Part 8

Grim was lurking at the edge of the bottom vegetation; she had not seen fish-food since the previous evening.

There is a splash in front of her, a broad foot is pushed obliquely down into the water and forces a large, heavy “swimming-bird” past her.

A little later there is a sudden gleam. A small fugitive of a fish darts past as though taking advantage of the wake of the big bird, from one reedy shelter to another.

Grim has already eaten so many bleak and roach that they are beginning to be everyday fare; and now, there goes a new kind of food, a fish that shines all red and green and blue and black, with large, glittering, beady eyes!

At a distance she follows the tit-bit that swims through the water like no other fish, turning incessantly round and round on its own axis.

How hard it works! there is a bright starry light all round it, and its tail-fin quivers behind in a long thick trail.

She cannot look at it unmoved. “After it!” say her eyes; “after it!” echoes her empty stomach.

She does not succeed in seizing it across as she generally does, but has to swim up and swallow it from behind in one mouthful.

It is a curiously sharp-spined little fish! Now that she has it in her mouth, it is not nearly so tempting to her palate as it was before her eyes. Well, she has taken the trouble to catch it, so down it shall go!

She cannot get it to move in her mouth; it will not stir! She takes a firmer hold, turns with it, and hastens back into her hiding place.

Then it begins to bite her in the throat! And now--she becomes quite uneasy--her throat suddenly tries to go the opposite way to her tail! What can be the matter?

She forcibly sets her teeth into her refractory captive, when suddenly she is pulled over.

How strange! The simple little pearly fish takes the form of a master, and drags her after it through the water; no matter how much she tries to back, no matter what powerful strokes she makes to force it to obey her will, she is obliged to yield and go with it. Her brain is bursting; she cannot comprehend this powerlessness: the fish is in her mouth and on its way down her throat, and yet it is dragging her along with it.

No! No! And she sets to work and lashes the water into foam with her tail; but the little pearly fish is inexorable; it is too strong for her.

There must be some strange witchcraft about it all!

Instead of her swimming away with it, here it goes swimming away with her, and on they go, nearer and nearer up towards the light and the surface, which she instinctively shuns. All at once the pearly fish leaps into the air with her. She wants to let go, to spit it out, but she is too late; for the moment she is not quite conscious.

Her eyes ache; she feels as if they would jump out of her head. Her sight is gone, and a bright red mist surrounds her. She tries to swim, but cannot get her balance; she tries to strike with her tail in order to escape, but the water round her offers no resistance.

A suffocating feeling seems suddenly to contract her gills; she cannot open them far enough. She opens her mouth to let water in, but only swallows dry wind.

The next moment she is lying floundering in a boat, and then a human hand takes her up.

“A pickerel! undersized!” mutters the angler. And he carefully takes out the revolving bait and weighs the fish in his hand. Alas! not even a miserable two pounds!

He takes out his sheath-knife and marks her dorsal fin; and then, in the hope of finding favour with the gods on account of his magnanimity, and catching the fish again at some future time, he tosses her over the side of the boat, and Grim is given back to life.

It was much the same feeling as when she was ejected from the heron’s throat; her intestines seem bursting, and her breath to be leaving her. Then she reaches the water, where she lies floating on her side, and slowly wakens as though from a long fit of unconsciousness.

And in a trice she has disappeared into the depths.

Her suspicion was aroused. The world was full of villainies, more than those that she herself committed!

Twilight was falling.

The sun’s fiery columns, that stood obliquely over the lake, suddenly separated and flowed out, their glowing fragments lying like burning oil upon the surface of the water. Then they were gradually extinguished; the darkness of evening shed its deep blue tones over them.

Long and black, the shadows crept out from the banks; the little fish made their way in to the shelter of the reeds, and the pursuing pike went to rest. And while the surface still sparkled with a peculiar mother-of-pearl brilliancy, the darkness of night already brooded closely beneath the water.

As quietly as a snail, a little crayfish was crawling over the bottom; but it was more watchful than a polecat, and listened and felt its way carefully. It came out from the rocky reef, and was now on its way over the sandy plain in to the nearest bank.