Nava got up and, passing the pot to Kandid, started tidying up. Kandid began to eat. The old man fell silent and watched him for a while chewing on his lip before observing: "That food's not good, you shouldn't eat it."
"Why not?" asked Kandid to tease.
The old man cackled.
"Eh, listen to him! Dummy, you'd do better to keep quiet. You'd be better off answering what I keep asking, does it hurt much when you have your head cut off?"
"What's it to you?" shouted Nava. "Why do you keep prying?"
"Shouts at me," announced the old man. "Lifts up her voice against me. She's borne no child and raises her voice against me. Why don't you have a child? Living with Dummy all this time and no child. Everybody has them but not you. You shouldn't go on like this. Do you know what 'shouldn't' means? It means undesirable, not approved, and since it's not approved it means you shouldn't. What you should do may not be clear but what you shouldn't do, you shouldn't. Everybody should know that and you most of all seeing as how you live in a village not your own, got a house given, got Dummy for a husband. Maybe he's got a different head stuck on him, but he's got a healthy body, you've no right not to have a child. So that's it, shouldn't, not desirable..."
Nava, by now bad tempered and sulky, snatched the bin from the table and went off into the pantry. The old man looked after her then went on, snuffling:
"How else can shouldn't be understood? It can and ought to be realized, shouldn't is harmful..."
Kandid finished his meal and plunked the empty pot in front of the old man. Then he went out onto the street. The house had been heavily overgrown during the night and the only thing visible in the surrounding greenery was the path made by the old man and the place by the door where he had sat fidgeting waiting for them to wake up. The street had already been cleared, the green creeper, thick as a man's arm, which had slid out of the network of boughs hanging above the village on the previous night and put down roots in front of the house next door had already been chopped up and fermenting fluid poured on it. It had turned dark and was going nicely sour. It gave out a strong appetizing smell and the neighbor's boys sat around it and tore out chunks of the soft brown matter, damp and juicy, and stuffed them into their mouths. When Kandid walked past, the eldest shouted with his mouth full, "Dumbling - deadling!" but the cry was not taken up, they were all too busy. Otherwise the street, orange and red from the tall grass in which the houses lay drowned, somber, and mottled with dusky green patches where the sun penetrated the forest roof, lay deserted. From the direction of the field could be heard the monotonous ragged choir of voices: "Hey, hey, make it gay, right way, left way, hey, hey."
From the forest came the echo. Or maybe not an echo. Maybe deadlings.
Hopalong was sitting at home, of course, massaging his leg. "Sit down," was his affable greeting. "Here I've put some soft grass for visitors. They tell me you're going?"
Once more, thought Kandid, once more from the very beginning.
"What's the matter, leg hurting again?" he inquired, seating himself.
"Leg? No, it's just nice sitting here and giving it a rub. When are you off then?"
"Just as we've been fixing it, you and I. If you were to come with me then we could go the day after tomorrow. Now I'll have to find somebody else who knows the forest. I can see you don't want to go."
Hopalong cautiously extended his leg and spoke weightily:
"As soon as you leave me, turn left, and carry on till you get to the field. Across the field, past the two stones and you'll see the road straight away, it's not much overgrown, there's too many boulders on it. Along the road you'll pass through two villages. One's deserted, mushroomy, mushrooms started growing there, so nobody lives there, there's funny folk living in the other village, the blue grass went through there twice and since then they've been sick, no need to start talking to them they won't understand a word, it's like they've lost their memory. Through there then and on the right you have your Clay Clearing. No need for guides, you can get there on your own, no sweat."
"We'll get as far as Clay Clearing," agreed Kandid, "and after that?"
"What do you mean, after that?"
"Across the swamp where the lakes used to be. Remember you were telling me about the stone road?"
"What road? To Clay Clearing. Well I'm trying to tell you, aren't I? Turn left, across the fields up to the two stones..."
Kandid heard him out before speaking.
"Now I know the way to Clay Clearing. We'll get there. But I have to go further, as you know, I must get to the City, and you promised to show me the way."
Hopalong shook his head in sympathy.
