Part 1

GRIM: THE STORY OF A PIKE

Translated from the Danish of

Svend Fleuron

by J. Muir and J. Alexander

Illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop

New York MCMXXI

Alfred A. Knopf

COPYRIGHT, 1919

By SVEND FLEURON

COPYRIGHT, 1921

By ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.

Original Title: Grim

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself, that is life’s end and aim.

CONTENTS I: LIFE II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING IV: THE MARAUDERS V: THE PEARLY FISH VI: THE MAN-ROACH VII: THE RASPER VIII: THE ANGLER’S END IX: THE WEDDING FESTIVAL X: IN THE MARSH XI: TERROR XII: GRIM DEVELOPS XIII: A FIGHT WITH AN OTTER XIV: THE ANGLER FROM TOWN XV: LUCK

ILLUSTRATIONS

A wild chase was going on in the depths, and where it passed the rushes bowed their sheaves.

With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors.

She snaps eagerly at the nearest “worm,” but it escapes her by adroitly curling up.

The bird darts upon her from behind with outstretched claws, and drives them with full force into her back.

I: LIFE

Clear running water filled the ditch, but the bottom was dull black, powdery mud. It lay inches deep, layer upon layer of one tiny particle upon another, and so loose and light that a thick, opaque, smoke-like column ascended at the slightest touch.

A monster, with the throat and teeth of a crocodile, a flat, treacherous forehead, and large, dull, malicious eyes, was lying close to the bottom in the wide, sun-warmed cross-dyke that cut its way inland from the level depths of the great lake. The entire monster measured scarcely a finger’s length.

The upspringing water-plants veiled her body and drew waving shadows over her round, slender tail.

When the sun was shining she liked to stay here among the bottom vegetation and imitate a drifting piece of reed. Her reddish-brown colour with the tiger-like transverse stripes made an excellent disguise. She simply _was_ a piece of reed. Even the sharp-eyed heron, which had dropped down unnoticed about a dozen yards off, and was now noiselessly, with slow, cautious steps, wading nearer and nearer, took her at the first glance for a stick.

All the ditch-water life of a summer day was pulsating around the young pike.

Water-spiders went up for air and came down with it between their hind legs, to moor their silvery diving-bells beneath the whorls of the water-moss. One boat-bug after another, with a shining air-bubble on its belly to act as a swimming-bag, and for oars a pair of long legs sticking far out at the sides, darted with great spurts through the water, or rose and sank with the speed of a balloon. The young pike peered upwards, and saw in the shelter of a tuft of rushes a collection of black, boat-shaped whirligigs, showing like dots against the shining surface. The little water-beetles lay and dozed; but all at once a sudden storm seemed to descend upon them and they scattered precipitately, whirling away in wider and wider circles, only to congregate again just as suddenly, like a flock of sheep.

The young pike disappeared from the heron’s view in a cloud of mud, and glided off to some distance, finally coming to anchor on a wide submerged plain in a broad creek, shadowed by a clump of luxuriant marsh marigolds, whose yellow flowers gleamed out from among the clusters of green, heart-shaped leaves.

There was never any peace around her. When one animal was on its way down, another would be on its way up. And the bed of ooze beneath her was in incessant motion. Sticks moved to right and left; hairy balls lay and rolled over one another; there was a twisting and turning of larvae in all directions. The active water-beetles were dredging incessantly, releasing leaves and stalks which slowly and weirdly rose to the surface. Air-bubbles, too, were set free, and ascended quickly with a rotary motion.

Here two large tiger-beetles were fighting with a poor water-bug. The flat-bodied insect stretched out its scorpion-like claws towards its enemies, but the tiger-beetles seized it one at each end, beat off its claws with their strong palpi, and tore its head from its body. It must have been almost a pleasure to find oneself so neatly despatched!

Everything tortured and killed down here, some, indeed, even devoured themselves. To lose arms and legs and flesh from their body was all in the order of the day; and anything resting for but a minute was taken for carrion.

The big horse-leech had wound its rhythmically serpentine way through the water. It was tired now, and had just stretched itself out for a moment’s rest, when the supposed pieces of stick upon which it lay seized it, and voracious heads with sharp jaws attacked its flesh. It was within an ace of being made captive for ever, but at last succeeded in making its escape and pushing off, with two of its tormentors after it.

The young pike watched attentively the flight of the black leech. She saw that _to devour others and to avoid being devoured oneself_ was the end and aim of life.

For a long time she remained quite still, only an undulating movement of the dorsal fin and the malicious glitter of the eyes revealing her vitality. Slowly she opened and closed her small, wide mouth, and let the oxidizing water flow over her blood-red gills.

It was not long before she had forgotten her recent peril, and once more became filled with the cruel passion of the hunter.

From the shadow of the marsh marigolds she darted under the newly unfolded leaf of a water-lily. This was a very favourite lurking-place; she could lie there with her back right up against the under surface of the leaf, and her snout on the very border of its shadow, ready to strike. The silvery flash of small fish twinkled around her, and myriads of tiny shining crustaceans whisked about so close to her nose that at any moment she could have snapped them up by the score into her voracious mouth.

It was especially things that moved that had a magic attraction for Grim. From the time when, but twelve to fifteen days old, she had consumed the contents of her yolksac, and opened her large voracious mouth, everything that flickered, twisted and moved, all that sought to _escape_, aroused her irresistible desire.

In the innermost depths of her being there was an over-mastering need, expressing itself in an insatiableness, a conviction that she could never have enough, and a fear that others would clear the waters of all that was eatable. An insane greed animated her; and even when she had eaten so much that she could eat no more, she kept swimming about with spoil in her mouth.

On the other hand, anything at rest and quiet possessed little attraction for her; she felt no hunger at sight of it, and no desire to possess it: _that_ she could take at any time.

——Meanwhile, the keen-eyed heron, wading up to its breast in the water, comes softly and silently trawling through the ditch.

Sedately it goes about its business, stalking along with slow, measured steps. Its big, seemingly heavy body sways upon its thin, greenish yellow legs, its short tail almost combing the surface of the water, while its long, round neck is in constant motion, directing the dagger-like beak like a foil into all kinds of attacking positions.

Sea-crows and terns scream around it, and from time to time three or four of them unite in harrying their great rival. Just as the heron has brought its beak close to the surface of the water, ready to seize its prey, the gulls dash upon it from behind. With a hiss it curves its neck and turns the foil upwards, snapping and biting at its tormentors.

An irritating little flock of gulls may go on thus for a long time; and when at last, screaming and mocking, they take their departure, they have spoilt many a chance and wasted many precious minutes of the big, silent, patient fisher’s time.

The gulls once gone, the heron applies itself with redoubled zeal to its business. From various attacking positions its beak darts down into the water, but often without result, and it has to go farther afield; then at last it captures a little eel.

It is not easy, however, to swallow the wriggling captive. The eel twists, and refuses to be swallowed; so the bird has to reduce its liveliness by rolling up and down in its sharp-edged beak. Then it glides down.

This time, too, fortune is disposed to favour the young pike. The heron, coming up behind her, cautiously bends its neck over the drifting piece of reed. It sees there is something suspicious about it, but thinks it is mistaken, and is about to take another step forward. When only half-way, it pauses with its foot in the air; and the next moment the blow falls.

Grim only once moved her tail. Then she was seized, something hard and sharp and strong held her fast, and she passed head foremost down into a warm, narrow channel.

There was a fearful crush of fish in the channel, and much elbowing with fins and twisting of tails. Something behind her was pushing, but the throng in front blocked the way: she could get no farther.

And yet she glided on! Very slowly the thick slimy water in the channel bore the living, muddy tangle that surrounded her along; she felt the corners of her mouth rub against the sides of the channel; she could scarcely breathe.

In the meantime the heron was flying homewards to its young, carrying Grim and the rest of the catch. Out on the lake lay a boat in which a man sat fishing. Experience told the bird it was a fisherman, but here the bird was wrong. The man had a gun in the boat, and as the bird sailed upwards a shot was fired which compelled it to relinquish a part of its booty in order to escape more quickly.

Grim was among the fortunate ones. Suddenly the crush in the long, dark channel grew less, and the sluggish stream of mud that was bearing her along changed its course. A little later the stream gathered furious pace and carried her with it; she saw light and felt space round her; she was able to move her fins.

Then she fell from the heron’s beak, from a height of about twenty yards. She had time to notice how suffocatingly dry the other world was. It seemed to draw out her entrails, and all her efforts to right herself were in vain.

Then she regained her native element; water covered her gills, and she could begin to swim.

II: IN THE SHELTER OF THE CREEK

Grim was a year old when her scales began to grow.

In her early youth, when she could only eat small creatures, she had lived exclusively upon water-insects and larvae; but from now onwards she had no respect for any flesh but that which clothed her own ribs.

She attacked any fish that was not big enough to swallow _her_, and devoured bleak and small roach with peculiar satisfaction. Now she took her revenge on the voracious small fry that had offended her when she was still in an embryo state.

She had not been hatched artificially, or come into the world in a wooden box with running water passing through it. No, the whole thing had taken place in the most natural manner.

In the flickering sunshine of a March day, her mother, surrounded by three equally ardent wooers, had spawned, and the eggs had dropped and attached themselves to some tufts of grass at the edge of the lake. The very next day, however, little fish had begun to gather about those tufts; one day more, and there were swarms of them. Eagerly they searched the tufts and devoured all the eggs they could find; and so thoroughly did they go about their business, that of the thousands upon thousands of the mother’s eggs, only two that had fallen into the heart of a grass-stalk were left.

Out of one of these Grim had come. The sun had looked after her, hatched her out, and taught her to seize whatever came in her way. Now she was avenging the injuries to her tribe.

She possessed a remarkable power of placing herself, and knew how to choose her position so as to disappear, as it were, in the water. The stalks of the reeds threw their shadows across her body in all directions; water-grass and drifting duck-weed veiled her; the silly roach and other restless little fish flitted about her, sometimes so close to her mouth that she could feel the waves made by their tail-fins. Some would almost run right into her; but when they saw her, then how the water flashed with starry gleams, and how quickly they all made off!

She liked best to hide where the water-lilies floated in islands of green, for there the treacherous shadows--her best friends--fell clearly through the water; absorbed her, as it were, and made capture easy for her. If she found herself discovered, she would retreat with as little haste as possible; for that sort of thing aroused too much attention, and created widespread disturbance in the fishy world.

If she lay on the surface, for instance, and suspected that she was being watched from above, she became, as it were, more and more indistinct and one with the dark water, letting herself sink imperceptibly, at the same time beginning to work all her fins. In ample folds they softly crept round the long stick that her body now resembled, fringed and veiled it and bore it away.

And just as she knew how to place herself, so did she know how to move--cautiously and discreetly.

Formerly she had measured only a finger’s length, and now she was already about a foot long; her voraciousness had increased in a corresponding degree. She could eat every hour of the day. She would fill herself right up to the neck, and even have half a fish sticking out beyond. It was quite a common sight to see a little flapping fish-tail for which her digestive organs had not room as yet, sticking out of her mouth like a lively tongue. She would swim about delightedly, sucking it as a boy would suck a stick of candy.

One day she was gliding slowly through a clump of rushes, as lifeless and dead as any stick. Her eyes seemed to be on stalks and spied eagerly round, but her body exhibited the least possible movement and eagerness.

She turned, but even then holding herself stiff, and playing her new part of a drifting stick in a masterly manner. As she did so she discovered her brother, as promising a specimen of a young pike as herself, with all the distinguishing marks of the race.

Although cold-blooded, she was of a fiery temperament, and as she was also hungry, she stared greedily and with cannibal feelings at the apparition. Her appetite grew in immeasurable units of time. The food was at hand, it stared her in the face; she forgot relationship and resemblance, and bending in the middle so that head and tail met, she seized her brother with a lightning movement.

He was quite as big as she, struggled until he was unable to move a fin; but the stroke was successful.

She began to understand things, and grew ever fiercer and more violent and voracious. Her teeth were doubled, and as they grew they were sharpened by the continual suction of the water through the gills. It was as if she understood their value, too, for she would often take up her position on the bottom and stir up grains of fine, hard sand, thus improving the grinding process considerably.

It was mostly in the half-light that she now went hunting, in the early dawn or at dusk. Her sharp eyes could see in the dark like those of the owl and the cat. When the shadows lengthened, and the red glow from the sky spread over the water, she felt how favourable her surroundings were, and she became one with the power in her mighty nature.

But in the daytime, she lay peacefully drowsing.

* * * * *

The creek in which she lived had low-lying banks.

Among the short, thick grass, orchids and marsh marigolds bloomed side by side, and the ragged robin unfolded its frayed, deep pink flowers upon a stiff, dark brown stalk, that always had a mass of frothy wetness about its head.

Farther out, the muddy water and horsetails began, and beyond them the tall, waving reeds, which stretched away in great clumps as far as it was possible for them to reach the bottom.

Where _they_ left off, the round-stalked olive-green bog rushes began, wading farther and farther out, until in midstream they gathered in low clumps and groves, inhabited by an abundant insect life.

Beautiful butterflies danced their bridal dance out there, some bright yellow with black borders, others with the sunset glow upon their wings. Dragon-flies and water-nymphs by the score refracted the sun’s rays as they turned with a flash of all the colours of the rainbow. Black whirligigs lay in clusters and slept; and on the india rubber-like leaves of the water-lily, flies and wasps crawled about dry-shop, and refreshed themselves with the water.

In the still, early morning the reeds sigh and tremble. The little yellowish grey sedge-warbler comes out suddenly from its hiding place, seizes the largest of the butterflies by the body, and as suddenly disappears again. A little later it begins its soft little sawing song, which blends so well with the perpetual, monotonous whispering of the reeds.

Grim, down among the vegetation, only faintly catches the subdued tones; she is occupied with an event that is developing with great rapidity.

A moth has fallen suddenly into the clear water. It tries to rise, but cannot, so darts rapidly across the surface of the water, dragging its tawny wings behind it. It puts forth its greatest speed, making in a straight line for the shore.

But the whirligigs have seen the shipwreck, and dart out on their water-ski to tear the thing to pieces. They advance with the speed of a torpedo-boat, and in peculiar spiral windings. A wedge-shaped furrow stands out from the bow of each little pirate, and a tiny cascade in his wake.

The poor moth becomes wetter and wetter, and less and less of his body remains visible as he exerts himself to reach the safety of the reeds, where he can climb up into a horse-tail and escape, just as a cat climbs into a tree to escape from a dog.

Unfortunately he does not succeed; he is in a sinking condition, and one of the whirligigs fastens voraciously upon his hind quarters.

The successful captor, however, is given no peace in which to devour his prey. He has to let it go, and seize it, and let it go again; and now a little fish--a bleak--begins to take a part in the play.

The fluttering chase continues noiselessly across the surface of the water, and urged on by the whirligigs above and the bleak beneath, the moth approaches the reeds.

With muscles relaxed and dorsal fin laid flat, Grim lies motionless at its edge, whence again and again she catches a glimpse of the little silvery fish.

Its delicate body is fat outside and in, plump and well nourished, and to the eyes of the fratricide is an irresistible temptation, making her hunger creep out to the very tips of her teeth.

Her dorsal fin opens out and is cautiously raised, while her eyes greedily watch the movements of the nimble little fish.

Flash follows flash, each bigger and brighter than the other.

Grim feels the excitement and ecstasy of the spoiler rush over her--all that immediately precedes possession of the spoil--and delights in the sensation. She begins to change from her stick-like attitude, and imperceptibly to bend in the middle.

The plump little fish is too much engrossed in its moth-hunt. Unconcernedly it lets its back display a vivid, bright green lake-hue, while with its silvery belly it reflects all the rainbow colours of the water.

Another couple of seconds and the prey is near.

Then Grim makes her first real leap. It is successful. Ever since she was the length of a darning-needle, she had dreamt of this leap, dreamt that it would be successful.

The sedge-warbler in the reedy island heard the splash, and the closing snap of the jaws. They closed with such firmness that the bird could feel, as it were, the helpless sigh of the victim, and the grateful satisfaction of the promising young pirate.

She was the tiger of the water. She would take her prey by cunning and by craft, and by treacherous attack. She was seldom able to swim straight up to her food. How could she chase the nimble antelopes of the lake when, timid and easily startled, they were grazing on the plains of the deep waters; they discovered her before she got near them and could begin her leap!

Huge herds were there for her pleasure. She had no need to exert herself, but could choose her quarry in ease and comfort. The larger its size, and the greater the hunger and lust for murder that she felt within her, the more violence and energy did she put into the leap. But just as the falcon may miss its aim, so might she, and it made her ashamed, like any other beast of prey; she did not repeat the leap, but only hastened away.

But when her prey was struggling in her hundred-toothed jaws and slapping her on the mouth with its quivering tail-fin, then slowly, and with a peculiar, lingering enjoyment, she straightened herself out from her bent leaping posture. If she was hungry, she immediately swallowed her captive, but if not, she was fond, like the cat, of playing with her victim, swimming about with it in her mouth, twisting and turning it over, and chewing it for hours before she could make up her mind to swallow it.

She ate, she stuffed herself; and with much eating she waxed great.

III: GRIM GOES EXPLORING

In the creek where she lived among rushes and reeds, a shoal of perch had their abode. They were scarcely as big as she, but much thicker and older. Their leader in particular, by whose movements the whole flock were guided, was a broad bellied high-backed fellow, who knew the value of the weapon of defence he possessed in his strong, spiny dorsal fin.

He had a peculiar power of varying his colour so that it always suited the light in the water and on the bottom. There were days when he looked an emerald green, without any brassy tinge; at other times he let the black flickerings along his sides stand out like the stripes on a zebra’s skin, and gave a brilliancy to his belly like that of the harvest moon. That was for fine weather. There was life in the water then!

But common to them all were the rough, rasping scales that grew close up round the carroty-red fins, and the round yellow eyes with coal-black pupils, which seemed to rest on cushions and roll outside the head so that the fish could see both up and down.

The perch were quite as rapacious as Grim herself; they poached upon her small-fish preserves, and often disturbed her in the chase. Had she only been equal to it, she would gladly have devoured some of them, too.

One evening when she was so hungry that she under-estimated everything, she saw her chance of attacking their dark-hued leader, but _Rasper_, becoming aware of his dilemma, defended himself with the energy of a bulldog. The combat was on the point of turning in his favour, when Grim disappeared from view by taking a bold salmon-leap high into the air. After that they always swam scowling past one another at a respectful distance; but Grim was well aware that the striped swimmer had no friendly feeling towards her.

As she grew bigger, and felt herself more and more the powerful despot, whose dental armature had been provided simply and solely for the purpose of biting others, her hatred of the high-backed one instinctively became greater. They were of such widely different natures!