"What are you talking to him for?" whispered Nava. "He hasn't got a face! How can you talk to him if he hasn't got a face?"
"How d'you mean 'no face'?" Kandid looked around in amazement. The man was not to be seen;
either he'd gone or had melted into the shadows.
"He's like a deadling," she said. "Only he's not, he's got a smell, but for all that, he's like a deadling... Let's go to some other house, but we won't get anything to eat here, don't think you will."
She hauled him off to the next house and they glanced inside. Everything in the house was odd, no beds, no smell of habitation, inside it was empty, dark, unpleasant. Nava sniffed the air.
"There's never been any food here," she said, repelled. "You've brought me to some stupid village, Dummy. What shall we do here? In my life I've never seen villages like this. There's no children shouting and there's nobody in the street."
They walked on. Beneath their feet lay a cool fine dust; their very steps were soundless and there were none of the usual evening hootings and gurgling from the forest.
•'He spoke in a funny way," said Kandid. "I've been thinking, I've heard that talk somewhere before ... but when and where I don't remember..."
"I don't remember either," said Nava, after a pause, "but it's true. Dummy, I've heard words like that, maybe in a dream, maybe in our village, not the one where you and I live now, but the other one where I was born, only then that would have been a very long time ago, because I was still very little, I've forgotten everything since, just now it was as if I remembered, but I just can't remember properly."
In the next house they saw a man lying flat on the floor by the entrance, asleep. Kandid bent down and shook him by the shoulder, but the man did not wake up. His skin was moist and cold like an amphibian, he was flabby, soft, and lacked muscle almost entirely. His lips in the semi-darkness seemed black and had an oily gleam.
"He's asleep," said Kandid, turning to Nava. "What d'you mean asleep, when he's looking at us?" said Nava.
Kandid bent over the man again and it now seemed that he was watching them through barely-open eyes. The impression lasted only briefly. "No, no, he's asleep all right," said Kandid. "Let's go."
Unusually for her, Nava said nothing. They made their way to the center of the village, glancing into every house, and in every house they saw sleepers. All the sleepers were plump, fleshy men. There wasn't a single woman or child. Nava was now completely silent and Kandid also felt uneasy. The bellies of the sleepers rumbled heavily. They didn't wake up, but almost every time that Kandid looked back at them as he passed out into the street it seemed that they were following him with quick cautious glances.
By now it had got dark and scraps of sky made ashen by the moon peeped through between the branches; to Kandid it once more seemed weirdly like the backdrop in a good theater. He felt weary to the ultimate degree, to complete and utter indifference. Just now he wanted only one thing; to lie down somewhere under a roof (in case some nocturnal horror fell on him asleep), let it be on a hard stamped floor, but better anyhow in an empty house, not with these suspicious sleepers. Nava was now literally hanging on his arm. "Don't you be afraid," said Kandid, "there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of here." "What d'you say?" she asked sleepily. "I said: don't be afraid, they're all half dead here, I could turf them out with one hand."
"I'm not afraid of anybody," said Nava angrily, "I'm tired out and I want to go to sleep, if you can't give me anything to eat. You keep going on from house to house, house to house. I'm fed up, it's the same in every house anyway, all the people are lying down resting, and you and me are the only ones wandering about..."
Kandid then made up his mind and entered the first house he came across. It was pitch black inside. Kandid pricked his ears trying to determine whether anyone was inside or not, but all he could hear was the snuffling of Nava who had her forehead buried in his side. He found the wall by groping and scrabbled about on the floor to see if it was wet; he lay down placing Nava's head on his stomach. She was already asleep. He hoped to himself he had done the right thing, there was something wrong about this place ... still, just one night ... then ask the way ... they won't sleep in the daytime ... at worst into the swamp, the robbers had gone ... and if they hadn't... how were the lads in New Village? ... Surely not the day after tomorrow again? ... Not at all, tomorrow ... tomorrow...
