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Updated: May 26, 2025
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. 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.
"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!"
You've been at work two days, and what is there to show for it?" "It . . . will soon be done," grunts Gerassim; summer is long, you'll have plenty of time to wash, your honour. . . . Pfrrr! . . . We can't manage this eel-pout here anyhow. . . . He's got under a root and sits there as if he were in a hole and won't budge one way or another . . . ."
"Stick your finger in! Are you deaf, fellow, or what? Tfoo!" "What are you after, lads?" shouts Yefim. "An eel-pout! We can't get him out! He's hidden under the roots. Get round to the side! To the side!" For a minute Yefim screws up his eye at the fishermen, then he takes off his bark shoes, throws his sack off his shoulders, and takes off his shirt.
"An eel-pout?" says the master, and his eyes begin to glisten. "Get him out quickly then." "You'll give us half a rouble for it presently if we oblige you . . . . A huge eel-pout, as fat as a merchant's wife. . . . It's worth half a rouble, your honour, for the trouble. . . . Don't squeeze him, Lubim, don't squeeze him, you'll spoil him! Push him up from below!
"Help them to pull out that eel-pout. They can't get him out." Vassily rapidly undresses and gets into the water. "In a minute. . . . I'll get him in a minute," he mutters. "Where's the eel-pout? We'll have him out in a trice! You'd better go, Yefim. An old man like you ought to be minding his own business instead of being here. Where's that eel-pout? I'll have him in a minute . . . . Here he is!
I galloped to the town and brought Masha books, newspapers, sweets, flowers; with Stepan I caught fish, wading for hours up to my neck in the cold water in the rain to catch eel-pout to vary our fare; I demeaned myself to beg the peasants not to make a noise; I plied them with vodka, bought them off, made all sorts of promises. And how many other foolish things I did!
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!
One has to understand all that, of course! For example, take the eel-pout. It is not a delicate fish it will take a perch; and a pike loves a gudgeon, the shilishper likes a butterfly. If you fish for a roach in a rapid stream there is no greater pleasure.
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!
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