III
And again we crept on, I and the other leper; and again a noise arose around us, and again the quartette circled noiselessly, shaking the dust from their dresses, and licking our bleeding wounds. But we were weary, we were sick, our life was a burden to us. My fellow-traveller sat down, and rhythmically beating the ground with his swollen hands, he jerked out the horrid words:
“Kill us! kill us!”
We then jumped with a sudden movement to our feet, and hurled into the crowd; but they gave way before us, and we saw only their backs. We cursed their backs, and entreated:
“Kill us!”
But immovable and deaf were the backs, like a second wall. It was so terrible never to see the faces of people, but only their backs—immovable, silent. Now my companion deserted me. He had seen a face—the first face—and it was, even as his own, full of sores and horrible. But it was the face of a woman. And he began to smile and walk round her, stretching out his neck, and diffusing a fœtid odour; but she too smiled at him with her mouth all fallen-in, and casting down her eyes which had lost the lashes.
And they married one another. And for a moment all faces were turned towards them, and appealing round of laughter shook people’s sturdy bodies. And I, the leper, laughed too: surely it is a stupid thing to get married when one is ugly and sick.
“Fool,” said I in derision. “What wilt thou do with her?”
The leper answered with a pompous smile:
“We will deal in stones, which fall from the wall.”
“And the children?”
“We will kill them.”
How stupid to beget children only to kill them! But then she will soon deceive him; she has such shifty eyes.