The Red Laugh E-Book

Leonid Andreyev

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A feverish account by a Russian officer of the horrors of war in 1904. The Red Laugh is the feverish and fragmentary monologue of a Russian officer, overcome by the horror of man's inhumanity and driven to seek refuge in insanity.

Leseprobe

CHRONOLOGY LEONID NIKOLAEVICH ANDREYEV

1871

Andreyev born in Orel, the son of a provincial land surveyor. His youth is spent in difficult material conditions following his father’s death.

1882

Receives usual middle-class education at the Gymnasium of Orel.

1891

Enrols in the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University, where he supports himself by painting. Attempts to commit suicide for the third time. Returns to Orel.

1893

Renews studies, this time at Moscow University.

1895

First story “He, She, and Vodka” published in Moscow newspaper.

1897

Graduates from University and registers as a barrister. After one unsuccessful case decides to devote himself to literature.

1900

Gorky introduces him to a literary meeting where he read the story “Silence” which was subsequently published with much acclaim in “Everybodys Journal”.

1901

Marries. Publishes story “Once Upon a Time”. First collection of stories published by Gorkys publishing company. An immediate success, this publication provided Andreyev with considerable financial reward, relieving the awful poverty of his early life.

1902

Stories “The Abyss”, “In The Fog” and “The Life of Father Fiveisky”.

1903

Letter by Countess Tolstoy in Novoe Vremya, accusing Andreyev of writing pornography.

1904

Russo-Japanese War breaks out in Manchuria.

1905

Abortive revolution in many Russian cities. The short novel “The Red Laugh” published. Publication and staging of Andreyev’s first play “To The Stars”.

1906

Wife dies. Andreyev moves to Terioki in Finland. Behaviour and lifestyle becoming increasingly idiosyncratic. Story “The Governor” and the symbolic plays “Saava” and “The Life of Man”.

1907

Stories “Darkness” and “Judas Iscariot”. Play “King Hunger”, 18,000 copies of which were sold on publication day. Appointed editor of literary/artistic journal “Shipovnik” (Sweet-briar) conceived in opposition to Gorkys Znanye, containing the works of many leading Symbolists.

1908

Stories “The Seven Who were Hanged” and “The Curse of The Beast”. Plays “Days of Our Life” and “Black Masks”.

1909

Plays “Anfissa” and “Anathema”.

1910

Play “Gaudeamus”.

1911

“Sasha Jigoulev” published. Andreyevs only full length novel. By this point his popularity is beginning to decline.

1912

Plays “Catherina Ivanova” and “the Sabine Women”.

1914

Russia enters the Great War. Andreyev contributes to “The Russian Will”, a pro-war patriotic journal. Play “He Who Gets Slapped”.

1917

Vociferously opposes the Bolshevik seizure of power.

1919

Publishes “S.O.S. Russia’s call to Humanity” an appeal to the allies for support for the White cause. On the 12th September he dies in Kuokkala Finland at the age of 48.

CONTENTS

Title

Chronology Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev

The Red Laugh

Part I

Fragment I

Fragment II

Fragment III

Fragment IV

Fragment V

Fragment VI

Fragment VII

Fragment VIII

Fragment IX

Part II

Fragment X

Fragment XI

Fragment XII

Fragment XIII

Fragment XIV

Fragment XV

Fragment XVI

Fragment XVII

Fragment XVIII

Fragment the Last

Copyright

THE RED LAUGH

PART I

FRAGMENT I

….. 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—120º, 140º, 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 poppy-seed, 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 were 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.