" Softly, gently there, not so . . . . what are you doing ? " cried Kostyakoff, laying hold of the line. " My dear sir, what a weight; don't hold it; let it go, let it go, or it will break. There so, to the right, to the left; here, to the bank. Let it go! further; now draw it up, draw it up, only not all at once; that's the way—so."
A huge pike appeared above the surface of the water. It twisted quickly with a flash of silver scales, beat its tail to right and to left, and sprinkled them both with drops. Kostyakoff was quite pale with excitement.
" What a pike !" he cried almost in tones of awe, and stretching over the water he fell down stumbling over his hooks, and with both hands tried to capture the pike as it was wriggling back to the water.
" Come to the bank, this way, further! there now, it's ours, and no wriggling back. See, it's as slippery as the devil! Ah, what a pike ! "
" Ah !" some one repeated from behind.
Alexandr turned round. Two paces from them stood an old man, and on his arm a tall pretty young girl, with her head uncovered and a sunshade in her hands. Her brows were slightly knitted. She was bending a little forward and following every movement of Kostyakoff with great interest. She had not even noticed Alexandr.
This unexpected apparition rather disturbed Adouev. He let the rod slip out of his hands, the pike went flop into the water, gracefully shook its tail, and was off into the depths, drawing the line after it. All this took place in a second.
" Alexandr Fedoritch ! what are you doing," Kostyakoff shouted like a madman, beginning to seize the line. He kept hold of it, but drew out only the end, without the hook and without the pike.
Quite pale, he turned to Alexandr, showed him the end of the line, and looked furiously at him for a minute without speaking, then he spat on the ground.
" I will never go fishing with you again; I'll be damned if I do," he ejaculated, and turned away to his own hooks.
Meanwhile the young girl had noticed that Alexandr was looking at her; she blushed and was stepping away. The old man, apparently her father, bowed to Adouev. Adouev responded sullenly to his salutation, threw down the hooks and sat down some ten paces away on a bench under a tree.
" Even here there is no peace !" he thought. " Here is some CEdipus with an Antigone. Woman again ! There's no escaping them anywhere. Good Heavens ! what heaps of them there are everywhere."
" Call yourself an angler !" said Kostyakoff meanwhile, setting his hooks in order, and looking angrily at Alexandr from time to time; how are you going to catch fish ? You'd better catch mice sitting at home on your sofa ; but come to really catching fish ! How are you going to catch it, now it's slipped out of your hands ; it was almost in your mouth all but cooked. It's a wonder your fish don't slip off your plate."
" Do you get many bites ? " asked the old man.
" Well, you see here," answered Kostyakoff, " here on my six hooks scarcely a wretched gremille has bitten in mockery; but there meanwhile with his one ordinary line, a pike of ten pounds or so, and then he let it slip. Well, they say the game runs to meet the sportsman. But it's not so; if it had broken away from me, I should have caught it in the water; but there's the pike hiding in the stream while we're asleep—and call himself an angler. What sort of angler's that ? are anglers generally like that ? No, a real angler would have fallen on it like a cannon-ball, he would have stopped to look at it. And that an angler! You'll never catch fish !"
The young girl meanwhile had time to observe that Alexandr was altogether a different kind of person from Kostyakoff. Alexandr's dress was not like KostyakorFs, nor his figure, nor his age, nor his manners, nor anything. She quickly noticed signs of education in him; she read thoughtfulness in his face; even the shade of melancholy did not escape her.
" But why has he run away!" she thought; "it's a strange thing. I didn't think I was the sort of person to run away from."
She drew herself up haughtily, and dropped her eyelids, then raising them she gazed with no friendly expression at Alexandr. Already she was offended. She drew her father away, and haughtily came near Adouev. The old man again greeted Alexandr; but the daughter did not vouchsafe him even a glance.
" Let him understand that people aren't paying the least attention to him !" she thought with a sidelong glance to see whether Adouev was looking.
Though' Alexandr was not looking at her, he involuntarily assumed a rather more becoming attitude.
" Why! he isn't even looking !" thought the young girl; " what impertinence!"
The next day Kostyakoff took Alexandr fishing again, and in that way incurred damnation through his own curse.
For two days nothing disturbed their solitude. Alexandr had at first looked about him, almost with apprehension; but seeing no one he grew easy again. The second day he pulled up a huge perch. Kostyakoff was half reconciled to him.
" But still it's not the pike !" he said with a sigh; " you had luck in your hands, and did not know how to profit by it; that won't happen twice. And again I have nothing! six hooks set, and nothing!"
" But why don't you ring the bells ? " said a peasant, who had stopped as he passed to look how the fishing progressed; "perhaps the fish will think it's time to go to church!"
Kostyakoff looked angrily at him.
" Hold your tongue, you ignorant man!" he said, " you boor!"
The peasant walked away.
" Blockhead!" Kostyakoff called after him; "a brute, yes, a brute he is. He'd have his joke with me, damn him ! a brute, I tell you, a boor!"
It's a serious matter to provoke a sportsman at the moment of failure!
The third day, while they were fishing in silence, their eyes bent fixedly on the water, a noise was heard behind
them. Alexandr turned round and started as if a mosquito had stung him. The old man and the young girl were there.
AdoueY, bending sideways towards them, made only the slightest response to the old man's greetings, but he seemed to have been expecting this meeting. As a rule he went fishing in a very slovenly attire; but this time he had put on a new great-coat, and had tied a blue cravat smartly round his throat; he had arranged his hair and even seemed to be posing a little as the idyllic angler. After remaining only as long as politeness required, he went away and sat down under the tree!
"Cela passe toute permission 1" thought Antigone, growing hot with anger.
" I beg your pardon !" said (Edipus to Alexandr; " we have disturbed you perhaps ? "
" No!" answered Adouev; "lam tired."
" Have you had any bites ?" the old man inquired of Kostyakoff.
"What bites can one expect when people shout close by," replied the latterwrathfully. "Some damned fool came up and went bawling close at hand, and not a bite since then. You live near these parts, I suppose ?" he inquired of (Edipus.
" Over there is our country-house with the balcony," he replied.
" You pay a big rent, I daresay ? "
" Five hundred roubles a year."
" It looks a good house, well arranged, and a lot of buildings in the court Thirty thousand, I daresay, it cost the owner to build."
" Yes, nearly that."
"Ah, and is. that your daughter?"
" Yes, she's my daughter."
" Ah, a fine young lady! You are out for a walk ? "
" Yes, we are taking a walk. If one lives in the country, one must take walks."
"To be sure, to be sure, why not, indeed? it's the best time for walking : not at all like last week ; what weather it was, oh, oh ! God preserve us ! It's done for the winter-corn, I expect."
" It will get over it, please God."
God grant it may! "
So you have caught nothing so far !"