In the "Diary of Private lvanov," Garshin gave more pictures of the hideous suffering of war, with a wonderful portrait of the commander of the company, who is so harshly tyrannical that his men hate him, and resolve to slay him in the battle. But he survives both open and secret foes, and at the end of the conflict they find him lying prostrate, his whole body shaken with sobs, and saying brokenly, "Fifty-two! Fifty-two!" Fifty-two of his company had been killed, and despite his cruelty to them, he had loved them all like children. Garshin wrote other tales, among them a poetically beautiful story of a tree, "Attalea Princeps," that reminds one somewhat of Bjornson. But his chief significance is as a truthful witness to the meaningless maiming and murder of war, and his attitude is precisely similar to that of Andreev, and both follow Tolstoi. Andreev's "Red Laugh" ought to be read in America as a contrast to our numerous war stories, where war is pictured as a delightful and exciting tournament. This book has not a single touch of patriotic sentiment, not a suggestion of "Hurrah for our side!" The soldiers are on the field because they were sent there, and the uninjured are too utterly tired, too tormented with lack of sleep, too hungry and thirsty to let out a single whoop. The first sight of the "Red Laugh" reminds us of the picturesque story of Napoleon's soldier that Browning has immortalised in the "Incident of the French Camp." Tolstoi mentions the same event in "Sevastopol," and his version of it would have pleased Owen Wister's Virginian more than Browning's. In Andreev there is no graceful gesture, no French pose, no "smiling joy"; but there is the nerve-shattering red laugh. The officer who tells the story in the first half of the book narrates how a young volunteer came up to him and saluted. The appearance of his face was so tensely white that the officer enquires, "Are you afraid?" Suddenly a stream of blood bursts from the young man's body, and his deadly pale face turns into something unspeakable, a toothless laugh--the red laugh.