would drown him, tore himself free and said:
‘‘Fool! I’ll give it to you in the mug!’’
Feeling that this was not enough to express his hatred, he thought a moment and added:
‘‘Scoundrel! Son of a bitch!’’
But Dymov, as if nothing had happened, no longer paid any attention to Egorushka, but went swimming towards Kiriukha, shouting:
‘‘Hey, hey, hey! Let’s do some fishing! Boys, let’s go fishing!’’
‘‘Why not?’’ agreed Kiriukha. ‘‘There must be lots of fish here . . .’’
‘‘Styopka, run to the village, ask the muzhiks for a net.’’
‘‘They won’t give us one!’’
‘‘They will! You just ask! Tell them it’s like it’s for Christ’s sake, because we’re the same as wanderers.’’
‘‘That’s for sure!’’
Styopka got out of the water, dressed quickly, and, hatless, his wide balloon trousers flapping, ran to the village. After the clash with Dymov, the water lost all its charm for Egorushka. He got out and began to dress. Pantelei and Vasya were sitting on the steep bank, their legs hanging down, and watching the bathers. Emelyan, naked, stood up to his knees in the water just by the bank, holding on to the grass with one hand, so as not to fall, and stroking his body with the other. With his bony shoulder blades, with the bump under his eye, bent over and obviously afraid of the water, he presented a ridiculous figure. His face was serious, stern; he looked at the water crossly, as if about to reprimand it for getting him chilled once in the Donets and taking his voice away.
‘‘And why don’t you go for a swim?’’ Egorushka asked Vasya.
‘‘Just so . . . I don’t like it ...’’ Vasya replied.
‘‘Why’s your chin swollen?’’
‘‘It hurts ... I used to work at a match factory, young master ... The doctor told me that’s why my jore got swollen. The air there’s unhealthy. And besides me, another three boys got bulging jores, and one had it completely rotted away.’’
Styopka soon came back with a net. Dymov and Kiriukha turned purple and hoarse from staying so long in the water, but they eagerly started fishing. First they walked into a deep place by the rushes; the water there came up to Dymov’s neck and over the short Kiriukha’s head; the latter spluttered and blew bubbles, while Dymov, stumbling over the prickly roots, kept falling and getting tangled in the net; they both floundered and made noise, and their fishing was nothing but mischief.
‘‘It’s too deep,’’ Kiriukha said hoarsely. ‘‘You can’t catch anything!’’
‘‘Don’t pull, you devil!’’ shouted Dymov, trying to set the net in the proper position. ‘‘Hold it with your hands!’’
‘‘You won’t catch anything there!’’ Pantelei shouted to them from the bank. ‘‘You’re just frightening the fish, you fools! Head further to the left! It’s shallower there!’’
Once a bigger fish flashed over the net; everybody gasped, and Dymov brought his fist down on the place where it had disappeared, and his face showed vexation.
‘‘Eh!’’ Pantelei grunted and stamped his feet. ‘‘Missed a perch! Got away!’’
Heading to the left, Dymov and Kiriukha gradually came out to the shallows, and here the fishing became real. They wandered some three hundred paces from the wagons; they could be seen barely and silently moving their legs, trying to get to deeper places, closer to the rushes, dragging the net, beating their fists on the water, and rustling the rushes to frighten the fish and drive them into the net. From the rushes they waded to the other bank, dragged the net there, then, with a disappointed air, lifting their knees high, waded back to the rushes. They were talking about something, but what it was, nobody could hear. And the sun burned their backs, flies bit them, and their bodies went from purple to crimson. Styopka waded after them with a bucket in his hand, his shirt tucked up right under his armpits and the hem of it clamped in his teeth. After each successful catch, he held up the fish and, letting it shine in the sun, shouted:
‘‘See what a perch! There are already five like that!’’
You could see how Dymov, Kiriukha, and Styopka, each time they pulled out the net, spent a long time digging in the silt, put something into the bucket, threw something out; occasionally they took something caught in the net, handed it to each other, examined it curiously, then also threw it out ...
‘‘What’d you have there?’’ the others shouted from the bank.
Styopka answered something, but it was hard to make out his words. Then he got out of the water and, holding the bucket with both hands, forgetting to let down his shirt, ran to the wagons.
‘‘Already full!’’ he shouted, breathing heavily. ‘‘Give me another!’’
Egorushka looked into the bucket; it was full; a young pike stuck its ugly snout from the water, and around it swarmed smaller fish and crayfish. Egorushka thrust his hand to the bottom and stirred up the water; the pike disappeared under the crayfish, and in its place a perch and a tench floated up. Vasya also looked in the bucket. His eyes became unctuous, and his face became tender, as before, when he saw the fox. He took something out of the bucket, put it in his mouth, and began to chew. A crunching was heard.
‘‘Brothers,’’ Styopka was astonished, ‘‘Vasya’s eating a live gudgeon! Pah!’’
‘‘It’s not a gudgeon, it’s a goby,’’ Vasya replied calmly, continuing to chew.
He took the fish’s tail from his mouth, looked at it tenderly, and put it back in his mouth. As he chewed and crunched with his teeth, it seemed to Egorushka that it was not a man he saw before him. Vasya’s swollen chin, his lackluster eyes, his extraordinarily keen sight, the fish tail in his mouth, and the tenderness with which he chewed the gudgeon made him look like an animal.
Egorushka got bored being around him. And the fishing was over. He strolled by the wagons, pondered, and,
