The Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky

Author:Arkady Strugatsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2018-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

7.

CANDIDE

It was a very strange village. When they had come out of the forest and seen it in the basin below, they had been struck by the silence. It was so silent that they weren’t even glad to see it. The village was shaped like a triangle, and the big clearing in which it was situated was also triangular—a spacious clay meadow without a single bush, without a single blade of grass, as if everything on it had been burned away then trampled down. It was completely in the shade: the fused crowns of the mighty trees entirely obscured the sky.

“I have a bad feeling about this village,” Nava declared. “They probably won’t even give us food. How could they have any food, when they don’t even have a field, only bare clay? They are probably hunters, they probably catch animals and eat them, it makes me sick just to think about it, it does . . .”

“Maybe we’re in the kook village?” asked Candide. “And this is the Clay Meadow?”

“This is no kook village. The kook village, it’s a normal sort of village, it’s just like our village, except it’s full of kooks . . . And this place, it’s different—look how quiet it is, and there’s no one around, not even kids, although maybe the kids are already in bed . . . Why is there no one around, Silent Man? Let’s not go to this village, I have a really bad feeling about it . . .”

The sun was setting, and the village below was sinking into the twilight. It seemed very empty—not neglected, not abandoned and left behind, but empty, as if it weren’t a village but a stage set. No, thought Candide, we probably shouldn’t go there, but my feet hurt and I want a roof over my head. And I’m hungry. And night is coming . . . My goodness, we’ve been wandering through the forest all day; even Nava’s tired, clinging to my arm and not letting go.

“All right,” he said hesitantly. “Let’s not go there.”

“Let’s not go there, let’s not go there,” mimicked Nava. “What if I’m hungry? How long are we supposed to go without eating? I haven’t eaten a thing since morning . . . And those thieves of yours . . . Do you have any idea how hungry they make you? No, how about we go down there, have some food, and if we don’t like it there, we’ll just leave. It’s going to be a warm night, it’s not going to rain . . . Come on, what are you waiting for?”

They were hailed as soon as they got to the periphery of the village. A gray, almost fully naked man was sitting on the gray ground by the first house. It was hard to see him in the half light; he almost blended into the ground, and Candide could only make out his silhouette against the white backdrop of the wall.

“Where are you going?” the man said weakly.

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