10. The Real Knich

“I presume so, my child, I presume so,” replied the amiable, indulgent grandfather, still offering some dainties to the children. “Now I think of it, you recall something else to my mind; you must see what has become of those fishing-nets that we set the other day, at the place where you advised me. It may be that we have already caught some magnificent trout, what do you think?”

“I had entirely forgotten those nets,” Tarass exclaimed; “yes, entirely forgotten them!”

“Ah! Ha! Careless boy,” Knich said to him, smiling.

“Do you know, grandfather? I don’t at all understand how I could have forgotten them!”

With a jump he was in the middle of the room, and stood there before the old grandfather, his eyes wide open, his lips pressed tight together, looking like a grave personage, who suddenly finds himself in an equivocal position, little in keeping with his habits of order and punctuality.

“I am going, I will run there!” he said at last, and, rushing out of the door, nothing more was heard of him, except his voice calling Riabko, his dog.

Then, everything was silent. Maroussia was at last alone with the old farmer. He looked at her attentively, he examined her so closely that her heart began to beat like a little hammer.

Before her eyes a sudden change took place in the whole person of Knich. The old peasant was transformed. Instead of the face of a worthy old man, a little cowardly, a little proud of his good things to eat and drink, and of his worldly prosperity, she saw brilliant eyes, with piercing glances, shining under his eyebrows; all the wrinkles on his forehead had disappeared as if by magic. The whole man had grown larger. His shoulders were broader, his height truly imposing.

For a few moments Maroussia looked at Knich like a little fascinated bird. He spoke. His voice resembled the voice which had just now made complaisant speeches to the soldier no more than the violin of a master resembles the fiddle of a poor, blind beggar.

He said to her:

“Maroussia, your friend wishes to see you. He is not far. Do you wish to know what he has to say to you?”

Her eyes answered for her, joy had deprived her of speech, but Knich understood and made her a sign to follow him.

He went out, walking with a firm step into the court. Maroussia’s eyes glanced to the side of the old cellar, for the heap of stones covered with moss and wild plants, whence her friend’s voice had reached her, but Knich did not go to that place.