The Red Laugh by Leonid Andreyev. Short summary

5 seconds

A young officer in the war is haunted by «Red Laughter.» He writes in his diary the horrors of war and hallucinations. His legs are torn off. At home he goes mad and dies, but the same madness infects his brother.

1 minute

A young officer, a writer, keeps a diary. There he describes the horrors of war and his hallucinations. He is haunted by visions of his wife and son, a house with blue wallpaper, and what he calls «Red Laughter.»

One day during the battle, he does not eat or sleep for twenty-four hours. He sees his family as if it were real. And he perceives the deaths around him as the pursuit of «Red Laughter.» One part of the army comes under «friendly fire» from another. The officer is left without legs.

In the hospital, he has a waking dream — a train is coming, picking up the wounded, but an orderly commits suicide and the train explodes.

After returning home, the officer doesn’t sleep for 2 months, sitting in the dark. He thinks he is writing a book, but only scratches the paper. This is how he dies.

The brother continues the writer’s diary. He, too, goes mad. He thinks he sees his brother. When he meets the obituary for his sister’s dead fiancé, he receives a letter from him. He thinks the dead are communicating with the living.

The hero’s brother sees everything in a red light-the theater, dreams. And increasingly he is surrounded by the dead, both loved ones and strangers.