But there is no getting it out like this!  One must get hold of it by the head.”

“And the head is under the root!  We know that, you fool!”

“Now then, don’t talk or you’ll catch it!  You dirty cur!”

“Before the master to use such language,” mutters Yefim.  “You won’t get him out, lads!  He’s fixed himself much too cleverly!”

“Wait a minute, I’ll come directly,” says the master, and he begins hurriedly undressing.  “Four fools, and can’t get an eel-pout!”

When he is undressed, Andrey Andreitch gives himself time to cool and gets into the water.  But even his interference leads to nothing.

“We must chop the root off,” Lubim decides at last.  “Gerassim, go and get an axe!  Give me an axe!”

“Don’t chop your fingers off,” says the master, when the blows of the axe on the root under water are heard.  “Yefim, get out of this!  Stay, I’ll get the eel-pout. . . .  You’ll never do it.”

The root is hacked a little.  They partly break it off, and Andrey Andreitch, to his immense satisfaction, feels his fingers under the gills of the fish.

“I’m pulling him out, lads!  Don’t crowd round . . . stand still . . . .  I am pulling him out!”

The head of a big eel-pout, and behind it its long black body, nearly a yard long, appears on the surface of the water.  The fish flaps its tail heavily and tries to tear itself away.

“None of your nonsense, my boy!  Fiddlesticks!  I’ve got you!  Aha!”

A honied smile overspreads all the faces.  A minute passes in silent contemplation.

“A famous eel-pout,” mutters Yefim, scratching under his shoulder-blades.  “I’ll be bound it weighs ten pounds.”

“Mm! . . .  Yes,” the master assents.  “The liver is fairly swollen!  It seems to stand out!  A-ach!”

The fish makes a sudden, unexpected upward movement with its tail and the fishermen hear a loud splash . . . they all put out their hands, but it is too late; they have seen the last of the eel-pout.

ART

A GLOOMY winter morning.

On the smooth and glittering surface of the river Bystryanka, sprinkled here and there with snow, stand two peasants, scrubby little Seryozhka and the church beadle, Matvey.  Seryozhka, a short-legged, ragged, mangy-looking fellow of thirty, stares angrily at the ice.  Tufts of wool hang from his shaggy sheepskin like a mangy dog.  In his hands he holds a compass made of two pointed sticks.  Matvey, a fine-looking old man in a new sheepskin and high felt boots, looks with mild blue eyes upwards where on the high sloping bank a village nestles picturesquely.  In his hands there is a heavy crowbar.

“Well, are we going to stand like this till evening with our arms folded?” says Seryozhka, breaking the silence and turning his angry eyes on Matvey.  “Have you come here to stand about, old fool, or to work?”