Part 1

GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE

Translated from the Danish of

Svend Fleuron

by J. Muir and J. Alexander

Illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop

New York MCMXXI

Alfred A. Knopf

COPYRIGHT, 1919

By SVEND FLEURON

COPYRIGHT, 1921

By ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.

Original Title: Grim

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself, that is life’s end and aim.

CONTENTS I: LIFE II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING IV: THE MARAUDERS V: THE PEARLY FISH VI: THE MAN-ROACH VII: THE RASPER VIII: THE ANGLER’S END IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL X: IN THE MARSH XI: TERROR XII: GRIM DEVELOPS XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN XV: LUCK

ILLUSTRATIONS

A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes bowed their sheaves.

With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors.

She snaps eagerly at the nearest “worm,” but it escapes her by adroitly curling up.

The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched claws, and drives them with full force into her back.

I: LIFE

Clear running water filled the ditch, but the bottom was dull black, powdery mud. It lay inches deep, layer upon layer of one tiny particle upon another, and so loose and light that a thick, opaque, smoke-like column ascended at the slightest touch.

A monster, with the throat and teeth of a crocodile, a flat, treacherous forehead, and large, dull, malicious eyes, was lying close to the bottom in the wide, sun-warmed cross-dyke that cut its way inland from the level depths of the great lake. The entire monster measured scarcely a finger’s length.

The upspringing water-plants veiled her body and drew waving shadows over her round, slender tail.

When the sun was shining she liked to stay here among the bottom vegetation and imitate a drifting piece of reed. Her reddish-brown colour with the tiger-like transverse stripes made an excellent disguise. She simply was a piece of reed. Even the sharp-eyed heron, which had dropped down unnoticed about a dozen yards off, and was now noiselessly, with slow, cautious steps, wading nearer and nearer, took her at the first glance for a stick.

All the ditch-water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young pike.

Water-spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind legs, to moor their silvery diving-bells beneath the whorls of the water-moss. One boat-bug after another, with a shining air-bubble on its belly to act as a swimming-bag, and for oars a pair of long legs sticking far out at the sides, darted with great spurts through the water, or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon. The young pike peered upwards, and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection of black, boat-shaped whirligigs, showing like dots against the shining surface. The little water-beetles lay and dozed; but all at once a sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered precipitately, whirling away in wider and wider circles, only to congregate again just as suddenly, like a flock of sheep.

The young pike disappeared from the heron’s view in a cloud of mud, and glided off to some distance, finally coming to anchor on a wide submerged plain in a broad creek, shadowed by a clump of luxuriant marsh marigolds, whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the clusters of green, heart-shaped leaves.