..... Horror and madness.
I felt it for the first time as we were marching along the
road--marching incessantly for ten hours without stopping, never
diminishing our step, never waiting to pick up those that had fallen,
but leaving them to the enemy, that was moving behind us in a compact
mass only three or four hours later effacing the marks of our feet by
their own.
It was very sultry. I do not know how many degrees there were--120°,
140°, or more--I only know that the heat was incessant, hopelessly
even and profound. The sun was so enormous, so fiery and terrible,
that it seemed as if the earth had drawn nearer to it and would soon
be burnt up altogether in its merciless rays. Our eyes had ceased to
look. The small shrunk pupil, as small as a poppyseed, sought in
vain for darkness under the closed eyelid; the sun pierced the thin
covering and penetrated into the tortured brain in a blood-red glow.
But, nevertheless, it was better so: with closed eyelids, and for a
long time, perhaps for several hours, I walked along with my eyes shut,
hearing the multitude moving around me: the heavy, uneven tread of
many feet, men's and horses, the grinding of iron wheels, crushing the
small stones, somebody's deep strained breathing and the dry smacking
of parched lips. But I heard no word. All were silent, as if an army
of dumb people was moving, and when anyone fell down, he fell in
silence; others stumbled against his body, fell down and rose mutely,
and, without turning their heads, marched on, as though these dumb men
were also blind and deaf. I stumbled and fell several times and then
involuntarily opened my eyes, and all that I saw seemed a wild fiction,
the terrible raving of a mad world. The air vibrated at a white-hot
temperature, the stones seemed to be trembling silently, ready to flow,
and in the distance, at a curve of the road, the files of men, guns
and horses seemed detached from the earth, and trembled like a mass of
jelly in their onward progress, and it seemed to me that they were not
living people that I saw before me, but an army of incorporate shadows.
The enormous, near, terrible sun lit up thousands of tiny blinding suns
on every gun-barrel and metal plate, and these suns, as fiery-white and
sharp as the white-hot points of the bayonets, crept into your eyes
from every side. And the consuming, burning heat penetrated into your
body--into your very bones and brain--and at times it seemed to me that
it was not a head that swayed upon my shoulders, but a strange and
extraordinary globe, heavy and light, belonging to somebody else, and
horrible.
And then--then I suddenly remembered my home: a corner of my room, a
scrap of light-blue wall-paper, and a dusty untouched water-bottle
on my table--on my table, which has one leg shorter than the others,
and had a small piece of paper folded under it. While in the next
room--and I cannot see them--are my wife and little son. If I had had
the power to cry out, I would have done so--so wonderful was this
simple and peaceful picture--the scrap of light-blue wall-paper and
dusty untouched water-bottle. I know that I stood still and lifted up
my arms, but somebody gave me a push from behind, and I quickly moved
on, thrusting the crowd aside, and hastening whither I knew not, but
feeling now neither heat nor fatigue. And I marched on thus for a long
time through the endless mute files, past red sunburnt necks, almost
touching the helplessly lowered hot bayonets, when suddenly the thought
of what I was doing, whither I was hastening, stopped me. I turned
aside in the same hasty way, forced my way to the open, clambered
across a gulley and sat down on a stone in a preoccupied manner, as if
that rough hot stone was the aim of all my strivings.
And then I felt it for the first time. I clearly perceived that all
these people, marching silently on in the glaring sun, torpid from
fatigue and heat, swaying and falling--that they were all mad. They
did not know whither they were going, they did not know what that sun
was for, they did not know anything. It was not heads that they had
on their shoulders, but strange and terrible globes. There--I saw a
man in the same plight as I, pushing his way hurriedly through the
rows and falling down; there--another, and a third. Suddenly a horse's
head appeared above the throng with bloodshot and senseless eyes and a
wide-open grinning mouth, that only hinted at a terrible unearthly cry;
this head appeared, fell down, and for an instant the crowd stopped,
growing denser in that spot; I could hear hoarse, hollow voices, then a
shot, and again the silent endless march continued.
An hour passed as I sat on that stone, but the multitude still moved
on past me, and the air and earth and the distant phantom-like ranks
trembled as before. And again the burning heat pierced my body and I
forgot what for an instant I had pictured to myself; and the multitudes
moved on past me, but I did not know who they were. An hour ago I was
alone on the stone, but now I was surrounded by a group of grey people:
some lying motionless, perhaps dead; others were sitting up and staring
vacantly at those passing by. Some had guns and resembled soldiers;
others were stripped almost naked, and the skin on their bodies was so
livid, that one did not care to look at it. Not far from me someone was
lying with his bared back upturned.
One could see by the unconcerned manner in which he had buried his face
in the sharp burning sand, by the whiteness of the palm of his upturned
hand, that he was dead, but his back was as red as if he were alive,
and only a slight yellowish tinge, like one sees on smoked meat, spoke
of death. I wanted to move away from him, but I had not the strength,
and, tottering from weakness, I continued looking at the endless
phantom-like swaying files of men. By the condition of my head I knew
that I should soon have a sunstroke too, but I awaited it calmly, as in
a dream, where death seems only a stage on the path of wonderful and
confused visions.
And I saw a soldier part from the crowd and direct his steps in a
decided manner towards us. For an instant I lost sight of him in a
ditch, but when he reappeared and moved on towards us, his gait was
unsteady, and in his endeavours to control his restlessly tossing body,
one felt he was using his last strength. He was coming so straight upon
me that I grew frightened and, breaking through the heavy torpor that
enveloped my brain, I asked: "What do you want?"
He stopped short, as if it was only a word that he was waiting for, and
stood before me, enormous, bearded, in a torn shirt. He had no gun, his
trousers hung only by one button, and through a slit in them one could
see his white body. He flung his arms and legs about and he was visibly
trying to control them, but could not: the instant he brought his arms
together, they fell apart again.
"What is the matter? You had better sit down," I said.
But he continued standing, vainly trying to gather himself together,
and stared at me in silence. Involuntarily I got up from the stone
and, tottering, looked into his eyes--and saw an abyss of horror and
insanity in them. Everybody's pupils were shrunk--but his had dilated
and covered his whole eye: what a sea of fire he must have seen through
those enormous black windows! Maybe I had only imagined it, maybe in
his look there was only death,--but no, I was not mistaken: in those
black, bottomless pupils, surrounded by a narrow orange-coloured rim,
like a bird's eye, there was more than death, more than the horror of
death. "Go away!" I cried, falling back. "Go away!" And as if he was
only waiting for a word, enormous, disorderly and mute as before, he
suddenly fell down upon me, knocking me over. With a shudder I freed my
legs from under him, jumped up and longed to run--somewhere away from
men into the sunlit, unpeopled and quivering distance, when suddenly,
on the left-hand side, a cannon boomed forth from a hill-top, and
directly after it two others, like an echo. And somewhere above our
heads a shell flew past with a gladsome, many-voiced scr-e-e-ch and
howl.
We were outflanked.
The murderous heat, fear and fatigue disappeared instantly. My thoughts
cleared, my mind grew clear and sharp, and, when I ran up, out of
breath, to the files of men drawing up, I saw serene, almost joyous
faces, heard hoarse, but loud voices, orders, jokes. The sun seemed to
have drawn itself up higher so as not to be in the way, and had grown
dim and still--and again a shell, like a witch, cut the air with a
gladsome scr-e-e-ch.