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 !'
' I've nothing, but pray look what he has/'
He showed the perch.
' I assure you,' he went on, u it's singular how lucky he is ! It's a pity he doesn't give his mind to it; with his luck I should never have gone away empty-handed. To let such a pike slip!'
He sighed.
Antigone had begun to listen more eagerly, but Kostyakoff said no more.
The visits of the old man and his daughter were repeated more and more frequently. Even Adouev deigned to pay them some attention. He sometimes exchanged a word or two with the old man, and never a word with the daughter. At first she was piqued, then offended, at last depressed by it. Had Adouev talked a little to her, or even paid her ordinary attention—she would have forgotten him; but now it was quite otherwise. The human heart seems to live on contradictions.
Antigone constantly deliberated on some awful plan of vengeance, but later on she gradually gave it up.
One day when the old man and his daughter had drawn near our friends, Alexandr, after a brief interval, had laid his rod on the bushes and gone, according to his habit, to sit in his usual place, and was mechanically gazing now at the father, now at the daughter.
They stood with profile turned to him. In the father he did not discover anything out of the ordinary. A white blouse, nankeen trousers, and a low wide-brimmed hat, trimmed with green plush. But the daughter now! how gracefully she hung on her father's arm ! The wind would now and then lift a curl from her face as though on purpose to show Alexandr her lovely profile and white neck, and then raise her silk mantle and give a glimpse of her slender figure, or would playfully stir her dress and reveal a tiny ankle. She was gazing dreamily at the water.
For a long while Alexandr could not take his eyes off her, and he felt a feverish shiver run through him, He turned away from temptation and began to knock off the heads of the flowers with a switch.
' Ah ! I know what it means,' he thought, ' let it have its way and it would pass off! There's love ready- made!— imbecility! My uncle is right. But mere animal instinct shall not carry me away—no, I am not fallen so low as that!'
' Can I fish a little !' the young girl asked Kostyakoff timidly.
' Oh yes, miss; why not ? ' he replied, giving her Adouev's rod.
' There now, you have a partner in the business ! ' said her father to Kostyakoff and, leaving his daughter, he began to wander off further along the bank.
' Liza, mind you catch some fish for supper,' he added.
The silence lasted a few minutes.
'Why is your partner so cross?' Liza inquired of Kostyakoff in a low voice.
' He's been passed over for the third time in his office, miss.'
'What?' she asked, slightly frowning, u y It's the third time they haven't promoted him.'
She shook her head.
' No ; it can't be!' she thought, ' that's not it!'
' Don't you believe me, miss ? on my oath ! That pike too, you remember, he let slip through it.'
' It's not so, not so,' she thought now with conviction, ' I know why he let the pike go.'
' Ah ! ah !' she cried suddenly, ' look, it's stirring, it's stirring.'
She pulled it out and had caught nothing.
' It has got away !' said Kostyakoff, looking at the hook. x^*'See how it has torn off the worm; it must have been a big 1 pike. But you haven't learnt the art, miss; yo u didn't let
him bite prop erly.' ' ~^-
yi> '^Why, is there an art to learn in that ?'
^^ ' Ye s7 as in everything,' s aid A lexandr mechanically.
She started and quickly Turned roundj TrTher tuil~tetting the rod slip into the water. But Alexandr was now looking in a different direction.
'How is one to arrive at learning it?' she said with a slight tremor in her voice.
