"THE RED LAUGH."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16507, 6 October 1915, Page 8

"THE RED LAUGH."

A RUSSIAN STORY WHICH DEPICTS THE REACTION OF THE RUSSIAN SOUL TO WAR WHEN THOUGHT OF WAR INTRUDES ON ACTION.

The Russian story, "The Red Laugh," "by Leonard Andryev, is of special interest just now, when men. are -wondering what is the resisting and overcoming power of the Russians. Of this story a writer in the New York Times says: "This novel of the disastrous campaign in Manchuria is more than the general indictment of war which it has been praised for being; it is m4>re than a marvellous study in morbid psychology, though it is that, too. It is illuminating after a fashion the author could scarcely have meditated, for, written by a Russian about Russians and' to Russians, it involuntarily depicts the reaction of the Russian soul to war—a reaction not only peculiarly Slavic, but peculiarly burdened with the defects of Slavic qualities.

— Russian Delights in His Soul.— " More than any other human being, the Slav is conscious of himself. The American or Englishman generally feels it is scarcely decent in him to have a soul at all. Early in the game he tucks it away in some obscure corner of his organism and afterward ignores it as far as he can. To discuss it gives him acute discomfort; to exhibit to the world is practically impossible to him. But the Russian delights, in his. He carries it tenderly in his hands; he caresses it, he analyses it, and he sticks-a knife into it, all with an impartial and religious fervour. As a result, not having learngd that souls, like prematurely-born infants, are not fitted to endure the harsh contacts of the open-air world, he is much given to the swift, if more or less temporary, oblivions of suicide and strong drink.

— Defects of Introspection.— "This passion for introspection has its uses. Art blooms Out of, it as orchids out of a jungle—an art from the beautiful, strange flowers of which a pollen has blown to fructify the music, the painting, and the literature of the world. But when it comes to action, the case is different. It is possible to will and to act almost" simultaneously; but no man can will, can act, and can question the why, the whence, and the whither of it all. at the same moment. _ When circumstances compel him to act vigorously and continuously, and the nature of his soul lays upon him the necessity for reflection and self-justifiea-tion in the midst of his action, he either sinks into the state of paralysed will and (jhaotic mind so familiar to us in the characters in Russian novels, or else he goes mad outright—often he does both. " This is precisely what happens in 'The Red Laugh.' It is a tale of thought intruding upon action, interpreting physical horror into psychical horror, ending in inevitable madness. The common soldiers go mad marching; the doctors go mad at sight of suffering they are unable to relieve; the officers see the 'red laugh.' . . . 'It was in the sky, it was in the sun, and soon it was going to overspread the whole earth—that red laugh!' •' "Probably there is no more vivid piece of war realism in any language than the one where the hero tells us where he first sees the red laugh that was afterward to darken the light of day for him—of the pale young volunteer who, in the act of delivering a report, was suddenly stricken:

—He Sees the Red Laugh.— "' I felt a draught of -warm air upon my right cheek that made me sway— that is all, —while before my eyes, in place of the white face, there was something short, blunt, and red, and out of it the blood was gushing as out of an uncorked bottle, such as is drawn on badly-executed signboards. And that short, red, and flowing "something" still seemed to be smiling a sort of smile, a toothless laugh, a red laugh.' "A hundred explanations have been given of the Russian failure in Manchuria; a hundred more might be given of their present ill-fortune before the advance of the Austro-German forces. But there will always be something back of the explanation. May not this ultimate something be the soul of the race? — The Russian Soul.— "Not that Russians are cowardly; they will fight magnificently, and they Tush in where not merely angels, but archangels, might fear to tread. If the event is brief, they whirl through it at a Cossack gallop. But if it is long-drawn-out, there comes the rub. They have time to think, to question, to perceive the ironies of life

and death. The imagination quickens to images of horror; the analytical mind responds 'Wherefore.' and at the last nothing is changed, save that some hundreds of thousands of lives have gone to fertilise a Chinese plain or a Polish valley. " Russia has not suffered from war beyond other countries,, yet the vividness with which Russian authors visualise its horrors might lead tha historyless reader to imagine that it has been the Slavic rather than the Anglo-Saxon race who have sacrificed their bravest blood, instinctively and systematically, upon tho world's frontiers. — A Contrast in Warriors.—

" Anyone who is old enough to remember the fireside tales of the veterans of Gettysburg and Antietam knows that war is terrible; but he did not gain from those familiar narratives the sense of ghastliness and of futlity which fill the pages of Tolstoy and Andreyev. At its lowest terms, the difference is that between men who think in masses and those who think as individuals.

" The heroes of Gettysburg and Antietam doubtless lacked imagination; but they saw blood without going insane. The American of English stock will probably never write a novel of the imaginative power of ' The Red Laugh.' Tlie question is whether a nation which sees nothing in war but a red laugh will ever be able to make war without enormous waste—with real efficiency. Or will it forever see, effacing the ideal toward which all wars as well as other endeavour must aspire if it is to succeed—' a sort of smile, a toothless laugh—a red laugh '?"