In the yard, behind the house, a dog barked and was silent, and I heard the trail of its chain as it went into its kennel. But he still watched my naked feet and kept silence; I knew he was there by the unendurable horror that was binding me like death with a stony, sepulchral immobility. If I could have cried out, I would have awakened the whole town, the whole world, but my voice was dead within me, and I lay submissive and motionless, feeling the little cold hands moving over my body and nearing my throat.
"I cannot!" I groaned, gasping and, waking up for an instant, I saw the vigilant darkness of the night, mysterious and living, and again I believe I fell asleep....
"Don't fear," said my brother, sitting down upon my bed, and the bed creaked, so heavy he was dead. "Never fear, you see it is a dream. You only imagine that you were being strangled, while in reality you are asleep in the dark rooms, where there is not a soul, and I am in my study writing. Nobody understood what I wrote about, and you derided me as one insane, but now I will tell you the truth. I am writing about the red laugh. Do you see it?"
Something enormous, red and bloody, was standing before me, laughing a toothless laugh.
"That is the red laugh. When the earth goes mad, it begins to laugh like that. You know, the earth has gone mad. There are no more flowers or songs on it; it has become round, smooth and red like a scalped head. Do you see it?"
"Look what its brain is like. It is red, like bloody porridge, and is muddled."
"It is in pain. It has no flowers or songs. And now--let me lie down upon you."
"We, the dead, lie down on the living. Do you feel warm?"
"Awake and cry out. Awake and cry out. I am going away....."
.....To-day is the eighth day of the battle. It began last Friday, and Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have passed--and Friday has come again and is gone--and it is still going on. Both armies, hundreds of thousands of men, are standing in front of each other, never flinching, sending explosive, crashing projectiles without stopping, and every instant living men are turned into corpses. The roar and incessant vibration of the air has made the very sky shudder and gather black thunderclouds above their heads,--while they continue to stand in front of each other, never flinching and still killing each other. If a man does not sleep for three nights, he becomes ill and loses his memory, but they have not slept for a whole week and are all mad. That is why they feel no pain, do not retreat, and go on fighting until they have killed all to the last man. They say that some of the detachments came to the end of their ammunition, but still they fought on, using their fists and stones, and biting at each other like dogs. If the remnants of those regiments return home, they will have canine teeth like wolves--but they will not return, they have gone mad and die, every man of them. They have gone mad. Everything is muddled in their heads, and they cease to understand anything! If they were to be turned round suddenly and sharply, they would begin firing at their own men, thinking that they were firing at the enemy.