"You are mad, doctor!"
"Not more than you. Not more than you in any case."
He hugged his sharp old knees and chuckled; and, looking at me over
his shoulder and still with the echo of that unexpected painful
laugh on his parched lips, he winked at me slyly several times, as
if we two knew something very funny, that nobody else knew. Then
with the solemnity of a professor of black magic, giving a conjuring
performance, he lifted his arm and, lowering it slowly, carefully
touched with two fingers that part of the blanket, under which my legs
would have been, if they had not been cut off.
"And do you understand this?" he asked mysteriously.
Then, in the same solemn and significant manner, he waved his hand
towards the row of beds on which the wounded were lying, and repeated,--
"And can you explain this?"
"The wounded?" said I. "The wounded?"
"The wounded," repeated he, like an echo. "The wounded. Legless and
armless, with pierced sides, smashed-in chests and torn-out eyes. You
understand it? I am very glad. So I suppose you will understand this
also?"
With an agility, quite unexpected for his age, he flung himself down
and stood on his hands, balancing his legs in the air. His white
working clothes turned down, his face grew purple and, looking at me
fixedly with a strange upturned gaze, he threw at me with difficulty a
few broken words,--
"And this ... do you ... also ... understand?"
"Stop!" whispered I in terror, "or else I will cry out."
He turned over into a natural position, sat down again near my bed, and
taking breath, remarked instinctively,--
"And nobody can understand it."
"Yesterday they were firing again."
"Yes, they were firing yesterday and the day before," said he, nodding
his head affirmatively.
"I want to go home!" said I in distress. "Doctor, dear fellow, I want
to go home. I cannot remain here any longer. At times I cannot bring
myself to believe that I have a home, where it is so good."
He was thinking of something and did not answer, and I began to cry.
"My God, I have no legs. I used to love my bicycle so, to walk and run,
and now I have no legs. I used to dance my boy on the right foot and he
laughed, and now.... Curse you all! What shall I go home for? I am only
thirty.... Curse you all!"
And I sobbed and sobbed, as I thought of my dear legs, my fleet, strong
legs. Who took them away from me, who dared to take them away!
"Listen," said the doctor, looking aside. "Yesterday I saw a mad
soldier that came to us. An enemy's soldier. He was stripped almost
naked, beaten and scratched and hungry as an animal, his hair was
unkempt, as ours is, and he resembled a savage, primitive man or
monkey. He waved his arms about, made grimaces, sang and shouted
and wanted to fight. He was fed and driven out again--into the open
country. Where could we have kept him? Days and nights they wander
about the hills, backwards and forwards in all directions, keeping to
no path, having no aim or resting-place, all in tatters like ominous
phantoms. They wave their arms, laugh, shout and sing, and when they
come across anybody they begin to fight, or, maybe, without noticing
each other, pass by. What do they eat? Probably nothing, or, maybe,
they feed on the dead bodies together with the beasts, together with
those fat wild dogs, that fight in the hills and yelp the whole night
long. At night they gather about the fires like monstrous moths or
birds awakened by a storm, and you need only light a fire to have in
less than half-an-hour a dozen noisy, tattered wild shapes, resembling
chilled monkeys, gathering around it. Sometimes they are fired at by
mistake, sometimes on purpose, for they make you lose all patience with
their unintelligible, terrifying cries...."
"I want to go home!" cried I, shutting my ears.
But new terrible words, sounding hollow and phantom-like, as if they
were passing through a layer of wadding, kept hammering at my brain.
"They are many. They die by hundreds in the precipices and pitfalls,
that are made for sound and clever men, in the remnants of the barbed
wire and on the stakes; they take part in the regular battles and fight
like heroes--always in the foremost ranks, always undaunted, but often
turn against their own men. I like them. At present I am only beginning
to go mad, and that is why I am sitting and talking to you, but when
my senses leave me entirely, I will go out into the open country--I
will go out into the open country, and I will give a call--I will give
a call, I will gather those brave ones, those knights-errant, around
me, and declare war to the whole world. We will enter the towns and
villages in a joyous crowd, with music and songs, leaving in our wake a
trail of red, in which everything will whirl and dance like fire. Those
that remain alive will join us, and our brave army will grow like an
avalanche, and will cleanse the whole world. Who said that one must not
kill, burn or rob?..."
He was shouting now, that mad doctor, and seemed to have awakened by
his cries the slumbering pain of all those around him with their
ripped-open chests and sides, torn-out eyes and cut-off legs. The ward
filled with a broad, rasping, crying groan, and from all sides pale,
yellow, exhausted faces, some eyeless, some so monstrously mutilated
that it seemed as if they had returned from hell, turned towards us.
And they groaned and listened, and a black shapeless shadow, risen up
from the earth, peeped in cautiously through the open door, while the
mad doctor went on shouting, stretching out his arms.
"Who said one must not kill, burn, or rob? We will kill and burn and
rob. We, a joyous careless band of braves, we will destroy all; their
buildings, universities and museums, and merry as children, full
of fiery laughter, we will dance on the ruins. I will proclaim the
madhouse our fatherland; all those that have not gone mad--our enemies
and madmen; and when I, great, unconquerable and joyous, will begin to
reign over the whole world, its sole lord and master, what a glad laugh
will ring over the whole universe."
"The red laugh!" cried I, interrupting him. "Help. Again I hear the red
laugh!"
"Friends!" continued the doctor, addressing himself to the groaning
mutilated shadows. "Friends! we shall have a red moon and a red sun,
and the animals will have a merry red coat, and we will skin all those
that are too white--that are too white.... You have not tasted blood?
It is slightly sticky and slightly warm, but it is red and has such a
merry red laugh!..."