Page:Best Russian Short Stories.djvu/421

Rh expression. And something terrible, unbearable, resembling the fall of thousands of buildings, darted through my head, and growing cold from terror, I whispered:

"The red laugh."

And he was the first to understand me. He hastily nodded his head and repeated:

"Yes. The red laugh."

He sat down quite close to me and looking round began whispering rapidly, in a senile way, wagging his sharp, grey little beard.

"You are leaving soon, and I will tell you. Did you ever see a fight in an asylum? No? Well, I saw one. And they fought like sane people. You understand—like sane people." He significantly repeated the last phrase several times.

"Well, and what of that?" asked I, also in a whisper, full of terror.

"Nothing. Like sane people."

"The red laugh," said I.

"They were separated by water being poured over them."

I remembered the rain that had frightened us so, and got angry.

"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