms, they were white, so they seemed like dead men—yet the color of their backs was as red as the living. Only a slight yellowness, like smoked meat, revealed that they were not of this world. I wanted to move away from the side of that corpse, but I lacked the strength, so I sat swaying and watched the endless line of people staggering on like ghosts. That I would soon be struck down by sunstroke was plain enough from the state of my head, yet I waited for it calmly, as if it were nothing. It was all like a dream; death itself seemed to be some sort of wayside resting place on a dreamlike road tangled in strange threads.

　And then I saw a soldier break away from the column and, with a look of desperate resolve, come heading straight toward me. His figure vanished for a moment in a hollow, and when I saw him crawl back out of it, his steps were unsteady, his hands and feet on the verge of collapsing utterly, and it seemed that all his remaining strength was spent in fighting against that collapse. He was making straight for me, and even amid the haze that threatened to close my mind like a suffocating dream, I started up in alarm and thought, "What is this?"

　When I called out to him, the soldier stopped dead in his tracks. It seemed as if he had been waiting for someone to speak. He was a big man with a shaggy beard, wearing a torn-collared coat, standing stiffly upright. He carried no gun. His trousers were held up by a single button, and through the gap in the tear, his white skin showed through. His hands and feet drooped limply, and he strained to keep them from slackening, but he could no longer manage it. His hands, pressed together, immediately fell slack, dangling to either side.

"What has happened to you? Come, sit down."

　But the soldier, still standing stiffly, kept slackening despite his efforts, silently gazing at my face. I too rose involuntarily. Staggering, I peered into his eyes and saw boundless terror and a maddened look floating there. Everyone else's pupils were contracted, but his alone were dilated to the full. Seen through such wide windows, the outside world must surely look like a sea of fire. If by chance, I thought—no, it was not merely a thought; it was certain—that what floated in the color of his eyes was the shadow of death. In those pitch-black, bottomless pupils, edged with a thin ring of orange like a crow's, floated something beyond death, beyond the terror of death.

"Go over there, go over there!" I shouted, stepping back a pace.

　And as if waiting for these words, the soldier toppled over onto me with a thud. Crushed beneath that huge, silent, lifeless bulk, I too fell. Trembling, I pulled my pinned leg free and sprang up—no longer knowing direction or anything else, only seeking where there were no men, only fleeing toward the distant shimmering sunlight, when a single boom rang out from the ridge on the right. Immediately after, like an echo, two more booms followed in quick succession. Then, somewhere overhead, an explosive shell flew past. At that sound the crowd rejoiced and stirred, and I heard a clamor of shouts, cries, and roars.

　The enemy has circled around!

　The deadly heat, the terror, the exhaustion—all slip away as if forgotten. The mind clears. Thoughts surface with clarity. As I run breathless to rejoin the reformed ranks, I catch glimpses of bright, cheerful faces; hear hoarse, shouting voices; commands ring out; idle chatter fills the air. The sun, as if climbing higher to stay out of the way, grows hazy and dims—then, again, with a sound like a magician's sharp cry, an explosive shell tears across the sky.

　I drew near the unit...

(Fragment II)

　...Both horses and men all died in battle. The Eighth Battery was the same. In my Twelfth Battery, by the evening of the third day, only three cannons remained intact—the rest were all destroyed—and of the crew, six gunners and one officer survived, that officer being myself. I have not slept a wink for twenty hours now, nor eaten anything. Having spent three days and nights amid Satan's roaring thunder, I am wrapped in the black clouds of madness, detached from the earth, detached from the sky, detached from our side, wandering dazed like a madman while still alive. The dead lie quietly at rest, but we keep bustling about, doing what must be done, speaking, even laughing—and yet we are veritable madmen. We work briskly and without mishap, issue orders clearly and carry them out without error, and yet, if one were suddenly to seize someone and ask, 'Who are you?' with a muddled head, he would likely not know what to answer. It is as if we are dreaming; every face seems like an old acquaintance, and whatever happens feels like something that has occurred before, familiar, well-known—and yet, when one of us stares fixedly at a cannon, or strains to listen to the cannon fire, everything seems startlingly strange, like an unfathomable riddle that can never be solved no matter how one tries. Night falls before one knows it. And before one can even wonder from which corner the darkness crept in, the sun blazes overhead once more. Only by asking someone who happens to come from elsewhere do we learn that the battle has already entered its third day—but that, too, is soon forgotten. It feels like one endless day that neither ends nor begins, with dark moments and bright moments, but in any case it is all chaos, utterly incomprehensible. And no one fears death. What it means to die—that, too, is beyond our understanding.

　Whether it was the third day or the fourth, I cannot recall, but when I lay down briefly in the shelter of the breastwork and closed my eyes, suddenly the familiar yet strange vision appeared. It was a bit of blue wallpaper and my dust-covered, untouched bottle on my little table, and though my wife and child seemed to be in the next room, I could not see them. Only this time, a lamp with a green shade was lit on the table, so it must have been evening or the middle of the night. And because this scene lingered before my eyes without moving, I spent a long while, calmly, gazing alternately at the firelight flickering on the bottle's glass and at the wallpaper, thinking to myself, It is already night, time to sleep, yet why does the child not go to bed? Then, looking at the wallpaper again, I saw arabesques, silver flowers, lattice-like patterns, and pipe-like shapes—and yet, though it was my own living room, I had never imagined I knew it so well. From time to time I opened my eyes and gazed at the pitch-black sky with its beautiful bright streaks here and there, then closed them again and looked once more at the wallpaper, at the gleaming bottle, thinking, It is already night, time to sleep, yet why does the child not go to bed? Once a shell burst nearby. At that moment I felt something brush softly against both my legs, and someone cried out in a loud voice, louder than the sound of the bursting shell, with a shout. I thought someone had been hit, but without even rising, I sat motionless, gazing without turning away at the blue wallpaper and the bottle.

　At length I rose, walked about, gave orders, peered into people's faces, and set my aim, yet in my heart I was still thinking, Why does the child not go to bed? Once I asked a courier the reason, and he explained it to me at great length and in detail, and we both nodded. The courier laughed. Looking at his face, I saw he had raised his left eyebrow and was making a sly, ticklish glance at someone behind him, but behind him I could see only the soles of someone's feet, and nothing else.

　By this time the surroundings had grown quite bright, yet suddenly a few drops of rain began to fall. Not that it was any different from the rain that fell back home—it was just a few paltry drops—but because it came so unexpectedly, when it should not have rained at all, everyone, fearing a soaking, panicked and stopped firing, abandoned the cannon and everything else in disarray, and scattered helter-skelter to whatever shelter they could find. The courier who had just been speaking with me crawled under the gun carriage and curled himself up there—while the fat gunner, heedless of the danger of being crushed at any moment, for some reason set about stripping the clothes off one of the war dead. I ran about the position, searching for an umbrella or an overcoat. The rain beginning to fall from the clouds that covered the sky made a broad scene, and over that whole scene there fell a sudden, strange silence. A shrapnel shell came buzzing over from behind and burst with a crack, and again there was silence. In the silence, I could hear the fat gunner's heavy breathing. I could also hear the sound of rain beating on the stones and on the gun barrel. In the midst of such silence, listening to the patter of the rain, a quiet, autumn-like sound, and smelling the scent of wet earth, I felt as if the wretched dream of blood had for an instant awakened, and looking at the rain-gleaming gun barrel, something—not a memory of childhood, not a first love, but something softly nostalgic—strangely and suddenly came to mind. Just then, the first shot boomed distinctly from afar, and the spell of that brief silence was broken; everyone came crawling out of hiding. They emerged as abruptly as they had taken cover. The fat gunner shouted at someone. The cannon roared, and roared again—and my poor tormented mind was once more bound fast in crimson haze. No one noticed when the rain stopped, but I remember to this day that even as the gunner lay dead and the flesh of his plump face sagged and yellowed, the raindrops were still dripping from it, so it must have rained for a considerable time.

　…he was still a young volunteer soldier, but as he stood at attention before me and reported with a salute, it seemed the commander had issued an order that the unit must hold out for another two hours, and that reinforcements would be sent. I thought to myself, why hasn't the child gone to bed yet, but aloud I answered that we would hold out for as many hours as needed to see them through. As I gave that answer, for some reason the volunteer's face suddenly caught my eye. It was likely because he was extremely pale. I had never seen a face so pallid. Even a dead man's face would have more color than this beardless, youthful one. He must have had his courage scared out of him along the way and had not yet recovered. Raising his hand to his brow in that practiced, casual gesture—he was probably trying to mask a terror so great it made his mind wander.

"Are you frightened?" I said, touching his hand—it was stiff as a board, but he only gave a faint smile and said nothing. No, rather, he merely mimicked a smile at the corners of his mouth, while his eyes held only rawness and fear, nothing else.

"Are you frightened?" I asked again, gently.

　Just as the volunteer soldier moved his lips to say something, a strange, bizarre, utterly incomprehensible thing happened. A lukewarm wind blew softly against my right cheek, and I jolted—that was all—but before my eyes, where the pale face had been, there was now something crimson, suddenly shriveled, and from it fresh blood gushed out in thick spurts, like from the mouth of an uncorked bottle—a scene straight out of a crude signboard painting. And there, where the blood gushed from that severed crimson thing, a toothless face grinned, and the lingering trace of the Red Laugh was visible.

　I recognized it. I had searched for it and finally found it. I had wondered what that thing floating over the strange, mangled human bodies—arms torn off, legs ripped away, shattered into dust—could be, and it was this: the Red Laugh. I could see it in the sky too. I could see it in the sun. Soon, this Red Laugh would spread across the whole earth.

　Everyone was already calm, clear-eyed, like madmen...

(Fragment III)

　...madness and terror.

　According to rumor, there were a staggering number of psychiatric patients on both the enemy's side and our side. Even in our army, four psychiatric wards had been built. When I went to staff headquarters, the adjutant showed me...

(Fragment IV)

　...coiling around like a snake. Indeed, according to what that friend saw and came back to tell, one end of the barbed wire snapped off, sprang back with a twang, and wrapped itself around three soldiers, twisting and turning. The barbs tore through their uniforms and bit into their flesh, so the soldiers screamed and thrashed about in madness, until one of them died. The other two dragged the corpse along as they continued to writhe. Eventually, only one remained alive. The survivor tried to push away the two corpses, but they clung to him, rolling together with him, their three bodies tumbling over one another, until suddenly, all at once, they stopped moving.

　According to the friend's account, this single stretch of barbed wire had caused over two thousand war dead. Everyone who tried to cut through the wire was caught like a snake had coiled around them, losing all freedom of movement, and then were showered with shells both large and small, poured down without pause like rain. There is no way to describe how terrifying it was. If they had known which way to flee, they might have been swept up by cowardice and the whole attack would have collapsed, but in any case the barbed wire was strung across in ten or twenty layers. When they desperately tried to break through it, they found wolf pits dug here and there, with stakes driven into the bottom, and these too were said to be like a labyrinth, so everyone lost their bearings and could not find a direction to escape.

　Some, as if completely blind, stumbled into deep funnel-shaped pits, and were impaled on the tips of sharp stakes like skewered potatoes, clawing at the air as they floundered. It was just like a toy clown puppet dancing. Then more shells came and pierced them again, so bodies still warm, or already cold, covered in blood, welled up and soon filled the pit to the brim. Arms jutted out here and there, twitching like eels, and their convulsing fingertips clung to anything they could grasp. Once fallen in, there was no getting out. Hundreds of fingers, stiffened like crab claws, frantically grabbed at feet and clothes, pulling each other down, gouging at eyes and strangling throats. But most, as if drunk, charged straight ahead toward the barbed wire, and while caught and screaming, were struck by shells and met their end.

　That said, it's common for everyone to become like a drunkard—if your hands or feet get tangled in the barbed wire, anyone would curse loudly, or laugh. And then die right there. The man who told this story had gone without food or drink since morning, he said, and in a strange state of mind, in the midst of feeling terrified, terrified, and dizzy, for a brief moment he felt inexplicably cheerful—the terror itself was delightful. When someone nearby started singing, he joined in, and soon everyone around had joined in, forming a splendid chorus. The rhythm matched remarkably well. He didn't remember what they sang, but it was something like a cheerful dance song, he said. And as they sang, the area around them turned crimson with blood. Even the sky appeared crimson, and it felt as though some great upheaval, some bizarre transformation, had occurred between heaven and earth, so that the colors of things became indistinguishable. The gentle hues familiar to the eye, like light blue, vanished, and the sun blazed crimson, a bengala red.

“The Red Laugh.”

　I said, but my companion understood the meaning,

“Yes, we did laugh. Just as I’ve told you. It was as if everyone was drunk. No, it was like a dance, too. Something was happening, whatever it was. At least the way those three soldiers thrashed about was exactly like a dance.”

　He says he still remembers it clearly: even after this man took a penetrating wound to the chest and fell, until he lost consciousness, his feet kept twitching, as if he were keeping time with someone in a dance. Even now, recalling that day’s attack brings a strange feeling—the horror is still horrible, but he also feels he wouldn’t mind going through such an experience once more.

“And so you want another shell in the chest?”

　I said,

“Nonsense! It’s not as if I get hit by a shell every time I go out. That said, you know, if you do something brilliant, it wouldn’t be bad to get a medal.”

　And yet, this very man, with his sharp nose, protruding cheekbones, sunken eyes, and sallow face, lay on his back, utterly a dead man, still dreaming of medals. Already beginning to fester, burning with fever, in three days he would be rolled into a pit and join the company of the dead—yet lying there with open eyes, he dreamed, faintly smiling again and again, talking of medals.

"That aside—have you sent a telegram to your mother?"

I asked.

　At that, he started, and with a hostile look in his fierce eyes, glared at my face with annoyance, then fell silent—so I too stayed quiet. The wounded man's groans and delirious mutterings caught my ear. Presently, when I rose to leave, my friend, though feverish, grasped my hand tightly with his still-strong grip, and with his fleshless, burning eyes, gazed at me sorrowfully, his whole bearing that of one utterly at a loss, and—

"What on earth is the matter with you? Huh? What's the matter?" he asked, trembling with fright, pulling at my hand and pressing me for an answer.

"What about?"

"What about? Why, this war. My mother is waiting for me to come home. Waiting, you see—but what's to become of me? For the country—such things are beyond my mother's understanding."

"The Red Laugh."

"Again! You're always joking, but I'm serious. I want to make her understand, but there's no way to make her. Well, what do you think she'll say in her letters? It's truly pitiful. Even the words of her letters have turned gray. But you, too—" and he stared at my head with a curious look, pointed at it, and suddenly burst out laughing.

"You're going bald, too! Did you know?"

"I don't have a mirror."

"No, but there are plenty of fellows going gray or going bald. Hey, lend me a mirror, a mirror! Ah, I feel like gray hair is about to sprout on me too. Lend me a mirror."

　He began talking deliriously, weeping and laughing by turns. I left the sick ward.

　That evening a garden party was held. It was a strange, desolate garden party, and among the guests the shadow of a dead man mingled as well. Just as at a picnic back home, they were to gather in the evening and drink tea, so a kettle had been procured, and even lemons and cups were made ready; and just as at a picnic, a spot beneath a certain tree was fixed upon as the meeting place. Then, one by one, or in twos and threes, they came strolling along, chatting and joking together, everyone cheerful and lively with anticipation—but the moment they arrived they fell silent, doing their best to avoid meeting one another's eyes. When the survivors thus gathered together, it felt somehow eerie. All were dressed in shabby, grimy clothes, and as if afflicted with a malignant scabies, they scratched themselves all over, endlessly. Their hair and beards had been left to grow as they would; they were utterly haggard, and their familiar former appearances were gone, so that when they sat face to face around the kettle, it felt as if they were meeting for the first time, and they were struck dumb. I searched among these people wandering about lost and bewildered for a familiar face, but there was not a single one. They fidgeted restlessly, their movements coarse and jagged; they started at the slightest sound, constantly glancing behind them, alert to something, and where a strange hole seemed to open—a vacant, mysterious gap—it was eerie to peer into it, so they tried to plug it up with violent gestures; in every way they were utter strangers, not acquaintances at all. Even their voices were different. Harsh and jagged, they spoke with a grunt, and it would easily rise to a shout or break into senseless loud laughter that could not be checked, no matter how one tried. And it was not only that: even the trees were unfamiliar, the setting sun was unfamiliar, and the water was strange water bearing a strange smell and taste—as if they had left the world of men together with the dead and come to some other realm, everything visible was mysterious, and shadowy, fearsome things loomed dimly all around. The light of the setting sun was yellow and cold; black rain clouds, utterly without brightness, hung heavy and stagnant, pressing down from above, while below the earth lay black, and human faces, caught in an unnatural light, looked yellow and corpse-like. Everyone was staring at the kettle, but the fire beneath it had gone out, and its belly reflected the yellow, ghastly light of the setting sun—gloomy, seeming not of this world, a strange kettle whose true nature one could not fathom.

"Where is this?" someone said, but the voice was filled with trembling fear. Someone sighed. Then someone, restless, cracked their knuckles, another burst out laughing, and one even jumped up and began to pace hurriedly around the table—these days one often sees people walking about like that, almost at a run. And yet they were all strangely silent; when they did speak, it was only a muttering under their breath.

"The front," answered the one who had been laughing loudly, and he burst out laughing again, but in a hollow voice, laughing haphazardly with a hiccupping sound, as if something were stuck in his throat.

"What's so funny?" said one of them, turning cross, "Hey, stop that!"

　At that, the one who had been laughing gave another choked, gurgling laugh, as if something were stuck in his throat, and then fell quiet. Gradually the light dimmed; the rain clouds pressed down upon the earth, and the pale, sallow faces of the men could barely be distinguished from one another. One of them said,

"By the way, where might Big Boots have gone?"

The one nicknamed Big Boots was an officer who, despite his small build, wore large, waterproof boots that reached above the knee.

"He was just here a moment ago… Big Boots, where are you?"

　Everyone burst out laughing. Before the laughter had died away, from out of the darkness came a sharp, indignant voice:

"Stop it! Nonsense! Don't you know Big Boots went out on reconnaissance this morning and was killed?"

"That can't be. He was just here a moment ago."

"That's what I felt. Hey, you there by the kettle, would you cut a lemon for me?"

"Me too! Me too!"

"The lemons are all gone."

"That's a shame," he said in a small voice, sounding vexed, pathetic, almost on the verge of tears, "and I came all this way looking forward to the lemons."

　That same fellow again burst into a weak, listless laugh, and this time no one tried to stop him. But soon the laughter died away, and he gave another choked, gurgling laugh—then fell silent, and one of them said,

"Is it an attack tomorrow?"

　At that, several voices snapped back in irritation,

"Enough of that talk! Attack, my foot!"

"But surely you fellows must know something about it…"

"I said stop it, just stop! It's not as if there's nothing else to talk about. What's the point of that!"

　The glow of the setting sun had faded. The rain clouds had risen, brightening the sky here and there, and the faces around him all became familiar ones again. The man who had been pacing restlessly around the room now settled down, lowering himself into a chair nearby,

"I wonder how things are back home right now?"

　He said it to no one in particular, but there was something in his voice that sounded like an embarrassed smile.

　And then the scene grew eerie and incomprehensible once more, everything around them seeming strangely distorted, until they all became frantic, shoving their cups aside in a single motion, clutching at one another's shoulders, arms, and knees, chattering away, shouting at once, in a brief flurry of chaos—until suddenly they fell silent again. The strange scene remained strange, no matter what.

"Home?" someone shouted from the darkness. When talk of home began, they would start, feel both irritated and excited, and even their voices would turn hoarse and trembling. And so they would start chattering, but at times the words would catch in their throats. It seemed they had already forgotten their native tongue. "Home? What is home? Is home somewhere out there? Don't interrupt while others are speaking. Do that, and I'll knock you down. Even I, when I was back home, used to bathe every day—yes, I'd fill the bath with water, fill it to the brim, and bathe. But now I don't even wipe my body from one day to the next, and dandruff piles up in my hair. It accumulates, forms something like a crust, and my whole body feels like things are crawling over it, itching unbearably... I swear I'll go mad from the grime. And yet you start talking about home? I'm already a beast, I'm disgusted with myself, I can hardly believe it's me. When a man comes to this, death no longer seems so frightening. And on top of that, the shrapnel you lot fire is enough to split my head open—my head. No matter where you aim, it all hits my head. And yet you start talking about home? What is home? There are still towns, and houses, and people in it, I suppose? I've had enough of even stepping outside. It's shameful! There's a kettle here, but even looking at the kettle makes me uneasy—even looking at the kettle."

　The same one started laughing again. Someone shouted loudly,

"Damn it! I'm going back home."

"Going back home?"

"Have you forgotten a soldier's duty? …"

"Going back home? Hey, hey, we've got one here who wants to go home."

　Everyone burst out laughing at once. An eerie scream was heard too—but then everyone fell silent again. It was bizarre beyond words. It wasn't just me, I don't know how many others were there, but everyone present felt it. That strange atmosphere pressed in from the dim, uncanny field; it rose from gloomy, pitch-black valleys where someone might have been left behind among the rocks to die; it descended from a weird, unseen sky. All were so terrified they could barely breathe, standing silently around the kettle whose fire had gone out, while above their heads, a boundless, dark shadow pressed down upon this world, mournful and soundless. Then, suddenly, from quite nearby—probably from around the regimental commander's quarters—the playing of the military band began, and a violently buoyant, high-pitched melody shattered the night's loneliness, sparking to life like a firecracker. It was too high, too merry, a frantic, discordant tune, violently competing and soaring in revelry. The players and the listeners alike must have seen it too—that boundless, dark shadow pressing down upon this world, just as we had.

　Among that orchestra, only the man blowing the trumpet seemed to carry within himself—within his brain, his ears—this boundless, silent shadow. The shrill, jagged trumpet notes raced about, leapt up, broke away from the rest of the sound, and went nowhere, trembling with dread, alone and mad, without companion. The other instruments, as if startled at the trumpet's voice, stumbled, fell, rose again, and scattered in disorder, scarcely visible. It was in a tone too high, too merry—so much so that it came too close to the pitch-black valley—where someone might have been left behind among the rocks, dying.

　For a long while we stood in silence around the extinguished kettle.

(Fragment V)

　…I had already fallen asleep when the doctor stealthily poked me awake, and I started up with a cry before I was even fully conscious. Whoever was woken like that always gave such a shout. And as I made to dash out of the tent, the doctor firmly grasped my hand and offered his apologies.

"I'm sorry for waking you so abruptly. I thought you might be asleep, but…"

"Well, it's been five days and nights, you know…" I said, but I was half dreaming, and at once I sank back into a deep sleep. I seemed to have slept for a long while, when the doctor's voice reached my ears again as he stealthily poked my sides and legs, and began to speak.

"But I had no choice. It must be hard on you, but truly there was no help for it. For my part… I cannot rest easy. It seems to me there are still wounded men left behind…"

"Wounded men? Haven't you been taking them in all day? You could have left me be. This is too cruel! I hadn't slept for five days and nights."

"Now, now, don't be so angry," the doctor muttered, clumsily placing a cap on my head, then said, "They've all fallen fast asleep, and no matter how much I shake them, they won't get up. Seven locomotives and carriages are prepared, but there's no one to ride them. I can understand how you feel… but please, do go. They've all fallen asleep and refuse to go no matter what. Even I can barely keep myself from nodding off. I've lost count of how many days I've slept—it's been so long that I feel a hallucination might begin at any moment. Now, please get down from the bed, one foot at a time. There, there…"

　The doctor, his face pale, was swaying unsteadily. Even a moment's pause on the ground seemed enough for him to collapse into a sleep that could stretch on for days and nights on end. My own legs were equally weak. Then, before my nose, I saw a row of pitch-black shapes. It was so sudden, so unexpected, as if it had sprung from the earth itself, that I must have been walking in a daze; those black shapes were a train. It was too dark to see clearly, but something was wandering silently beside it, creeping along. Neither the locomotive nor the carriages had any lights burning. Only a dim, reddish firelight from the covered firebox spilled faintly onto the tracks.

"What is this?" I asked, hesitating.

"We're going by train, by train. Have you already forgotten what I just said?" the doctor said.

　It was a cold night, and the doctor was shivering. Seeing him, I felt a sensation as if my whole body were being tickled, and I too began to tremble uncontrollably.

"How cruel! To take me away like this is cruel," I said loudly.

"Quiet, quiet," said the doctor, gripping my arm.

　From the darkness, someone—

"At this rate, even if we fired every cannon we have in one volley, not one of them would so much as stir. The enemy must be fast asleep too. If we went up to them now, we could bind them one after another. I just passed by the sentry, and though the doctor here had only a glimpse of his face, he said nothing of it. He stood there motionless. He must have been asleep as well. It's a wonder he didn't topple over."

　With that, he yawned. Then came the rustling sound of clothes rubbing together—he must have been stretching. As I tried to climb onto the carriage, resting my chest against its edge, I suddenly fell into a dream. Someone lifted me up from behind and set me aboard, but I kicked at him and dozed off again. Then, in my dream, I heard fragments of a conversation like this.

"After we've gone six versts."

"Did you forget the lamp?"

"No, he won't come."

"Send it over here. I had it pulled back a little. That's right."

　The train departs, something rattling. Lying at ease and listening to such sounds, I gradually woke, but the doctor had fallen asleep instead. When I took his hand, it hung limp and heavy, like that of a dead man. The train was already moving, trembling slightly, advancing cautiously and slowly, as if feeling its way. When the medical student lit the lamp, its light revealed the car's paneling and the dark holes of its doors. Fuming with anger, the medical student said,

"Absurd! It's no use going now. Could you, sir, wake the doctor before he falls asleep? Once he's asleep, it's hopeless. I know from experience."

　When the two of them shook him awake, the doctor sat up, looked around bewilderedly, and tried to lie back down, but they wouldn't let him.

"A glass of vodka gulped down right about now wouldn't be bad at all," said the medical student.

　So they drank a sip of cognac each, and their drowsiness vanished completely. The large, black, square door turned a faint red, and at last glowed vividly, with firelight deeply reflected across the sky beyond the hill. It was as if the sun had risen at midnight.

"That's far away. It's a good twenty versts off."

"It's cold," said the doctor, his teeth chattering.

　The student glanced out the door and beckoned me over, so I looked out and saw, here and there along the horizon, faint red glows—the reflections of battle fires, silent and still—stretching from one point to the next, as if dozens of suns were rising at once, and it was no longer so dark. The distant mountains rose and fell in black, wave-like undulations, standing out sharply, while nearby objects caught a dim, somber light and appeared tinged with red. Even the student's face looked red, as if stained with blood—not the color of a living person. It seemed as though blood had scattered and turned into air and light.

"Are there many wounded?"

　When I asked, the student waved his hand,

"There are many madmen. There are more madmen than wounded."

"Truly mad ones?"

"There's no such thing as a fake madman, I suppose."

　The student turned toward me, his gaze fixed and vacant, filled with a ghastly, cold fear—exactly the look of that soldier who had died of sunstroke.

"Don't talk nonsense…" I said, turning my face away,

"Saying such things, the doctor too has gone mad, you know. Well, just take a look."

　The doctor seemed not to hear our conversation. Squatting like a Turk, swaying unsteadily, his lips and fingertips trembling silently, his gaze was still fixed and vacant, dull and absent-minded, as if his spirit had fled,

"I'm cold," he said, and smiled.

"You people are truly cruel!" I shouted, going to the corner of the car, "Why did you drag me out here?"

　No one said anything. The sky deepened, growing ever redder, and the student watched it. The curling hairs at the nape of his neck looked youthful, too. Watching him, I could not help but imagine a delicate woman's hand toying with that hair. That, in turn, irritated me, until even the student grew hateful to me, and when I looked at his face, my stomach churned.

"How old are you?" I asked, but he gave no answer. He did not even turn around.

　The doctor, swaying unsteadily,

"I'm cold!"

　The student, still looking away,

"As for me—when I think that somewhere in this world there are towns, and houses, and a university…"

　He cut off abruptly, as if he had said all he wished to say, and fell silent. Suddenly the train stopped with a jolt, and I crashed against the wall. Voices clamored. Everyone hurried outside to see.

　Something was lying on the tracks right in front of the locomotive. It was not a very large thing, but from it one leg stuck straight out.

"Is he wounded?"

"No, he's one of the war dead. Headless. But we simply cannot go on without the headlight on. This way we'll run him over."

　When they tossed the stiff-legged thing off the tracks, it kicked back in the air for a moment, as if it would run off treading on empty space, and then plopped down into the pitch-black ditch. The light came on—and already the locomotive loomed black before us.

"Hey!" someone called in a low voice, sounding utterly dispirited.

　It was strange that we had heard nothing until now, but from all directions, from nowhere in particular, groans began to be heard. They were without rise or fall, like something scraping, broad in range yet strangely composed—no, beyond composed, as if one had given up and thrown oneself to fate. I had heard plenty of shouts and groans before, but never anything like this. Nothing was visible on the dim, faintly reddish ground, so one could not help wondering whether it was the earth itself groaning, or the vast sky lit by the sun that had not yet risen.

"Four versts to go," said the engineer.

"That sound is coming from over there," said the doctor, pointing ahead. The student, startled, slowly turned this way,

"What is that sound? No, really, I cannot bear to listen to it!"

"Well, let's go on."

　So we stood before the locomotive and walked on. Our shadows stretched long and linked together, crawling along the rails—yet they were not black, but a faint, hazy red. That was because, at the edge of the dark sky, battle fires here and there glowed silently and still, reflected upon us. Along the way, that dreadful, unidentifiable groaning—strange and eerie—grew ever more intense, until it seemed the blood-red air itself was moaning, or heaven and earth together, and it was deeply unsettling. Listening to that voice, which seemed utterly indifferent to the human world, so strange and unceasing, it sometimes called to mind the crickets in the field—monotonous, as if wearily shrilling in the summer heat. And gradually, the corpses grew more numerous. We gave them a cursory glance and tossed them off the tracks, but they were all corpses utterly indifferent to everything, unmoved by anything, limp and collapsed; where they had lain, the blood, sucked into the earth, showed dark and greasy, like stains. At first I counted them, but then I made a mistake in the middle and gave it up. There were plenty of corpses—so many that, on that night, which was as damp with groans as with night dew spread over everything, there were more than enough.

"What is that?" cried the doctor, brandishing a clenched fist as if to threaten someone, "Just—listen..."

　Soon it would be five versts. The groaning grew ever more distinct, until I felt I could almost see the twisted mouths from which these sounds issued. As we peered fearfully into the faint reddish haze, which held an eerie, unearthly glow that dazzled the eyes, a cry arose almost at our feet, beneath the tracks—high-pitched, like a call for help, like weeping. We found the wounded man who had made the sound at once, and when the lantern light fell upon his face, I saw that his face was almost all eye, so enormous was that single eye. In that eye, which ceased its groaning and looked in turn at our faces and the lantern, there was, besides the joy that seemed maddened at the sight of human figures and firelight, a fear that seemed maddened too—as if it all might vanish into illusion at any moment. Perhaps this figure, stooping with the light held aloft, had already appeared to him, blurred and indistinct, many times before within his blood-stained dreams.

　Still pressing forward, we suddenly came upon two more wounded men. One lay fallen on the tracks, and the other was groaning in the ditch. As we took them in, the doctor, trembling with rage, turned toward us and—

"Well?" he demanded, and turned his face away.

　A few steps on, a lightly wounded man came walking toward us alone, supporting one hand with the other. He walked with his face upturned and nearly collided with us, so we stepped aside to let him pass, but he seemed utterly unaware. His eyes likely never took in our figures at all. He stopped short before the locomotive, then swung around to its side, and now went on along the cars.

"Hey, you—get on that train!" the doctor called after him, but the man made no reply.

　With these as a beginning, pitiful forms soon appeared frequently on and beside the tracks, and the field, deeply and redly lit by the reflection of battle fires, began to stir all over as if possessed by souls, with a sudden burst of great shouting, wailing, curses, and groaning. Wherever one looked at the towering dark shapes writhing and thrashing about, some, still as if in a dream, like crabs released from a basket, stretched out their limbs in grotesque postures and lay motionless, unable to move, while others floundered feebly and helplessly—none of them seemed human. Some were silent and submitted to whatever was done to them; others groaned, wept, and vomited curses, and the ghastly scene of that night, reeking of blood, seemingly indifferent to human life and death—these deeply wounded ones, these left alone in the terror of death—all seemed somehow our own doing, and some glared at us with envy as we tried to save them. The car had no more room for the wounded, and even the clothes we wore were soaked through with blood, as if we had stood stock-still in a rain of blood, yet still they brought in more wounded, and the field, which seemed to have come back to life, went on writhing in a ghastly, endless turmoil.

　Some crawled toward us on their own, others staggered, fell, and struggled back up again. Among them one came almost at a run. But looking at him, his face was crushed flat, and only a single eye remained, burning with a ghastly, terrible light, and he was nearly naked, like a man fresh from a bath. He shoved past me, found the doctor with that one eye, and in an instant seized the doctor's collar with both his bare hands.

"You... I'll smash your face in!"

　With that single shout, he then began shoving him about, taking his time, all the while cursing him foully.

"I'll give your face a good wallop, you brute!"

　The doctor shook him off, turned on him with a yell, and cursed him, gasping for breath.

"You wretch, I'll have you court-martialed! It's the guardhouse for you! Interfering with a man's duty... you wretch! You beast!"

　They were pulled apart and led inside, but even when separated, the soldier did not stop cursing, and for a long while there was only,

"You damned beast! I'll smash your face in!"

　and nothing more.

　I could no longer bear it, so I stepped aside to have a smoke and rest. The blood on my wrist had dried stiff and dark, like a black glove pulled over my hand, and my fingers were so clumsy that I kept dropping the match and the cigarette. When I did manage to light it, the smoke looked strange, not at all as it usually did, and the taste was entirely different. I had never smoked such tobacco before, not before nor since. At that moment the student nurse came up beside me. It was the same fellow who had ridden with me on the train, yet he seemed like someone I had met years ago, and I could not remember where. The student walked with his heels striking the ground in a marching step, and gazing over my body into the distant sky somewhere beyond, he said,

"And yet, with all this, they are all asleep."

　and somehow seemed utterly composed. I, as if it were my own affair, grew indignant and,

"But, my friend, you fought like a lion for ten days—surely that's only to be expected?"

"And yet, with all this, they are all asleep."

　the student repeated, gazing at the sky over my body, and then, as if peering into my face, wagging his index finger before my nose, in that same calm, unconcerned tone, said,

"Listen carefully, now, listen."

"To what?"

　The student peered even closer into my face, wagging his index finger as if with some deep purpose, as though about to deliver a perfectly coherent account, and yet again said the same thing.

"Listen carefully, now, listen. I want everyone to hear it too."

　Keeping his gaze fixed on me, he wagged his index finger once more, then, drawing out his pistol, fired a single shot—boom—into his own temple. Yet I was not in the least surprised. Calmly I shifted my cigarette to my left hand, touched the wound with my fingers, and walked off toward where the train stood.

"That student has killed himself with a pistol. Though he seems to still be breathing..."

　When I said this to the doctor, he shook his head at me in exasperation and, with a growl, said,

"Fool!... The train is already full. There's another one over there who looks about to kill himself any moment. I myself am the same," he said, scolding me irritably, "he might kill himself. Indeed! So you—you must go on foot. There's no more room to carry anyone. If you're not satisfied with that, then report me."

　With these cries, he turned away. When I went over to the man who was said to be on the verge of killing himself, I saw that he was an orderly, evidently a student like the other. Standing, he pressed his forehead against the paneling of the car, his shoulders heaving as he wept.

"Don't cry, don't cry," I said, placing my hand on his heaving shoulder.

　But he neither turned nor answered, just kept weeping. Looking at him, I saw that the nape of his neck was as youthful as that of the student who had killed himself, and it was just as eerie. He stood with his feet planted weakly apart, like a drunkard about to vomit something filthy, and the blood smeared on the back of his neck was probably from where he had pressed his hand.

"I said stop crying!" I shouted, my voice sharp with irritation.

　With that, the nurse staggered away from the car, hanging his head, rounding his back like an old man, and leaving us behind, walked off into the darkness, nowhere in particular. For some reason, I too followed at his heels, leaving the train behind, and for a long while the two of us walked on without any destination. The nurse seemed to be weeping, and I too felt a strange loneliness, as if I might burst into tears.

"Wait a moment!" I called out loudly and stopped in my tracks.

　But the nurse, back still rounded, went on with heavy, dragging steps. With shoulders hunched and feet shuffling along, he looked for all the world like an old man. Presently his figure vanished into a thin reddish haze that was visible yet gave no light, and I was left alone.

　Far off to the left, a string of firelights drifted past, vague and blurred, like a flowing stream. It was the train returning. I had been left behind alone among the dead and the dying, but who could say how many others, dead or dying, had been missed in the round-up? Nearby all was silent, not a stir, but at a distance the field seemed to seethe and rustle as if it had a soul—or perhaps, being alone, that was only how it seemed to me. At any rate, the groaning never ceased. It spread over the whole ground, a fine, helpless sound, like children crying, like a host of abandoned puppies whining as they froze to death, and listening to it, I felt as if needles of ice were being thrust through my brain and stealthily drawn out again, endlessly, without limit...

(Fragment VI)

　…It was our side. In the final month, orders and plans were all at odds, and the movements of both the enemy and our side had become so confused and strange. Yet even amidst that, we had anticipated enemy attacks. The enemy, in this case, meant the Fourth Army Corps. And so, when our side had already completed attack preparations, someone looked through binoculars and declared that what they could clearly see were men wearing our uniforms. Ten minutes later, that doubt cleared, and when it was confirmed beyond doubt that it was indeed our side, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and felt joy. The other party also seemed to realize this, approaching in a leisurely manner. In that settled moment, the impression arose of seeing them, equally delighted by this unexpected encounter, smiling back at us.

　And so, when the enemy opened fire, for a while we could not grasp what was happening, and as shrapnel shells and bullets rained down like hail, instantly piling up mountains of dead and wounded, we still wore our faint smiles. Someone shouted that it was the enemy. Hearing the word enemy—I remember it well—we all realized that indeed, the other party was the enemy, their uniforms were the enemy's uniforms, different from ours. And we immediately returned fire. Perhaps ten minutes had passed since this strange battle began when both my legs were torn off, and when I came to, I was already in the field hospital, the operation already finished.

　When I asked people about the outcome of the battle, they all said only vague words of comfort, but as far as I could tell, we had certainly been defeated. Even so, I thought that now I would surely be sent to the rear, that at any rate I had held on to life, that I could live out the full extent of my lifespan—and even as a legless man, I was glad. But when, a week later, I finally learned the details, I became frantic again, and a strange fear such as I had never known took hold in my heart once more.

　It seems they were indeed our side. It was our own side's explosive shell, fired from our own side's cannon, that tore off my legs. No one knows how such a mistake happened. Somehow things went strangely awry, and in a daze, two regiments belonging to the same army faced each other across a verst, each fully believing the other to be the enemy, and for a full hour they engaged in friendly fire. Everyone avoids talking about it as much as possible, and when they do, they say only vague things. What is strangest of all is that even when the story is told, most people still do not believe it was friendly fire. No, rather, they admit it was friendly fire, but they believe it was not friendly fire from the start—that at first they were truly facing the enemy, but in the confusion of the whole front, that enemy vanished somewhere, and we ended up taking our own side's shells. Some even openly declare this without hesitation, believing it to be true, and, listing things that seem plausible enough, recount the details at length. Even I cannot say with certainty even now how such a mistake came about. When I first saw them, they were unmistakably our army's red-striped uniforms, but when I looked again afterward, they had certainly become the enemy's uniforms with yellow stripes. It is just that somehow, before long, everyone forgot the mistake and came to believe they had truly fought the enemy, and many wrote that in their letters home without any intent to deceive. I have read those letters myself since returning home. And at first, the way people treated us who were wounded at that time was a little strange—they seemed somehow not to extend as much sympathy to us as to other wounded men—but that distinction soon disappeared as well. Since similar incidents occurred afterward, and since there is the actual fact that on the enemy side, too, one unit and another engaged in friendly fire at night and were nearly wiped out, I suppose it is no wonder that we too were mistakenly caught in friendly fire.

　The doctor who operated on me was a dried-up, bony old man who was always faintly smiling amidst his yellowish-white, grizzled beard, which smelled of iodoform, tobacco smoke, and carbolic acid. Narrowing his eyes, he said,

"You're lucky to be sent back from the front. Somehow, things have taken a strange turn."

"How so?"

"There's no explaining it, but it's a strange business indeed. When we went, things were never so complicated."

　He was a man who had taken part in the last European campaign over twenty years ago, and he would often proudly recount tales of those days. But this time, he kept saying he couldn't understand the reason for the war, and he always wore a worried look.

"It's strange, indeed," he sighed, furrowing his brow and vanishing into the smoke of his tobacco like a cloud, "but if I could, I'd go back too."

　And as if peering into my face, through his beard stained with yellow ointment,

"Well, just you watch—soon something terrible will happen, and not a single one of us will be left alive. I'll be killed, and so will everyone else."

　And he fixed his aged eyes close to my face, and this man too looked utterly bewildered. Seeing this, I was seized with such unbearable terror, as if a hundred thousand buildings were collapsing at once, and trembling, I whispered,

"The Red Laugh."

　This man was the first to understand its meaning. He nodded suddenly and said,

"Exactly. The Red Laugh."

　Then, pressing close to me, he whispered in a rambling, elderly fashion, glancing about nervously; with each whisper, his tapering, half-grey whiskers trembled.

"You'll be sent back soon, so I'll tell you—have you ever seen madmen fighting in a lunatic asylum? No? I have. They fight just like healthy people do. Yes, just like healthy people."

　He repeated this phrase several times, as if it held some significance.

"And what of it?"

　I too, feeling uneasy, lowered my voice to ask.

"It's not that anything came of it—but they're just like healthy people."

"It's the Red Laugh."

"They throw water on them to separate them."

　Remembering how startled I'd been by the rain, I was irritated.

"You've gone mad!"

"But no more than you. In the end, no more than you."

　With a sharp, aged knee clasped in his arms, he laughed softly, "hee hee." The lingering trace of that unpleasant, unexpected laughter still clung to his parched, cracked lips as he cast sidelong glances at others over his shoulder, repeatedly making a teasing, tickling gaze. It was as if there was something terribly absurd and funny, known only to the two of them, with no one else privy to it. Then, like a magician performing magic tricks, he raised his hand high with grand flourish, lowered it lightly with a swoosh, and stealthily pressed two fingers against the bedclothes where my leg would have been had it not been severed.

"Do you understand the meaning of this?"

　he asked in a whisper. Then, again with great solemnity and as if it held significance, he pointed to the wounded men lying on their beds, divided into several groups, and again—

"Can you explain the meaning of this?"

"They're the wounded."

"The wounded," he repeated like an echo, "no legs, no arms, bellies pierced with holes, chests shattered to pieces, eyeballs gouged out—you understand the meaning of this, don't you? Very well. Then, you'll understand this meaning too, won't you?"

　With that, he pressed his hands down, and with surprising agility for his age, sprang up nimbly into a handstand, balancing himself with his feet. His white treatment gown flipped up, his face flushed crimson with blood, but with an inverted, strange look in his eyes, he stared intently at my face, and then, with difficulty, in halting words,

"This meaning too... after all... do you understand?"

"That's enough. If you don't stop, I'll raise my voice."

　I said in a frightened whisper.

　The doctor abruptly lowered his feet, returned to a natural position, and sat down again beside my bed, breathing heavily, with a self-satisfied air,

"No one understands this meaning."

"There was another cannon battle yesterday, I hear?"

"There was. There was also one the day before yesterday," said the doctor, nodding to indicate that it was so.

　I was feeling gloomy and depressed,

"Ah, I want to go home! Doctor, I want to go home now. I simply cannot stay in a place like this any longer. I'm beginning to feel I'll never have a happy home again."

　The doctor was lost in thought and did not answer. So I began to cry.

"Ah, I have no legs. I used to love riding my bicycle like that, walking, and running, but now I have no legs. When I used to bounce my child on my right knee, he would laugh so much, but now that it's come to this... ah, what cruel people they are! Even if I go home, it's no use. I'm only thirty, and yet... what cruel people they are!"

　And longing for my dear legs, those swift and sturdy legs, I wept outright. Who took a man's legs, and by what right did they take them! The doctor, looking away,

"Such things happen. Yesterday, as I watched, an insane soldier strayed into our position. He was an enemy soldier. Nearly stark naked, he looked as if he had been beaten black and blue, and was covered in scratches. He was famished like a stray dog or something of the sort. His hair and beard grew wild and unkempt—though that is true of all of us—and he looked like a savage, or a man from the dawn of the world, or even an ape. He waved his arms, writhed about, sang songs, and shouted at the top of his voice, always spoiling for a fight. So, after we fed him, we drove him back to the open field, for there is no other way to deal with such fellows. It is that sort of men who wander about the mountains day and night, looking like ragged, eerie ghosts. Exposed to wind and rain without respite, they go to and fro aimlessly over pathless ground, waving their arms, laughing, shouting, singing. If two such creatures meet, they fight—though perhaps they might pass each other by without even noticing. What they live on, I cannot tell. I suspect they eat nothing at all, but if they do eat anything, it is corpses—together with those fat stray dogs that fight and howl in the mountains every night, they feed on corpses. Every night, like birds startled awake by a storm, or ugly misshapen moths, they gather around the fire. If we light a campfire to ward off the cold, within half an hour ragged, ghastly creatures like frozen monkeys come swarming noisily around it. Sometimes we fire at them, thinking they are the enemy, but at other times, frightened by the senseless din they make, we lose our temper and deliberately shoot them down…"

"Ah, I want to go home!" I cried aloud, covering my ears, but the ghastly tale, as if heard through a veil of cotton, muffled and indistinct, came echoing back into my already tormented mind.

"There are plenty of these fellows. Some fall into ravines, some fall into wolf pits dug for the benefit of sane, healthy men, and some get caught on the teeth of barbed wire or the points of stakes left behind on the battlefield, and hundreds at a time die. When they get mixed up in a proper battle where there is no room to retreat, the way they always push to the front and fight with such fury is just like warriors, but on the other hand it is not at all rare for them to turn their blades against our own side. I took a liking to these fellows. I myself am only half mad now, which is why I can sit here talking with you like this, but once I go completely insane, I will go out into the field. Out into the field I will shout at the top of my lungs. Shouting at the top of my lungs, I will gather warriors who know nothing of courage or fear, and then declare war on the whole world. With a band leading the way, singing war songs, I will march joyfully into towns and villages. Everywhere our feet tread will turn crimson, and all things will whirl and dance like wheels of fire. The survivors will come running to join us, and the more my elite forces advance like an avalanche, the greater their numbers will grow, until at last we sweep this world clean. What's that? We must not kill people? We must not burn houses? We must not plunder? Who says such things?"

　And the mad doctor was already screaming at the top of his lungs. The pain of wounds that had until then lain dormant—in those whose chests and bellies had been shattered, whose eyeballs had been gouged out, or whose legs had been severed—now throbbed awake at the sound of that screaming. A broad, sobbing groan, as if someone were scraping the bottom of a pot, filled the hospital ward, and faces—blue, yellow, exhausted, some without eyes, some so disfigured with pain they looked as though they had returned from hell—turned toward him from all directions. Apart from these, who groaned and strained to listen, the pitch-black darkness that vaguely veiled the world crept in furtively through the open doorway. The mad old man stretched out both hands and screamed again,

"Who said such a thing? No, we dare to kill, dare to burn, dare to plunder. We are a carefree, merry band of warriors. We destroy whatever comes to hand—enemy buildings, universities, museums alike. And upon the ruins of that destruction, we, the jubilant soldiers flushed with the laughter of fire, dance our dance. Having called the lunatic asylum our home, we now take as our enemies those who have not yet gone mad, and call them, in turn, madmen. And when we—the heroes of a hundred victories, ever beaming with joy—come upon this world as its sovereign lord, then indeed a laughter to our heart's content thunders across heaven and earth!"

"That is the Red Laugh!" I cried out, cutting off the doctor's speech, "Help me! I hear the Red Laugh again!"

"Gentlemen!" the doctor said to the people, who looked like crippled ghosts groaning, "Gentlemen! When our time comes, the moon will turn red, the sun will turn red, and even the fur of animals will become cheerful red fur. If something is too white—too white, you see—well, we'll just strip the skin off it... Have any of you ever drunk blood? Blood is a bit sticky, a bit lukewarm, but crimson for all that. And when blood laughs, you hear a crimson, cheerful laughter!..."

(Fragment VII)

　How horrible! What a brutal thing to do. The Red Cross is sacred, and there is no nation in the world that does not pay it respect. The train carries no soldiers, and the enemy surely knows it carries wounded men who cannot lift a hand against anyone—shouldn't they have warned us that landmines were laid? Poor souls, they must have already been dreaming of home...

(Fragment VIII)

　...In the center, a kettle—a genuine, unmistakable kettle—and where it spouted steam, it was like a locomotive. The steam was so thick it even fogged the lamp chimney a little, and the teacups, too, were just as of old: blue on the outside, white within, quite fine cups indeed, a gift from the time of my marriage. The giver was my wife's sister, a fine lady of good disposition.

"Is everyone still satisfied?" I asked, with a look of unease, while stirring the sugar in my cup with a handsome silver spoon.

"Well, one of them got broken," my wife replied nonchalantly. She was at that moment turning the faucet of the kettle, and the hot water spouted out beautifully, streaming smoothly.

　I burst out laughing.

　My brother,

"What's so funny?"

"Oh, nothing at all. But come, take me back to the study once more. It's all for the sake of a warrior, so do me the favor! You've likely been enjoying yourselves while I was away, but that's over now. From now on, I'll put you to good use." And then, of course, in jest, he began to sing: "Come, my friends, let us not tarry, in battle boldly press toward the enemy..."

　Everyone understood my intent and smiled, but my wife alone kept her head bowed, wiping the teacups with a pretty cloth embroidered with designs. When I went into the study, the light blue wallpaper, the lamp with its blue shade, and the small table bearing the pitcher caught my eye once more. The pitcher was a little soiled with dust.

　I grew restless and said,

"A little of that water from the pitcher..."

"You just drank a moment ago, didn't you?"

"Oh, never mind that, just pour it for me. And you," I said, turning to my wife, "won't you take the child and step into the next room for a while? Please."

　And so I drank the water with relish, gulping it down. In the next room were my wife and child, though I could not see them.

"That's enough now. Come, come over here. But why hasn't the child gone to bed when it's already so late?"

"He's happy that you've come home. Come, little one, come to your father's side."

　But the child began to cry and hid behind his mother's skirts.

"Why is the child crying?" I asked, looking around uneasily. "And why do you all sit there in silence with such pale faces? Like shadows, you follow at my heels constantly..."

　My brother burst into loud laughter and said,

"We're not silent at all."

　My sister chimed in as well,

"We've been chattering away the whole time."

"Well then, I'll get on with preparing supper," said my mother, and she hurried out flustered.

"No, you are silent," I said, suddenly convinced it was true. "I haven't heard a single word from any of you since morning. I'm the only one who chatters and laughs, pleased with myself. Even when I come home, you won't rejoice for me? Why do you all try so hard not to look at my face? Have I changed so much? Well, I suppose I must have changed... but isn't there a single mirror in the house? Have you put them all away? Bring me a mirror."

"Yes, I'll bring one right away," said my wife, and she went out but did not return for a long time; it was the maid who brought the mirror. When I looked at my reflection, it was the same face I had worn on the train and at the station—perhaps a little older, but nothing especially different.

"I haven't changed in the least, have I?"

　I said this calmly, and those around me were greatly pleased. For some reason, they all seemed to have expected me to shout at the top of my lungs and faint.

　My sister's laughter grew louder and louder, until she fled the room in a fluster, but my brother showed no sign of agitation, remaining perfectly composed.

"Well, you haven't changed all that much. Just a little balder, that's all."

"I suppose I must consider it a stroke of luck that my head is still attached properly," I replied coolly. "But that aside—where has everyone gone? They've slipped away one by one. Won't you wheel me around the house a bit? This chair really is convenient. It makes no sound at all. How much did you pay for it? Now that I've come to this, there's no helping it—I'll spare no expense and buy myself a prosthetic leg like this, an even better one... Oh, a bicycle!..."

　It hung on the wall. The air had been let out, so the rubber tires were flat, but it was still nearly new. A bit of mud had dried on the rubber of the rear wheel—that was from the last time it had been ridden. My brother stopped pushing the chair without a word. I could read both his silence and his halt, so I put on a sullen face and

"Of my regiment, only four officers survived. I was extremely fortunate... I'll give you the bicycle. Tomorrow, you'd best take it to your room."

"Is that so? Then I'll take it," my brother said, complying obediently. "Indeed, Brother, you are fortunate. They say half the people in the city are in mourning. Of course, your leg is one thing, but..."

"Indeed. I'm not a postal delivery man, you know."

　My brother suddenly stopped short,

"What's the matter? Your head is trembling terribly, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's nothing. It'll heal soon—the doctor said so too."

"Your hands are trembling too, aren't they?"

"Yes, my hands tremble too. But it'll heal soon. Come on, push me. Staying in one place gets tiresome and unpleasant."

　Everyone in the household wore a sullen face, and I felt quite miserable myself, but when it came time to lay out the bedding, I grew cheerful again. It was a splendid bed. They laid out proper bedding on the bed I'd bought just before my marriage four years ago. They spread clean sheets, then set the pillow, and covered me with bedclothes—watching their solemn, fussy manner, I found it so absurd that tears spilled from my eyes.

　Turning to my wife,

"Now, take off my clothes. Then lay me down. Ah, this feels wonderful!"

"Yes, right away."

"Hurry!"

“Yes, at once.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Yes, at once.”

　My wife was standing by the dressing table behind me. I tried to turn and look her way, but I couldn’t. Then, suddenly, she cried out in a loud voice. She cried out in a voice so loud that it was the kind of voice you’d never hear except on a battlefield.

“Isn’t it pitiful?”

　And still clinging to me, she fell to the ground there, tried to bury her face in my knee that wasn’t there, then drew back as if startled, clung to me again, and while kissing what little remained of my thigh, weeping,

“To think he had such a sound body! …He’s not even thirty yet. He was such a fine young man, and now to come to this—isn’t it pitiful? They’re truly cruel people. What good does it do anyone to make you like this? What need was there? To reduce a gentle soul like you to such a state… I’m so heartbroken I can’t bear it…”

　Hearing her weeping, everyone came running. My mother, my sister, and my nurse all hurried in and wept, saying something or other, collapsing by my feet, and all sobbed loudly. My brother stood at the doorway with a pale face, and he too, his chin trembling, strained to let out a shrill cry,

“If you weep like that, I’ll go insane—insane!”

　My mother, for her part, lay prostrate by the side of my chair, and, seemingly unable to raise her voice any longer, wept in a faint, hoarse cry, striking her head against the wheel. And there, a clean bed could be seen, with a pillow laid upon it and bedclothes spread over it. It was the bed bought four years ago, just before my marriage…

(Fragment IX)

　…I was soaking in the bath. My brother kept rising and sitting. He picked up the towel and soap, brought them close to his nearsighted eyes, then put them back again, fidgeting about in the narrow room, until at length, facing the wall, he began to pick at the plaster with his fingertips,

"Come, think about it. After teaching people about compassion, reason, and logic for decades and centuries, and having given them consciousness—setting everything else aside, once consciousness has been given, there must surely be a fitting retribution for it. It's not that one cannot become cruel. If one becomes numb, and sets out to be able to look at blood, at tears, at the suffering of others, without turning a hair, one can become so. Take, for instance, the butcher of cattle and pigs, certain kinds of doctors, or soldiers. But then, can a man who has once recognized the truth ever cast it aside? I think not. From childhood we are taught not to torment animals, to know pity. Every book one reads says the same. And so, when I see people tormented by this war, I can hardly bear the pity of it. I curse the war. But as the days go by, and the dying, the suffering, the shedding of blood grow familiar, one's senses grow dull, one's moral sense becomes as if paralyzed, and nothing short of some powerful shock can move the heart. And yet, even so, I cannot for the life of me come to terms with war itself. Understanding something fundamentally senseless—that is beyond my mind. A million people gathered together, each advancing and retreating according to rule, taking one another's lives, and all suffering alike, all ending in the same misery—what meaning is there in that? Is it not the work of madmen?"

　With that, my brother turned toward me and, with his nearsighted, somewhat indifferent eye, stared fixedly at my face, as if urging me to answer.

"The Red Laugh," I said cheerfully, splashing about as I did so.

"The truth is," my brother said, placing a cold hand on my shoulder in a familiar way—but it was wet from my bare skin, so he drew it back, startled—"the truth is, I'm afraid I'm going insane, and I can't help but worry. I don't understand what's happening to me at all. Not understanding is terrifying. If only someone could tell me the reason, but there's no one who can. Brother, you went to war and saw it all firsthand. Please, tell me the reason."

"I don't know anything about that!"

　As I said this jokingly, splashing about, my brother looked sorrowful and

"So you don't understand either? Then I can no longer rely on anyone's help. How cruel! I can no longer tell right from wrong—what is reason, what is madness? If, in this gentle manner of mine, I were to suddenly put my hands around your throat and squeeze tight, what would you do?"

"Don't talk nonsense! Who would ever do such a thing!"

　My brother rubbed his cold hands together and smiled faintly,

"While you were over there, I often couldn't sleep at night—my eyes wouldn't close. Then I'd get a strange feeling and think of taking an axe and killing Mother, my sister, the maid, and the puppies—all of them. Of course, I only think such things; I'd never actually do them..."

"You mustn't do that," I said with a faint smile, splashing about as I did so,

"And then there's the knife. Whenever there's something sharp and gleaming about, I feel in constant danger. If I were to hold a knife, I feel certain I'd cut someone. After all, if it's a sharp knife, isn't it only natural to want to cut with it?"

"That's quite understandable. You're quite the odd one, aren't you? Pour a little more hot water for me."

　My brother turned the faucet, poured in the hot water, and then again,

"Then there's the crowd. When a lot of people gather, I can't help but worry. If there's a loud noise outside at night, a commotion, I start in alarm, thinking it's begun—the sword fight. Two or three people standing around talking. If I can't follow the thread of the conversation, I can't help but feel that at any moment they'll raise their voices, leap at each other, and start slashing. And you probably know this too," he said, bringing his face close to my ear with a knowing look, "when you look at the newspaper, it's all murder articles, isn't it? And they're all strange murders. They say there are as many kinds of people as there are faces, but that's a lie. Human reason is one and the same, and that reason has gradually begun to cloud over. Come, touch my head—it's very hot. It's all like fire. But at times this thing turns cold, and my head becomes like something frozen, numbed, a terrible, rigid, icy thing. I'm certain I'll go insane. It's no laughing matter—I truly will go insane. It's been fifteen minutes now. You really must be going soon..."

"A little longer. Just one more minute."

　As in the old days, I would soak in the bath, paying no heed to what my brother said, listening to that familiar voice, and gazing at the brass tap with its faint green patina, the well-known pattern on the walls, the cameras neatly lined up on the shelf—old acquaintances, commonplace, ordinary things, yet looking at them brought me an indescribable contentment. I would take up photography again, capturing quiet, unremarkable scenes, or photographing the child as he walked, laughed, or played his little tricks. Even legless, this I could do. I would write essays on the masterpieces of the literary world, the new achievements of the intellectual sphere, on beauty and peace.

"Ho, ho, ho!" I laughed, and shuffled along with a splashing sound.

"What's the matter?"

　my brother asked, startled and turning pale,

"Oh, nothing... It's just that being at home like this makes me happy."

　My brother smiled. His manner suggested he thought of me as a child or someone much younger, yet he was three years my junior. And when he put on airs of maturity and sank into deep thought, he looked as though he were brooding over some great matter that had weighed on his mind for years.

　Presently he hunched his shoulders and said,

"Even if I wanted to run away, there is no escape. Nearly every day, at almost the same hour, the newspaper stops the flow of blood in people's veins, and everyone is struck dumb. At that moment, all at once, they are seized by all manner of feelings—thinking, weeping, suffering, fearing—and I have nothing to cling to. I am reduced to a piece of wood tossed on the waves, or dust swept up in a whirlwind. I do not wish to leave the ordinary life of common days, but I am dragged away by force, and every morning, without fail, I am hurled into the void, and beneath my feet yawns a dark, dreadful abyss of madness. I have reason to fall into that abyss—reason why I must fall. Brother, you still do not fully understand the circumstances. You do not read the newspaper, and there are things I keep hidden from you—Brother, you still do not fully understand the circumstances."

　I dismissed what my brother said as a joke. Even as a joke, it was an unpleasant one, but when anyone goes mad, they tend to develop a connection to something as insane as war, and are apt to say such ominous things, so I dismissed it as a joke. Soaking in the bath, drifting lazily, I felt as though I had forgotten everything I had witnessed on the battlefield.

"Well, if you mean to hide it, you may as well keep it hidden—but let's get out now," I said innocently, and my brother smiled, summoned the servant, and the two of them helped me out of the bath and wrapped me in a robe. Then I drank fragrant tea from a lined glass, mine being the finest, and thought, why, even without legs, I could go on living. When the tea was done, I had them take me to the study, and I sat at my desk, preparing to set to work.

　Before the war I had been in charge of reviews of foreign literature for a certain magazine, so even now, close at hand, there were piles of beloved, clean books with yellow, blue, and russet covers of various kinds. The joy was such, the pleasure beyond words, that I could not bring myself to read them right away, so I would open a book and slowly caress it. At that moment a smile welled up on my face. It must have been a foolish smile, but I could not draw it back, and I gazed at the type, the arabesques, and the simple, utterly unpretentious, exquisite illustrations. They were all highly ingenious and tasteful. This lettering, for instance, was simple, well-proportioned, and skillfully executed. Where the lines intertwined there was harmony, and it spoke much to the heart of the beholder. How many people must have toiled and studied to devise it, and how much talent and taste must have been poured into it—one could not tell.

"Now then, I must get to work," I said, turning serious. It was my own work, but I could not treat it lightly.

　So when I picked up my pen to write the title, my hand hopped about over the paper like a frog tied up with string. The pen caught on the paper, went scratch-scratch, sprang back, veered endlessly sideways, and left behind twisted, unrecognizable, ugly lines, as if it had been torn to shreds. I made no sound, moved not at all, feeling as if some great calamity were pressing directly upon me; I sat chilled, holding my breath, while my hand danced over the brightly lit paper and each finger trembled one by one. In that trembling, a helpless, maddening fear lived and leaped. It seemed as though only my fingers remained on the battlefield, still seeing the firelight and clotted blood reflected in the sky, and hearing the voice of a pain beyond words crying out and shrieking. The fingers had left my body, become possessed of a soul, turned into ears, into eyes. Unable to raise a voice, unable to move, I grew cold and watched my fingers leap and whirl over the dazzling, immaculate white paper.

　All was silent. The household, thinking I was at work, had shut all the doors so as not to disturb me with any noise. Unable to move, I sat alone in the room, quietly watching my hands tremble.

"It's nothing, nothing at all," I said aloud. In the silent emptiness of the study, my voice rang out hoarse and harsh. It sounded like a madman's voice. "It's nothing, nothing at all. I only need to dictate the words. They say Milton was blind when he wrote Paradise Regained. I can still think. That's the most important thing. As long as I can do that, I have no complaints."

　So I tried to turn the story of blind Milton into a long, profound passage, but the words tangled and spilled out like loose type that would not hold its form, and by the time I thought I had reached the end of the passage, I had already forgotten the beginning. Then I tried to recall how I had come to be in such a state, and why I was trying to turn the story of a man named Milton into strange, meaningless words, but I could not remember.

"Paradise Regained, regained, regained," I repeated, but I could not make out what it meant.

　Reflecting on it then, I realized I had indeed become prone to forgetfulness. I was strangely absent-minded, and would even mistake the faces of people I knew well. Even in ordinary conversation, words would elude me, and at times, even when I remembered the words, I could not grasp their meaning at all. Presently, the events of the day came clearly to mind, but it was a strange, short, abruptly cut-off day, like my own legs, and moreover, there were odd gaps in it, like holes poked here and there. That was because it was a long period when my consciousness had faded, or I had been in a state of insensibility, so no matter how I tried to recall what had happened then, I could remember nothing at all.

　When I thought to call my wife, I had forgotten her name. Nor did I find this strange or surprising. I tried saying it softly to myself,

"Wife!"

　This word, never used in such uneasy circumstances, sounded low and faded away without awaiting a reply. All was silent. The household, mindful of me, was careful not to make any noise that might disturb my work. All was silent. It truly seemed a scholar's study. Quiet, comfortable, conducive to evoking ideas and prompting creative inspiration. Ah, that everyone should think of me so—I felt deeply grateful.

　…And then inspiration, divine inspiration, welled up within me. When the sun blazes forth in my mind, casting hot light bearing creative power upon the world, flowers scatter, songs scatter. Flowers and songs. I did not lay down my pen all night, yet felt no fatigue. Beating the wings of grand divine inspiration, I soared freely in every direction and composed my work. It was a great work of literature, a work that would endure a thousand years. Flowers scatter, songs scatter. Flowers and songs….

(Part II, Fragment X)

　…Fortunately, my brother had passed away the previous Friday. To repeat, this was a great blessing for him. The sight of a legless cripple, mad and trembling all over, carried away by the fever of creation, was eerie beyond words, and dismal as well. From that night on, for two full months, he sat fasting in his chair, writing without pause. If he was drawn away from his desk even a little, he would weep and curse. The speed with which he scratched across the paper with a dry pen and flung sheet after sheet aside was astonishing to the eye—he wrote and wrote, pouring out pages. He never slept at all. Only by administering a large dose of sleeping drug did we manage, twice, to get him to lie down on his bedding for a few hours; after that, even the drug lost its power to restrain the frenzy of his creation. Yielding to his own wishes, we left the window curtains drawn all day, the lamp burning continuously, and in that artificially night-like gloom, my brother smoked his cigarettes in a hazy drift of smoke and wrote. To a bystander, he seemed in a state of profound self-satisfaction. I have never seen even a healthy person wear a face so alight with inspiration. His countenance was that of a prophet or a great poet. He had grown terribly emaciated, his skin becoming waxen and translucent like that of a dead man or an ascetic, and his hair had turned completely white. When he began this frantic work, he was still quite young, but by the time he finished it, he was already an old man. At times he would write with unusual haste. Then the pen would catch on the paper and break, but he would not notice. In such moments, he was untouchable—if one accidentally made even the slightest contact, a fit would seize him, and he would weep and laugh by turns. Rarely, though, he would relax pleasantly, as if no cloud hung over his mind, and converse with me in good humor. And always at such times he would ask, without fail: Who are you? What is your name? Has it been long since you took up literature?

　When that was done, the next moment he would be absurdly startled at the thought that he had lost his memory and could no longer work, but even as that thought crossed his mind, he would immediately embark on a timeless masterpiece on the theme of flowers or songs, and go on to tell how he had splendidly overturned that foolish needless worry from its very foundations, always relating the tale in the same set phrases, bending low as he spoke.

"Of course, I have no thought of being recognized by the people of today," he would declare, placing his trembling hand upon the heap of blank, unwritten paper with a certain proud air, though without any trace of agitation, "but the future—in the future, perhaps the time will come when my ideals are recognized."

　He never once mentioned the war. Nor did he speak of his wife or children. He had thrown his whole soul into that endless, phantom-like work, and it seemed there was nothing else in his world. Whether one walked beside him or spoke to him, he appeared utterly unaware, always wearing a face of rapt, single-minded inspiration, never altering his expression for even a moment. In the still silence of the night, when all were asleep, the sight of my brother alone, endlessly twisting the thread of his mad obsession, knowing no fatigue, was enough to make one shudder; no one but my mother and I could even approach him. Once, by chance, I thought he might actually be writing something, and I placed a pencil in his hand in place of the dried-up pen, but when I looked at the marks left on the paper, they were still just the same—scratched, twisted, incomprehensible, ugly lines.

　He breathed his last at night, and it was again while he was writing. Because I knew my brother's mind well, I was not particularly startled that he had gone mad. That he had longed so intensely for literary work had been faintly visible even in his letters from the front, and after his return it was his very life; but this desire, colliding with a brain worn raw, exhausted, and futile, was fated to end in ruin. I believe I have been able to record with considerable accuracy, step by step, the state of my brother's mind from that night until his death when his luck ran out. At any rate, what I have written here about the war is drawn from the account of my dead brother; though the story was for the most part incoherent and confusing, only certain scenes from particular times and moments had evidently sunk deep into his mind and would not fade, so that I had only to write down nearly the whole of his tale, and that sufficed.

　I loved my brother. His death lies across my mind like a stone, and the meaninglessness of that death presses upon my brain and torments me. On top of the strange thing that had already been wrapping my head like a spider's web, it feels as though another loop is being drawn tight. The family had all gone off to relatives in the countryside, leaving me alone in the house—a small, detached dwelling that my brother had been very fond of. I had dismissed all the servants, so each morning only the neighbor's gatekeeper came by to light the stove; apart from that, I was entirely by myself. Like a fly wedged into the gap of a double window, I dash about frantically, my nose striking against the strange barrier between us. It looks transparent, yet it will not break, no matter what. I feel—I cannot help feeling—that I will never escape this house. Now that I am alone like this, the war weighs on my mind, and I cannot forget it for even a moment. Like an unsolvable riddle, or a spirit that cannot be wrapped in flesh, it looms before me. I try to give it various shapes. Sometimes I see it as a eyeless skeleton astride a horse, sometimes as a vague shadow welling up from the rain clouds to steal over the earth—but no matter how I look at it, it never answers the question I have posed, and the cold, dull fear that constantly binds my chest can never be drained dry, however much I draw from it.

　I do not understand the meaning of the war. At this rate, I suppose I too must fall into madness, just as my brother did, or as so many of those sent back from the front have done—and yet I cannot say that prospect frightens me much. When I lose my wits, it will be like a sentry falling at his post, and I consider that a matter of honor. What pains me, though, is the slow, relentless creeping of madness. What pains me is the moment-by-moment feeling of something vast sinking into a deep abyss, the unbearable ache of thoughts that tear at my guts… My heart has fallen silent, has fainted away, and can no longer take on new life. But my thoughts still live, still writhe—once strong as Samson, now as frail and helpless as a child's. I grieve for my pitiful thoughts. At times, when I can no longer endure the pain of an iron ring tightening around my skull, I am seized with the urge to dash out wildly into the town, onto the main street, into the busiest thoroughfares, and cry out at the top of my voice—

“Stop the war this very moment! If you don’t—”

　If I don’t, then what? Is there any word in the world that can untangle the delusions of mankind? Say it thus—ah, yes—one can boast in the same fashion, and utter idle phrases readily enough. Or should I kneel before humanity and weep? Even if the weeping of hundreds of thousands shook the world, what good would it do? Or should I kill myself before their eyes? Kill myself. Even if thousands die each day, what good does it do?

　When I think that in this way my own strength can do nothing at all, my mind grows hollow—infected by the accursed war, it takes on its mad flavor. Like the doctor in my brother’s story, I want to burn down the dwellings of mankind together with their wives, children, and treasures; I want to poison the water they drink; I want to drag corpses out of their coffins and fling them onto the beds of those who defiled the dead. O you mortals, as you sleep embracing your wives and your mistresses, sleep on embracing corpses!

　Ah, to become a devil! I want to paint the horrors of hell upon this world and show them to humanity. To command the dreams of men, and when a parent smiles and sleeps, as they make the sign of the cross over their child, to stand before them in a pitch-black form, suddenly appearing...

　I am certain to go mad. If madness is to come, let it come quickly—let it come even a moment sooner...

(Fragment XI)

　…prisoners of war, a cowering, trembling group of people. When they were brought out of the car, the onlookers growled—growled like a large, vicious dog tethered by a short, flimsy chain. After the growling, as they stood silent, breathing heavily from their shoulders, the prisoners put their hands into their coat pockets, showed their white teeth, and smiled ingratiatingly as they pressed together, shoulder to shoulder, in a dense crowd. Watching them, one could see the gait of a man who might at any moment be struck sharply on the shins with a long stick from behind. But among them, one man walked calmly, without a smile, his face grim and forbidding. When his eyes met mine, I could read in those black eyes a naked, unvarnished envy. This man despised me, and must have been thinking that I was someone capable of anything. If I had tried to cut down this man who carried no weapon, he would surely have made no sound, offered no resistance, and offered no excuse. He must have been thinking that I was someone capable of anything.

　I wanted to meet this man's eye once more, and ran out along with the onlookers. As the prisoners of war entered the detention camp, my wish was granted—the man stood aside, let all his comrades pass through, and then, about to enter himself, he looked at my face once more. In his black, large, unfocused eyes floated infinite fear and madness, and he seemed so tormented that I felt there could be no one in the world as unhappy as this.

"Who is that man, the one with that strange look in his eyes?"

　I asked the escort soldier, and he replied,

"He's an officer. A madman. There are plenty of that sort."

"What's his name?"

"He keeps silent and won't say his name. The other prisoners say they don't know it either, so he's probably a stray who wandered in from somewhere else. Once I saved him after he tried to hang himself again—oh, he's impossible to deal with!…"

　And the soldier, with gestures, mimed the impossibility of dealing with him, then disappeared inside the door.

　And so, now that night has fallen, when I think about this prisoner, he is there alone among the enemy. He must be thinking of what might happen to him. Though our side is present, there is not a single familiar face. He waits in silence, patiently enduring until the gap in this fleeting world opens—and yet, for all that, I cannot think him a madman. He does not seem cowardly either. While all the others tremble, their souls barely clinging to their bodies, he alone stands tall. He probably does not even regard his comrades as comrades. What must be going through his mind? The depth of that despair, which refuses to give his name even in the face of death, is unfathomable. And what good would it do to give his name? For one who has now resolved to part with life and has come to know the true worth of a human being, no matter how those around him clamor, shout, or threaten, there is no longer any human in his eyes—no enemy, no ally. That must be the state he has reached. When I inquired into this man's circumstances, I learned that he was taken prisoner during the recent terrible battle that claimed tens of thousands of war dead in a single stroke, and that he had offered no resistance when captured. Because he happened to be unarmed, a private, not realizing this, swung his sword and struck him; he neither rose nor raised his hands to fend off the blow, but the wound was shallow. That the wound was shallow was, for this man, an unfortunate stroke of luck.

　Yet one cannot say he is entirely not a madman. The escort soldier said so too, saying there seem to be plenty of this kind...

(Fragment XII)

　…it gradually began. Last night, when I entered my brother's study, he was slumped in the armchair, facing the desk buried in books. When I lit the candle, the illusion vanished at once, but for a long while I could not bring myself to lean against that armchair. At first it was frightening—in the hollow, empty room, there was a constant rustling sound and a crackling of things bursting, which felt eerie—but then I thought that if it were my brother, he would be better than anyone else, and I felt more at ease. Still, that night I did not leave the chair until dawn. If I left it, I felt my brother would immediately take the seat. When I left the room, I hurried out without looking behind me. Should I light lamps throughout the house? No, perhaps that would be unnecessary? If the lamplight revealed something, it would be even more eerie. As it is, I can still harbor some doubt.

　Today I carried a candle into the room, and no one was seated in the chair. So it seemed that last night there had only been a fleeting shadow. And when I went to the station—nowadays I make a point of going there every morning—I found a car carrying only our side's insane patients. Without opening the door, I moved to another track, yet even so I could see several faces through the window. They were all terrifying faces. In particular, one patient's face was stretched to an unnatural length, yellow as a lemon, with eyes fixed in a wide-open pitch-black mouth, a face that seemed to have cruelty carved upon it—I was so captivated by it that I sat directly facing it, staring fixedly, without moving a single eyebrow, without flinching, until it passed by with the moving train. This was at the station; if I had seen such a face at the dark doorway of my house, I think I could never have endured it. When I asked, I was told that twenty-two insane patients had been sent away. It seems the epidemic is truly spreading. The newspapers say nothing at all about it, but gradually signs are appearing within the city. Occasionally I see a pitch-black carriage with its doors shut tight. Today I saw six of them here and there, and no doubt before long I too will be riding in one.

　The newspaper preaches every day the necessity of transporting troops. It says more blood must be shed. For some reason, I understand less and less. Yesterday I read a most extraordinary article. It argued that since there are plenty of military spies, traitors, and rebels among the people, each of us must be on guard and pay close attention, but that, illuminated by the public indignation of the nation, these worst criminals would in the end be unable to conceal their tracks. What sort of people are these worst criminals, and what wicked deeds have they committed? When I left the station and boarded a tram, I heard a strange conversation inside. No doubt they were gossiping about those worst criminals.

"Such fellows deserve no trial or anything of the sort—it would be best to sentence them to death by hanging on the spot," said one man, and as he glanced around wildly, he also gave me a quick look, adding, "Rebels should be hanged, no question."

"No mercy for them," another chimed in, "we've already shown them far too much mercy."

　I leapt off the tram. Everyone is being driven to tears by the war, and those men must be too—so what is this all about? Somehow, a red mist seems to be enveloping the earth, blinding people's eyes, and it gradually feels as if the destruction of the world is truly drawing near. This is the Red Laugh my brother said he saw. From the distant field, stained blackish-red with blood, a mad wind blows, and I can feel its cold breath spreading through the air. I am a stubborn man; it is not that my brain has melted away from illness wrecking my body, but the poison has infected me, and half of my mind is no longer my own. This is worse than the plague, more terrifying than the plague. With the plague, there is still some way to escape to somewhere, some precaution one can take, but for a thought that penetrates everywhere—without regard for distance, without barrier—is there no way to flee?

　By day I can still bear it, but when night comes, I too, like anyone else, become a slave to dreams—and those dreams are again terrifying, madness-tinged dreams…

(Fragment XIII)

　Everywhere private battles are waged, and blood is shed in vast, meaningless quantities. At the slightest impulse, it immediately turns to lawless violence with fists, and knives, stones, and clubs flash, striking and killing indiscriminately, whatever comes to hand. Fresh blood is ever eager to spurt, and it flows on and on without any difficulty.

　There were six of those peasants, escorted by three soldiers carrying loaded rifles. All were dressed in coarse, primitive garb that recalled savages, with faces of a different sort as if molded from clay, their hair and beards matted and tangled like the fur of beasts, and as they were escorted through the prosperous city streets by disciplined soldiers, it was like beholding the slaves of old. They were all being conscripted to the front, powerless against the bayonet, and went blankly with innocent faces, like an ox led to slaughter. At the head walked a tall young man with no whiskers yet, a small head set upon a long, wobbly neck like a goose. His body, like a withered branch, was bent forward, and his eyes, fixed intently on his feet, seemed about to bore into the ground. Bringing up the rear was a short, bearded, older man who seemed to have lost all will to resist, with a vacant look in his eyes, as if the earth were clinging to his feet, and he could hardly lift them, bending his body back as if against a fierce wind. At every step, a soldier prodded him from behind with the butt of his gun, and he would barely wrench one foot free, stepping forward trembling, while the other foot stayed stuck to the ground, refusing to come away. The soldiers too wore grim, sullen faces. They seemed to have been going on this way for a long time, and in the way they shouldered their rifles, and in their cautious, uneven footsteps like country folk, there was an air of exhaustion and utter indifference. Because the peasants resisted silently, meaninglessly, and stubbornly, even the discipline-hardened heads grew dazed, and they no longer seemed to know where they were going or why.

“Where are you taking them?” I asked the soldier at the end of the line, and he started, staring at my face. When those sharp, piercing eyes fixed on me, I felt as if a bayonet had been thrust at me, its point stabbing into my chest.

“Don’t come near! Get back! Or else—”

　The middle-aged man of before seized this moment's gap to slip away. Scurrying with short, quick steps, he crouched by the base of the roadside fence, as if intending to hide. Even a true animal would not do such a dazed, madman-like thing. The soldier grew furious. Striding over, he bent down, shifted the gun to his left hand, and with his right struck something soft and flat—a sharp slap sounded. Then another sharp slap. People gathered around. Laughter and shouts arose...

(Fragment XIV)

　…I was seated in the eleventh row of the pit. My body was pressed directly between arms from left and right, and as I looked around, I saw row upon row of still, fixed heads stretching all the way to the far end, dimly visible in the murky light, faintly tinged red by the firelight on the stage. Watching so many people packed into such a narrow space, I gradually began to feel afraid. They were all silent, listening to the lines on stage—or perhaps thinking of other things—but because there were so many of them, even their silence was louder than the actors' voices. There were coughs, the wiping of noses, the rustle of garments, and the shifting of feet. Even the sound of deep, heavy breathing was clearly audible, and that breathing made the air grow warm and stale. To think that all these people would one day become dead men—that all their minds were mad—made my hair stand on end. There was something ominous about the way they sat there, their neatly combed heads set firmly upon stiff white collars, their voices stilled, as if a storm of madness might break out at any moment.

　There was a considerable crowd, but all of them were dreadful people, and what was more, the exit was a good distance from where I stood—the thought made me cold to my fingertips. They were all composed, but if someone were to shout loudly, "Fire! …"—the very idea made me shudder. It was unnerving, yet somehow I felt an unbearable urge to cry it out myself. Even now, recalling that moment makes my fingertips turn cold and brings out a cold sweat. If I wanted to say it, there was nothing stopping me. I would rise, turn to look behind me, and shout aloud these words:

"Fire! Run, run, fire!"

　And then, the madness suddenly seizes those limbs that were just now so calmly composed, and they begin to tremble. Everyone leaps up, cries out, and, like beasts, roars to their feet—forgetting that their wives, sisters, and mothers are present—as if struck suddenly blind, they wander this way and that, their senses reeling, until at last, with those white hands fragrant with costly perfume, they seize one another by the throat. The hall blazes with light, and someone with a deathly pale face calls out from the stage that there is nothing wrong, no fire, nothing at all, and the orchestra strikes up a brilliant, resplendent air in trembling, broken strains—but no one lends an ear to such things anymore. They clatter as they throttle one another, or strike at ladies' heads, pummeling the hair so painstakingly and skillfully dressed. They tear at one another's ears and bite off noses. Clothes and all are ripped away until they stand naked, but being mad, they feel no shame at their shame. Ladies who are ordinarily adored as goddesses—tender, tearful, beautiful—cry out and writhe helplessly at men's feet, clinging to their knees in reliance on their accustomed manly courage, only to have their beautiful upturned faces struck away in disgust as the men, frantic, press toward the exit. A man is always capable of murder. That calm, genteel air of his is nothing more than the complacent ease of a well-fed animal, assured that nothing so precious as its life is at stake.

　And so, half the audience lies as corpses, while the people in ragged clothes huddle together, trembling at the exit with faces like beasts caught in shame, forcing bitter smiles—that is when I step onto the stage and say this, laughing at them.

"Think of it as punishment for killing my brother."

　See, that is what I say, laughing at them,

"Think of it as punishment for killing my brother."

　It must have seemed that I was muttering to myself aloud, for at that moment the man beside me on the right shifted irritably,

"Shh! You're in the way—I can't hear a thing."

　I feel lighthearted. I can hardly resist making a joke of it. Putting on a grave, solemn face, I turn toward him—

"What is it? Why do you look at my face like that?"

the man asked, looking flustered.

"Quiet," I whispered, moving only my lips.

"It smells awfully smoky, doesn't it? It's a fire."

　The fellow seemed to be quite a brave and sensible sort, for he made no sound. He turned pale in an instant, and his great eyeballs, as big as a cow's bladder, bulged out as if they would fall onto his cheeks, yet still he made no sound. He rose quietly and, without even a word of thanks to me, went stumbling and trembling toward the exit, though he still did not hurry. He seemed to fancy himself the only one among those present worth saving, and to fear that the others would notice the fire and block his escape.

　I felt unwell, so I left the theater after all. I thought it was still too early to reveal my true state here. Stepping outside, I looked toward the direction of the front; the sky was still, and the night clouds, tinged yellow by the firelight, drifted languidly and serenely. Deceived by the excessive stillness of both sky and town, I thought, "It's all a dream—perhaps there's no war, nothing at all."

　But then a child dashed out from around the corner, shouting joyfully at the top of his voice,

"There it is—a monstrous war, a complete mess! Terrible deaths in battle! Buy a telegram, won't you? It's tonight's telegram!"

　Reading it by the light of a street lamp, it said four thousand war dead. Even the theater audience couldn't have numbered more than a thousand. On my way home, I thought of nothing but those four thousand corpses, over and over.

　In this state, entering the empty, desolate house feels eerie. Just pushing the key into the lock and gazing at the silent, expressionless door already brings to mind all the dark, uninhabited rooms within. At this moment, a single figure in a hat is passing through them, looking around. Though the corridors were not unfamiliar, from the moment he began climbing the stairs until he found a candle, he kept striking matches to light his way. He no longer goes to my brother's study. The study has been left exactly as it was, completely shut up and locked. I had moved into the dining room, and tonight I sleep there as well. The dining room feels more comfortable. It seems as if the sound of voices, laughter, and the lively clatter of dishes still lingers in the air. Sometimes I can clearly hear the dry scratching of a pen nib racing across paper. As I lie down on the bed...

(Fragment XV)

　…A foolish dream, yet a dreadful one. As if the skull's bones were stripped away and the brain lay exposed with nothing to cover it, I drink in the maddening, blood-scented horror of these recent days, insatiably, as it is forced upon me. Curled up in sleep, my body fills no more than two arshins, yet my mind encompasses the world. I see with the eyes of all, hear with the ears of all, die with the war dead, weep and grieve with those wounded and left behind, and I suffer, feeling pain in the blood others shed. Even what does not exist appears as if it does; even distant things loom near and vivid, and the agony of my exposed brain knows no end.

　Children, children, little children, children who know no sin yet.

　As those children played at war in the streets, chasing and being chased, one of them—somebody with a thin, childish voice—began to cry. Fear piled upon fear, and I felt a sick, loathsome sensation, as though something were leaping in my chest. When I returned home, at night, in a dream that blazed like a nighttime fire, I saw those pitiful, innocent children transformed into a band of little murderous villains.

　Something writhed in the smoke of a terrible conflagration, raising thick, crimson flames—creatures with adult heads, villainous to boot, and the bodies of crippled children, transformed. Though they hopped about lightly like young goats at play, they breathed with the pained, labored gasps of patients. Opening mouths like a toad's or frog's gaping wide, they trembled, and through their naked, translucent skin the flow of red blood was visible as they fought and were struck down in their play. Because they were small and could slip into any crevice, I had never seen anything so eerie.

　When one of the small ones noticed me peering through the window, it gave a faint smile, its eyes seeming to long to come inside,

"I'm coming over there."

"If you come, they'll kill you, won't they?"

"I'm coming over there."

　Suddenly its expression shifted, and as it scaled the white wall it was just like a rat—a famished rat. It fell, squeaking, then scurried along the wall again. The transformations were so violent, so frantic, that the eye could scarcely follow.

　I could slip under the door, I thought, and shuddered; as if reading my mind, the rat stretched itself long and thin, and with a flick of its tail, slipped into the dark gap beneath the front door. As I lay hidden under my bedclothes, I heard the small creature padding about on tiny bare feet, searching through the dark rooms, one after another. Stealthily, hesitantly, it crept toward my room, and at last slipped inside—but then, for a long while, not a rustle or a stir, so I could not imagine anything lurking by the bed. Suddenly, someone—who?—with tiny hands lifted the edge of the bedclothes. The cold air of the room struck my face, struck my chest, with a chill. I clutched the bedclothes tight, but they slipped away from me, from here and there, and my feet grew suddenly cold, as if plunged into water. At length, both feet lay helpless in the cold, dark room, and the rat watched them.

　Beyond a single wall, in the garden, a puppy’s cry sounded, and then stopped; a clanking of chains followed, and the puppy seemed to have slipped back into its kennel. The rat silently watched my bare feet. I knew it was there beside me. It was unbearably frightening; as if gripped by Death itself, my body stiffened, and the more I grew still and silent like a stone tomb or the like, the more I knew it was there. If I could have raised my voice, I might have roused not just this city but the whole world. Only because my voice died in my throat and would not come out did I remain quietly motionless, while small, cold fingertips crept all over my body and pressed toward my throat.

"I can't bear it!" I gasped, and in that instant woke with a cry. The night was deep and seemed alive; though dark, I could see well, and yet I must have fallen asleep again...

"There is nothing to worry about," my brother said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Heavy as a corpse, the bed gave a creak. "There is nothing to worry about. It is all a dream. You feel as though your throat is being squeezed, but in truth you are fast asleep in a pitch-dark room with no one else there. See, I am writing in my study. Because I never tell anyone what I am writing, you have been treating me like a madman and behaving rudely toward me, but now that things have come to this, I will confess. In truth, I am writing about the Red Laugh. Can you see it?"

　Something large, crimson, and blood-soaked pressed down over me, laughing with a guttural laugh from its toothless mouth.

"This is the Red Laugh. When the earth goes mad, this is how it laughs. You know, do you not, that the earth has gone mad? There are no more flowers or songs; the earth has become something round, smooth, crimson—like a head that has been skinned. Can you see it?"

"I can see it. It is laughing now."

"Because the earth's brain has come to something terrible, look. The crimson parts might be called blood porridge. It has all fallen into chaos."

"Something is crying out."

"It is in pain. There are no more flowers or songs now. Come, I will climb on top of you!"

"If you climb on, you are heavy, and it feels dreadful."

"If one is dead, one ought to climb on top of the living. It is warm, is it not?"

"It is warm."

"Does it feel good?"

"I feel like I am dying."

"Wake up and cry out. Wake up and cry out. I am going now..."

(Fragment XVI)

　It has been eight days since the battle began. It started on Friday of last week, and Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday passed, and Friday came again and passed too, yet still the battle does not cease. The two armies number hundreds of thousands, and facing each other without retreating a single step, they exchange explosive shells with terrible noise and without a moment to catch their breath, so that with each passing moment the living are turned into dead men. The sky itself trembles with the ceaseless rumbling cannon fire that shakes the air, summoning pitch-black storm clouds, and thunder roars overhead, yet both enemy and our side, as if this were the decisive moment, fight on, striking and being struck. It is said that a man who goes three days and nights without sleep falls ill and can no longer remember anything—how much more so, then, when they have been without sleep for a whole week, so that everyone has gone mad. And so they feel no pain, they do not think of retreating, and they will fight on until every last one of them has died in battle. According to rumor, in one unit the ammunition ran out, and they threw stones at each other, struck each other with their fists, and bit each other like puppies. If any participant in this battle were to return alive, one might wonder whether he would have grown fangs like a wolf, but there will likely be no survivors—since all are mad, every last one will die in battle. All are mad. Their minds are overturned and they can no longer make sense of anything, so if they were suddenly ordered to turn about, it seems they might fire upon our side, thinking it the enemy.

　There are strange rumors... strange rumors that are also terrifying, and something told us it was no ordinary matter, so everyone turned pale and whispered among themselves. Ah, I wish my brother could hear this—it's all talk of the Red Laugh. They say a phantom unit has appeared. It is a host of corpses that in every way resemble the living, not differing in the slightest. By night, when the maddened ones snatch a fleeting dream, and by day, in the very midst of battle, overcast like the underworld even under a clear sky, they suddenly appear, fire with phantom cannons, and shake the heavens with eerie cannon fire; then the living but maddened people, taken unawares by the suddenness, lose their wits, fight desperately against the phantom enemy, grow hysterical with fear, turn gray-haired in an instant, and die in confusion. The phantom enemy appears suddenly and vanishes just as suddenly. And when the silent aftermath is surveyed, fresh corpses, horribly mangled, lie scattered upon the ground. Who, indeed, was the enemy? My brother must know who the enemy truly was.

　The second battle also ended, and all around fell silent. The enemy was far away. And yet, in the darkness of the night, there came suddenly a single boom—a timid-sounding cannon shot. Starting up at it, everyone fired into the blackness—fired for a long time, for hours, into a darkness where there was no sound or sign of anything. What did they discern in the dark? Who, indeed, was that eerie being that showed itself in a terrifying, maddening silent form? Only my brother and I know this; others do not yet know, but they seem to feel it, for they turn pale and say such things as, "Why are there so many madmen? Never have we heard of so many madmen."

"Never have we heard of so many madmen," they say, and turn pale. They want to believe that things are the same now as they ever were. They want to believe that the power that forcibly suppresses human reason everywhere does not reach down upon each of their frail heads.

"In the old days, at any time, there was war—but never anything like this. War is the law of survival," they say, and all remain calm and composed; yet for all that, they all turn pale, all search with their eyes for a doctor, all cry out in flustered voices, "Water, quickly, water!"

　Everyone, refusing to hear the voice of reason stirring within, loses the contest against meaningless things and seeks to forget their reason's dulling; if it comes to that, they wish to become idiots. In these days when, at the front, men are dying moment by moment, I cannot remain idle, so I ran about among the people of the world and heard not a little of their talk—indeed, I saw many faces that smiled with studied nonchalance, saying, "Oh, the war is far away; it has nothing to do with us." But more than that, what I encountered was genuine fear stripped of all pretense—the bitter tears of unease, the despairing, maddening screams of "When will this savage slaughter ever stop!" When a man's guts are wrung with all their strength by the great reason, and he begins to utter his last prayer, his last curse, it is then that he gives voice to such screams.

　It had been a long time—perhaps several years—since I had walked that path, when I came upon an officer who had been sent to the rear after going mad. He had been a friend from school days, yet I scarcely recognized him; they said even his own mother would not have known him. He looked as though he had been buried in a grave for a year and then come back into the world—so changed that one could hardly believe it otherwise. His hair had turned white, completely white. His features had not altered much, but his face, as he sat silently straining his listening ear, had a look so removed from the world, so estranged from humanity and frightening, that even speaking to him made one feel eerie. When asked how he had lost his mind, what his relatives had learned was this: his unit had been held in reserve when the neighboring regiment made a charge. The mass of men ran shouting, "Hurrah! Hurrah!" So loudly did they cry that the gunfire was almost drowned out, but then, amid it all, the gunfire suddenly stopped—the "Hurrah!" stopped. The sudden silence, still as a tomb, meant they had reached the enemy's position and hand-to-hand combat had begun in earnest. It was that sudden silence, they said, that he could not endure.

　Now, when people talk beside him, shout, or make a racket, he sits calmly with his listening ear, waiting to catch some sound; but the moment it grows even slightly quiet, he clutches at his own head, tries to climb the walls and furniture, and thrashes about in epileptic-like fits. He has many relatives, and they take turns surrounding the patient and making a fuss over him; but still there is the night—a long, soundless night—so his father takes charge of the nights. He too is an old man with gray hair and a slightly touched mind, who hung any number of loud tick-tock clocks in a row on the wall, making them strike the hours continuously in staggered succession; lately, they say, he has rigged up a wheel that keeps up a constant crackling sound. Since the patient is only twenty-seven, they believe he will fully recover and pin their hopes on the future, so the household is now rather cheerful. They do not dress him in his uniform, but put him in smart clothes and keep him looking presentable, so that despite his gray hair, his face is still youthful, his bearing is relaxed and graceful, as if drained of strength, and the way he sits absorbed in thought, staring intently, is rather beautiful.

　After hearing the whole story, I went to his side and kissed the man's pale, withered hand, which should never wield a blade again, and no one so much as glanced away. Only my friend's young sister looked at me with a smile in her eyes; from then on, that girl, as if she were my betrothed, followed me about and clung to me as though I were a man beyond compare in this world. She clung to me so much that I nearly told her how, in that dark, empty house, I felt more wretched than in solitude; but the human heart is a thing that grows weary of affection. One is never wholly in despair. When she contrived to be alone with me, she, gently,

"Oh, how pale you look! There are rings under your eyes. Are you unwell? Or is it that you cannot bear the pity of your brother?"

“It’s not just my brother—I feel sorry for everyone. Though I am a little unwell myself…”

“I know why you kissed my brother’s hand—though it seemed no one else noticed. It’s because—what should I say—because he’s mad, isn’t that it?”

“Yes. Because he’s mad, that’s why.”

　The girl sank into deep thought—her expression so closely resembled my brother’s—only younger, and utterly serene.

“I”—she hesitated, flushing suddenly, but without lowering her eyes—“I want to kiss your hand. Will you let me?”

　I knelt before the girl and said,

“Bless me.”

　She started back, her face slightly changed, but when she heard my whispered words,

“I’m not a believer.”

“I feel the same way.”

　The girl’s hand briefly touched my head. When that was done,

“I’m going to the front.”

“That would be fine. But you would never endure it.”

“That’s hard to say, but—you and my brother are like that too, yet you can’t just leave the people at the front to their fate, can you? They are innocent souls. Won’t you forget me?”

“Never. And you?”

“Then—farewell!”

“We may never meet again. Farewell!”

　There is something most fearsome in death and in madness alike—and I felt as though I had passed through it, and breathed easier. My mind grew calm. For the first time in a long while, yesterday I entered the house without finding it dreadful in the least, opened the door of my brother's study, and sat long in the chair facing the desk with its drawers. When I woke suddenly in the night with a start, as if struck by something—boom—I heard the dry scratch of a pen point racing across paper, but I was not alarmed. I felt almost on the verge of smiling, and in my heart,

“Write as much as you like. The pen is not dry—it is steeped in the living blood of human beings. The manuscript may look like blank paper, but that is all the better. Precisely because nothing is written on it, it is uncanny, and speaks more of war and reason than all the clever things clever people set down. Write, write—write as much as you like.”

　…When I read the newspaper this morning, the fighting had still not ceased, and I began to feel uneasy again, my heart unsettled, as if something inside my head had suddenly clattered down. That something comes from afar, draws nearer—and now stands on the bright threshold of the empty house. Ah, how I miss that person—please, do not forget me. I feel I am going mad. Thirty thousand dead, thirty thousand dead…

(Fragment XVII)

　…The city, too, somehow carries a smell of blood. Nothing certain is known, yet there are dreadful rumors…

(Fragment XVIII)

　This morning, when I looked at the newspaper, among the many war dead whose names were listed, there was one name I knew. It was an officer, my sister's fiancé, who had been called up together with my late brother. An hour later, when I looked at the letter the postman had dropped off, I could tell from the handwriting on the envelope that it was addressed to my brother, and that it had come from that same fiancé of my sister's who had been killed in battle. A dead man had sent a letter to a dead man. But that is still better than a dead man corresponding with the living. This is the story of a lady I actually met: after she learned from the newspaper that her son had been blown to pieces by a shell and met a gruesome end, for an entire month, letters arrived from her son every single day. He was a gentle son, and in his letters he always wrote tender things to comfort his mother, saying nothing but hopeful, youthful, carefree words about gaining some happiness. Though he was no longer of this world—perhaps this is what they call the devil's meticulousness—he wrote about the affairs of this world without missing a single day, until at last the mother came to believe her son had not died in battle. But then, suddenly, the correspondence ceased; one day passed, two days, three, and after that fell into silence, and no matter how long she waited, no word ever came, so the mother took up a large old-fashioned pistol in both hands and fired a bullet into her chest, they say. Some say she survived, but I do not know for certain. I never heard the full truth.

　I gazed at the envelope for a long time, and on reflection, this envelope too had once been touched by the deceased. He must have intended to buy it somewhere, and sent his orderly with money to some shop. After sealing this letter, the deceased might have dropped it into the postbox himself. And then the complex mechanism called the postal system began to operate, and the letter, heedless of forests, fields, and city streets, raced solely toward its destination. On the morning of that final day, when the letter's author pulled on his boots, the letter was racing along. Even when its author was killed in battle, the letter was still racing. Even when its author was thrown into a pit and his corpse lay beneath the earth, the letter, concealing itself within a gray envelope bearing a postmark, like a spirit-like phantom, raced on, heedless of forests, fields, and city streets, and thus it now lies in my hands.

　The letter's contents were as follows. It was written in pencil on scraps of paper, with no ending. Something seems to have interrupted it.

“…Only now do I understand why war is to be enjoyed so greatly. The pleasure of killing a man—one who is clever, cunning, two-faced, far more flavorful than the carnivore among carnivores—is a primitive pleasure, and to take a human life with calm composure is more delightful than tossing a planet while playing tennis. You are pitiful. I grieve that you, unable to be with us, are condemned to pass tasteless, ordinary days, suffering from ennui. What you have long sought, unable to steal ease from your noble mind, is only won after you enter the jaws of death. To be drunk on blood—the metaphor is somewhat antiquated, but the truth, on the contrary, lies here. We are wading in blood up to our knees, drunk on this red wine, our eyes glazed and reeling. Red wine is a name our honorable soldiers under my command jokingly bestowed. The custom of drinking human blood is not so absurd as one might think. The ancients, too, practiced it knowingly…”

“…The crows are cawing. Can you hear them? The crows are cawing. Where could they have flown in from like this! The sky itself is darkening. They roost alongside us—we who fear nothing under heaven. Wherever we go, they follow. They are always above our heads, as if holding a black-lace umbrella over us, or as if lurking in the shifting shade of a tree with dark leaves. One came right up to my face and tried to peck at me. It must have mistaken me for a dead man. The crows are cawing; it unsettles me a little. Where could they have flown in from like this?”

…Last night we massacred the sleeping enemy. We crept along as if stalking ducks—stealing our footsteps, moving well, cautiously—so that we didn't trip over a single corpse or startle a single bird. We stole forward like ghosts, and the night hid us in turn. I took care of the sentry myself: I knocked him down and squeezed his throat so he couldn't make a sound. If he'd made even the slightest noise, it would have been the end of us, my friend. But he made no sound. He seemed to have no time to even realize he was being killed.

　The campfire smolders with a soft sputtering hiss. The enemy lay sleeping beside it. They slept as peacefully as if lying in their own beds at home. And there we butchered them for over an hour. Few woke before being cut down, but those who did raised screams and, of course, begged for mercy. Some even fought back. One fellow—when I grabbed him by the head, my grip was bad, so he bit through the fingers of my left hand. He bit my fingers off, but in return I wrung his neck for him, splendidly. How about that, my friend? Doesn't that settle the score? No—they were all sleeping soundly, I tell you! When you cut through bone, it goes pokin; when you cut through flesh, it goes zakkut. Then we stripped them bare and divided the spoils. But don't get angry and think I'm making a joke, my friend. You're too clever, so you might say that smacks of a brigand, but there's no helping it. We ourselves are nearly naked, after all. We've stripped ourselves entirely. I've been wearing something like a woman's jacket for some time now. With this, I look like anything but an officer of the victorious army.

　But that aside—you were married, weren’t you? Then a letter like this must have been hard to see. But… ah, my friend, there’s nothing like a woman. Damn it, I’m a youth too, parched with longing! Oh—and didn’t you have a woman you were promised to? You once showed me a photograph of some young lady and said she was your betrothed. That photograph held something sad, something terribly sad and pitiful. And you wept. What was it you wept for? I remember it was something like a small flower—terribly sad, terribly pitiful—but what was it? You wept, and wept, and wept on and on… Shameful—an officer, weeping like that!

…The crows are calling. You can hear them, can’t you? The crows are calling. Why do they cry like that, I wonder?…

　From there on, the pencil marks had faded, and even the signature could no longer be made out.

＊＊＊＊＊＊

　It is strange. Even when I learned of this man's death in battle, I felt not the slightest pity. When I recall his face, it rises clearly before me. A gentle, wistful, womanly countenance, cheeks of peach blossom, eyes clear and pure as the morning, a soft down of a beard—one would have thought it might even adorn a woman's face. He loved books, flowers, and music, detested all things coarse, and wrote poetry. His brother, the critic, had said he was quite skillful at it. And yet, when I recall all that I knew of this man, it simply will not harmonize with this cawing of crows, this sea of blood from the night raid, or with death.

　…The crows are cawing…

　Suddenly, in a flash, I found myself in an absurd, indescribably joyful mood, as if everything that had happened were a lie—there was no war, nothing at all. There were no war dead, no corpses. Nor was there any such terrible thing as the foundation of thought being shaken and left unmoored. I was lying on my back, like a child who had seen a frightful dream. The eerie rooms, laid waste and silent by death and fear, and I myself holding a letter that seemed not to have been written by human hand—all of it was a dream. My brother was alive, and everyone at home was drinking tea. I could even hear the clink of the teacups as they touched.

　…The crows are cawing…

　No, it is indeed the truth. An unhappy world—is that not the truth? The crows are cawing. It is not the idle invention of madmen who have lost their reason, or of men of letters who suffer at their ease, seeking some cheap wonder. The crows are cawing. Where is my brother? He was a man of noble bearing, gentle, ever careful not to trouble anyone. Where is my brother? Come, you wretched corpses, answer me! You villains whom curses cannot exhaust, you crows that gather on the carcasses of cattle and horses, you pitiful, dull-witted beasts—come, you are beasts—I am asking you before the eyes of the whole world! What crime did he commit that you killed him? If you had faces, I would slap them, but you have no faces. What you have is the snout of a carnivore. Though you wear the guise of men, can you not see the claws beneath your gloves? Can you not see the beast's crushed, raging brow beneath your hats? However cleverly you speak, there is something of madness in your words. There is the clanking of chains. I shall curse you with all the strength of my grief, my sorrow, my outraged thought—you pitiful, dull-witted beasts!

(The Last Fragment)

“…It is your task to open a new path for the sake of survival,” cried the orator. This man, waving a banner on which the words “Stop the war” had been written in letters now crumpled and creased, balanced himself with his hands and barely managed to stand upon a small column.

“You are the youth; you are those who should live in the future. You must cut all ties with such savage and cruel affairs, and thereby preserve your own lives. You must preserve the seed of the nation’s future. We cannot bear to witness today’s horrors. Beholding them, we cannot keep the blood from rushing to our eyes. Truly, it feels as though heaven were falling upon our heads and the earth splitting beneath our feet. My friends…”

　At this moment the crowd stirred in an extraordinary commotion, so that the orator's voice was drowned out and lost for a while; it was indeed a fearsome agitation, as though some spirit had taken possession of them.

"Even if I were mad, what I say is the truth. I have a father and brothers, but they are all rotting on the battlefield like the corpses of cattle and horses. We should build a campfire, dig a pit, melt down the weapons and bury them; we should seize the soldiers, strip off their dazzling madness-uniforms, and tear them to shreds. We can bear it no longer… our kind are dying…"

　At the point where he said this, someone—a tall, long-backed fellow—struck the orator down, sending him tumbling and rolling away, while the flag fluttered and snapped again, and he fell once more. The scene immediately dissolved into chaos, leaving no time to catch even a glimpse of the face of the man who had struck the orator down. Suddenly the whole crowd surged into motion—shoving, crushing, pushing back, shouting and screaming. Stones and clubs flew through the air, and fists—aimed at who knew whom—flashed above our heads. The crowd roared up like a living wave, and I was lifted into the air and carried several steps away, dashed against a hedge with a force that left me breathless, then swept back and veered off in another direction, until at last I was pressed against a tall pile of stacked firewood, which tilted and threatened to collapse down upon my head. A dry crackling sound rang out incessantly, and something pattered against the timber. Then it quieted—or seemed to—only to burst forth again with a cry. It was a thick, immense voice, as if an open-mouthed gong were shouting, inhuman and dreadful. Again came the crackling sound. Someone fell beside me, and when I looked, there were two crimson holes gaping where his eyes had been, with blood welling up and streaming out. At that moment a heavy club swung through the air with a dull whoosh, and its end struck my face; I toppled over, and crawling blindly among the trampling feet, I escaped into an open lot. From there I climbed over some hedge or other, tearing my nails off one by one, and scrambled up a stack of piled firewood several tiers high. One tier gave way under the weight of my body, and I flew off together with the scattering logs, crashing down into a square pit-like hollow; barely crawling out of it, I heard the roaring, crackling cries chasing after me from behind. Somewhere a fire bell rang. A dreadful sound, as if a five-story building had collapsed, reached my ears. The dusk seemed to congeal and refuse to turn into night, and the gunfire and shouting in the distance took on a reddish tinge, as if pushing the evening gloom back step by step. Leaping down over the last hedge, I found myself in a narrow, twisted side street, walled in on either side by blind walls like a corridor, and I ran out through it. I ran on for a long while, but it was a dead-end alley; the end was blocked by a hedge, beyond which loomed dark piles of firewood and timber. So I climbed the towering, unstable stacks that would collapse at a step and gave no foothold, only to fall into a place like a well, silent and smelling of green wood; and having fallen, I climbed out again, yet I could not bring myself to look back. A dim reddish shadow flickered again, and the blackened timber looked like the corpse of a giant, so even without turning to look, I could guess the state of things well enough. The bleeding from the wound on my face had stopped, but my face had gone numb, no longer feeling like my own—as if I were wearing a plaster cast over it. At last, when I fell into a pitch-dark hole, my senses seemed to leave me and I lost consciousness entirely; but whether I truly lost consciousness or only felt as though I had, I cannot tell—all I remember is that I kept running.

　Then for a long time I ran through unknown streets where the street lamps were not lit, but whichever way I turned, there were only pitch-black, dead-looking houses, and I could not escape from that silent labyrinth. To get my bearings, it was essential to stop and look around in all four directions, but I could not do that. The rumbling sound heard in the distance and the cries of people shouting "cry out" seemed, at times, to be gradually catching up with me. Sometimes, as I was about to turn a corner, I would run head-on into that sound from the front. The sound came vividly echoing from within the smoke that swirled up like a reddish-black ball. I would turn back with a start and run until I was behind again. At a certain corner, there had been a place where a single light was shining, but when I went near it, it suddenly went out—it was some shop that had hastily closed its doors. Through a wide gap, I could see one end of the counter and something like a bucket, and then it suddenly became dark as if it had silently hidden itself. Not far from that shop, I met a person running toward me from the opposite direction. In the darkness, we were about to collide within two steps, so we both stopped. I did not know who it was, but I could see a pitch-black figure... a person poised in a defensive stance.

“Did you come from over there?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going home.”

“Hmm, home, is it?”

　The other was silent for a moment, then suddenly lunged at me, trying to knock me down. As cold fingertips groped for my throat, snagging on my clothes and fumbling clumsily, I bit down on that hand, wrenched myself free, and ran off. The other chased me for a while with loud footsteps through the deserted streets, but then fell behind—no doubt because the place I had bitten was hurting.

　Somehow, I found myself out in the streets of my own town. It was a street without street lamps, as usual, and the houses stood as if dead, with not a single gleam of firelight anywhere, so I would have run right through without realizing it was my town—but then, by chance, I raised my eyes and saw that I was in front of my own house. Yet I hesitated for a long while. Though it was a house I had lived in for years, seen in this deathly, strange town, where even a rough breath echoed mournfully against things, it no longer felt like my home. While I stood hesitating, the thought struck me—had I dropped my key when I fell?—and I was seized with a start, my mind reeling. I searched frantically, and, what do you know, the key was in my outer pocket. Then, when I made the lock click, the echo rang out high and strange, and I felt as though the doors of all the dead houses in the town had suddenly swung open at once with a rush.

　At first I hid under the floor, but that too was dreary, and something seemed to flicker before my eyes, which was eerie, so I crept quietly inside. Groping in the dark, I bolted the doors one by one, and then, after some deliberation, I tried to barricade them with furniture, but every time I moved a piece, a frightful sound echoed through the whole empty house. This chilled my blood again, and with an "Ah, to hell with it," I resolved, "If I must die like this, then die I will. However I die, death is but one."

　There was still lukewarm water in the washstand, so I groped about, washed my face, and wiped it with a rag; the skin pulled tight and the wounds stung sharply. I tried to look in the mirror, struck a match, and peered through its faint, flickering firelight—something ugly and eerie seemed to lurk in the darkness, glaring at my face, so I panicked and threw the match away. Still, it seemed my nose had been crushed flat.

"Well, whatever becomes of my nose, I don't care. There's no use in being satisfied anyway."

　Thinking this, I began to feel cheerful. As if playing the part of a bandit in a play, I made strange gestures and faces as I went to the buffet and rummaged out the leftovers. There was no need to gesture while searching. Even as I thought this, the habit was amusing, and I couldn't stop. Pretending to be ravenously hungry, I ate, still wearing a strange expression.

　The pitch-black stillness was eerie, so I opened the peephole window in the yard and strained my listening ear. Outside, not a single carriage passed, so at first it seemed just as still; the gunfire, too, appeared to have ceased—but just as I thought this, a faint, distant human voice rose. Screams, laughter, some sound like something crashing down—all came through undistorted, soon growing so clear I could grasp them with my hand. Glancing at the sky, something red-black whisked past. The shed across the way, the paving stones in the yard, the doghouse—all appeared faintly stained with a dim red glow.

"Neptune!"

I called the dog softly from the window.

　There was no sign of movement in the doghouse; only the broken chain beside it gleamed dark red. But the distant screams and the sounds of things collapsing grew louder, so I closed the peephole window.

"They're pressing closer and closer!"

　Looking for a hiding place, I tried opening the stove door, searching the built-in fireplace, and opening the cupboard, but none of those would do. I walked through room after room, but I couldn't bring myself to peek into the study. The thought that my brother was surely sitting in his armchair, facing the table buried in books, made me uneasy.

　And gradually, it began to feel as if I were not the only one walking. There seemed to be several others silently treading through the nearby darkness, at times nearly brushing against me. Once, the breath of one of them touched the back of my neck, and I shuddered, my hair standing on end.

"Who's there?" I said in a low voice, but there was no answer.

　As I walked on again, the eerie figure followed silently behind me. I told myself it was just my queasiness causing such feelings—and indeed, a fever seemed to be coming on—but I could do nothing about the fear. My body trembled as if struck by a chill, and when I touched my head, it was hot as fire.

"Damn it, let's go to the study. Whatever else, it's better than being with strangers."

　My brother was indeed leaning back in the armchair, facing the table buried in books, and now he did not vanish as he had before. Through the gap where the curtain had been drawn, the outside light cast a faint reddish glow, though not enough to illuminate anything, so his figure was barely visible. I kept my distance from him, settling onto the sofa to watch what would happen. The study was quiet, with the distant rumble of thunder, the sound of something collapsing in a continuous crash, and faint screams here and there growing steadily closer. The red-black light grew stronger, and when the profile of my brother, leaning against the armchair—jet black, as if cast from iron—became visible within that thin red line,

"Brother!"

　I called out.

　But he remained silent. He sat frozen, motionless and black as a stone monument. The floorboard in the next room cracked sharply, and suddenly an eerie stillness fell. It felt as though we were among a great many corpses. Every sound had died away, and even the red-black light seemed to carry a damp, heavy shadow of death, frozen as if congealed, its color fading slightly. Thinking this stillness came from my brother, I said as much.

"No, it is not of my doing. Look out the window."

I drew the curtain aside—and I recoiled in fright.

"Oh, so this is the cause!"

"Go and call my wife. She has never seen this before," said my brother.

　My sister-in-law was in the dining room doing some sewing, but when I went to her, she stuck her needle into her work, rose as she was told, and followed behind me. When we drew aside all the curtains from the windows, a pale red light streamed through the wide entrance and poured freely into the room, yet somehow the interior did not brighten—it remained dark as before, only the windows themselves appeared square, red, large, and brilliantly bright.

　We all went to the window and looked up, and saw that from the walls and eaves cornices of the house, the sky stretched flat and crimson, like fire itself, with neither cloud, sun, nor star adorning it, seeming to sink beyond the horizon as it was. Looking down, the flat red-black field was likewise buried in corpses. The corpses were all naked, their feet turned toward us, so from here one could see only the soles and the undersides of their triangular chins. It was utterly still—all appeared to be corpses, and not a single wounded man left behind on the endless field was to be seen.

"They are gradually increasing," said my brother.

　My brother was also standing by the window, and my mother, my sister, and everyone else in the house were all here. No one's face was clearly visible, but I knew them by their voices.

"I have a feeling they are," said my sister.

"No, they are increasing. Just watch and see."

　Indeed, the corpses seemed to have multiplied. I stared intently to see how they increased, and suddenly a corpse appeared in a spot beside another corpse where there had been nothing before. Somehow they all seemed to well up from the ground. The empty spaces were gradually filled in, and the earth quickly turned faintly white. It turned faintly white because all the corpses lying in rows with their soles turned toward us were pale red, and with that, the room also brightened with a faint red glow of that same corpse color.

"Well, there's no more room now," said my brother.

"There's another one here now," said my mother.

　They all turned to look, and sure enough, there behind them too lay one person sprawled on his back. Then suddenly another appeared at his side, then two more. They kept welling up one after another, and the pale pink corpses lined up neatly, quickly filling room after room.

　The nanny said,

"They've come out into the children's room too. I went and saw them."

　My sister said,

"Let's run away."

　My brother said,

"There's no way out. Look, it's already like this."

　Sure enough, the corpses had thrust out their bare feet and linked arms, packed in tightly all around. Before our eyes they began to stir, and in a terrifying instant, still neatly lined up, they rose up all at once. New corpses had welled up from the earth and pushed up the ones that had been there before.

"If we stay here, we'll be strangled. Let's escape through the window."

　As I said this, my brother,

"No, we can no longer escape through the window! It's no use! Look, look at that!"

　...Beyond the window, in the congealed dark red light, the Red Laugh was visible.

The Red Laugh — The End

Printed August 5, Meiji 41 — Colophon of The Red Laugh

Published August 8, Meiji 41 — Price: 85 sen

　　　　　　　　Author — Hasegawa Futabatei

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　24 Iidamachi 6-chome, Kojimachi-ku, Tokyo City

　　Not Permitted — Publisher — Nishimoto Nami

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　108 Hisakatamachi, Koishikawa-ku, Tokyo City

　　Reproduction — Printer — Yamada Eiji

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　108 Hisakatamachi, Koishikawa-ku, Tokyo City

　　　　　　　　Printing Office — Hakubunkan Printing Office

　　　　　~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

　Publishing Office — Iidamachi, Kojimachi-ku, Tokyo City — Ekifusha

　　　　　　　6-chome 24 — Postal transfer account No. 12034

Transcriber's Notes (Page numbers are those of the original text)

Passages that appear to be typographical errors were corrected as follows, with reference to the fourth volume of the Futabatei Shimei Collected Works published by Iwanami Shoten (first printing, 1964).

Original: 生若い (p.25)

Correction: 生若い

Original: 見たばかりて (p.59)　

Correction: 見たばかりで

Original: 狂人 (p.64)　

Correction: 狂人

Original: 血潮 (p.71)

Correction: 血潮

Original: 見れぼ (p.72)　

Correction: 見れば

Original: 便りない聲て (p.85)

Correction: 便りない聲で

Original: 二本指て (p.96)

Correction: 二本指で

Original: 聞る！ (p.108)

Correction: 聞る！

Original: 貴方を此樣にすれば (p.121)

Correction: 貴方を此樣なにすれば

Original: 折合ふ事が出來ん (p.125)

Correction: 折合ふ事が出來ん

Original: 一所 (p.125)

Correction: 一所

Original: 線か (p.138)

Correction: 線が

Original: 紙に歿つた (p.148)

Correction: 紙に殘つた

Original: 遂うて (p.149)

Correction: 逐うて

Original: 薄無味惡かつたが (p.162)

Correction: 薄氣味惡かつたが

Original: ちらりとしたばかりて有つたのだ (p.163)

Correction: ちらりとしたばかりで有つたのだ

Original: 銳い目色て (p.171)

Correction: 銳い目色で

Original: ピシャり (p.172)

Correction: ピシャリ

Original: 迯けろ (p.175)

Correction: 迯ろ

Original: 慓ひ出す (p.175)

Correction: 慄ひ出す

Original: 冷たい (p.187)

Correction: 冷たい

Original: 向ふから來る (p.208)

Correction: 向ふから來る

Original: 失つたやうにも (p.230)

Correction: 失

Original: 唯蹶と (p.243)

Correction: 唯蹠と

Original: 蹶 (p.245)

Correction: 蹠

Original: 切れ (p.237)

Correction: 切れ

● Notes on Characters and Formatting

On page 113, the lines “弟は高笑をして、” and “妹も合槌を打つて、”, and on page 118, the line “弟はふと立止まつて、” were indented by one character.

On page 233, the cursive "志" was replaced with "し". In the character "熱", the top of the "灬" radical is the character "執" in the original.

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