Kumush thought: “She should take one of those roses.”
The girl always knew her father’s thoughts. As soon as that thought came into his mind, she put back her hand and, [[42]]without turning, pulled a rose and two leaves. Kumush did not take one. He could not even see them, for he was not dead.
After a time they came to a road so steep that they could slide down it. At the beginning of the descent there was a willow rope. The girl pulled the rope and that minute music and voices were heard. Kumush and his daughter slipped down and came out on a beautiful plain with high walls all around it. It was a great house, and the plain was its floor. That house is the whole underground world, but only spirits know the way to it.
Kumush’s daughter was greeted by spirits that were glad to see her, but to Kumush they said “Sonk!” (raw, not ripe), and they felt sorry for him that he was not dead.
Kumush and his daughter went around together, and Kumush asked: “How far is it to any side?”
“It is very far, twice as far as I can see. There is one road down,—the road we came,—and another up. No one can come in by the way leading up, and no one can go up by the way leading down.”
The place was beautiful and full of spirits; there were so many that if every star of the sky, and all the hairs on the head of every man and all the hairs on all the animals were counted they would not equal in number the spirits in that great house.
When Kumush and his daughter first got there they couldn’t see the spirits though they could hear voices, but after sunset, when darkness was in the world above, it was light in that house below.
“Keep your eyes closed,” said Kumush’s daughter. “If you open them, you will have to leave me and go back.”
At sunset Kumush made himself small, smaller than any thing living in the world. His daughter put him in a crack, high up in a corner of the broad house, and made a mist before his eyes.