“So that is what looked white to me in the gloom,” thought Vladímir Sergyéitch....
In the meanwhile, men had run up with boat-hooks, dragged thither a net, and begun to spread it out on the grass, a great throng of people had assembled, a commotion had arisen, and a jostling ... the coachman seized one boat-hook, the village elder seized another, both sprang into the boat, put off, and set to searching the water with the hooks; the people on the shore lighted them. Strange and dreadful did their movements seem, and their shadows in the gloom, above the agitated pond, in the dim and uncertain light of the lanterns.
“He ... here, the hook has caught!”—suddenly cried the coachman.
All stood stock-still where they were.
The coachman pulled the hook toward him, and bent over.... Something horned and black slowly came to the surface....
“A tree-stump,”—said the coachman, pulling away the hook.
“But come back, come back!”—they shouted to him from the shore.—“Thou wilt accomplish nothing with the hooks; thou must use the net.”
“Yes, yes, the net!”—chimed in others.
“Stop,”—said the elder;—“I’ve got hold of something also ... something soft, apparently,”—he added, after a brief pause.
A white spot made its appearance alongside the boat....