Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
Vasenka drove the horses so furiously that they reached the marshes too early and it was still hot. On reaching the important marsh, the real goal of their journey, Levin could not help wondering how he might rid himself of Vasenka and so get along without impediment. Stepan Arkadyevitch had evidently the same desire, and Levin could read in his face that expression of anxiety which a genuine huntsman always betrays before he goes out on the chase—he also detected a certain good-natured slyness characteristic of him.
"How shall we go in? I can see the marsh is excellent, and there are the hawks," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing to two big birds circling over the tall grass. "Where hawks are there is sure to be game!"
"Well, do you see, gentlemen?" said Levin, with a rather gloomy expression, pulling up his boots and con templating the caps on his fowling-piece. "Do you see that tall grass?" He pointed to an islet shading into a black green in the midst of the wet meadow which, already half mown, extended along the right bank of the river, "The marsh begins here directly in front of you—where it is so green. From there it extends to the right where those horses are going; there are the tussocks and you will find snipe there, and so on around this high grass clear up to the alders and the mill itself. That direction, you see where the ground is overflowed, that is the best place. I've killed as many as seventeen woodcock there. We will separate with the two dogs in different directions, and then we will meet at the mill."
"Well, who will go to the right, who to the left?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. "There is more room to the right; you two go that way and I will take the left," said he, with pretended indifference.
"Capital, we will shoot more than he does. Come on, come on, come on," cried Veslovsky.
Levin saw that he was in for it, so they started off together.
As soon as they struck into the marsh the dogs began to hunt round and darted off for the swamp. Levin well knew what that careful and indeterminate manoeuver of Laska's meant; he also knew the place, and he was on the lookout for a bevy of woodcock.
"Veslovsky, come in line, in line," he cried in a voice of anguish to his companion, who insisted in falling behind. Since the accidental discharge of the weapon at the Kolpensky marsh. Levin could not help taking an interest in the direction in which Veslovsky's gun-barrel was pointing.
"Now, I won't bother you, don't worry about me!"
But Levin could not help worrying, and he remembered Kitty's words as she said good-by to him: "Look out that you don't shoot one another."
Closer and closer ran the dogs, avoiding each other, each following her own scent; the expectation of starting up a woodcock was so strong that the squeak of his heel as he lifted it out of the mud seemed to Levin like the cry of the bird; he clutched and squeezed the butt of his gun.
Bang! Bang! A gun went off directly behind his ear.
It was Vasenka shooting at a flock of ducks which were splashing about in the swamp, and alighted far away from the huntsmen in an irregular line. Before Levin had a chance to glance round, a woodcock drummed,—another, a third, and half a dozen more flew up one after the other.
Stepan Arkadyevitch shot one at the very instant he was about beginning his zigzags, and the woodcock fell in a heap in the swamp. Oblonsky took his time in aiming at another which was flying low toward the high grass, and simultaneously with the flash the bird fell and it could be seen skipping from the mown grass, flapping its white uninjured wing.
Levin was not so fortunate; he shot at too close range for the first woodcock, and missed; he was about to follow after it, but just as it was rising again, another flew up from almost under him and diverted his attention, causing him to miss again.
While they were reloading, still another woodcock flew up, and Veslovsky, who had got his gun loaded first, fired two charges of small shot into the water. Stepan Arkadyevitch picked up his woodcock, and looked at Levin with flashing eyes.
"And now let us separate," said he, and limping with his left leg, and holding his gun ready cocked and whistling to his dog, he started off by himself. Levin and Veslovsky took the other direction.
It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were unsuccessful, he grew excited, lost his temper, and shot badly the rest of the day. So it was in the present instance. The woodcock were abundant; they kept flying up from before the dogs, and from under the huntsmen's feet, and Levin might have easily retrieved his fortunes; but the longer he hunted, the more he disgraced himself before Veslovsky, who kept merrilly firing recklessly, never killing anything and never in the slightest degree abashed at his ill luck. Levin moved forward hotly, growing more and more excited, and finally he came not to have much hope of bringing down his game. Laska seemed to understand this state of things. She began to follow the scent more lazily, and looked at the huntsmen with almost an air of doubt and reproach. Shot followed shot. The gunpowder smoke hung round the sportsmen, but in the great wide meshes of the hunting-bag lay only three light little woodcock. And of those one was killed by Veslovsky, and one of them they both brought down.
Meantime on the other side of the swamp Stepan Arkadyevitch's shots were heard, not very frequently, but, as it seemed to Levin, very significantly, and at almost each one he would hear him cry:—
"Krak, Krak, apporte."
This still more excited Levin. The woodcock kept flying up into the air over the high grass. The drumming on the ground and the cries of the birds in the air continued incessantly on all sides, and the woodcock, which flew up before them and swept through the air, kept settling down again in front of the huntsmen. Now instead of two hawks there were dozens of them screaming over the marsh.
After they had shot over the larger half of the swamp, Levin and Veslovsky directed their steps to a place where there were alternating strips of meadow-land, which the peasants were accustomed to mow. Half of these strips had already been mown.
Although there was less hope of finding game where the grass was tall than where it had been cut, Levin had agreed with Stepan Arkadyevitch to join him there, and so he proceeded with his companion across the mown and unmown strips.
"Hi! sportsmen," cried a muzhik, who with several others were sitting around an unharnessed cart. "Come and have a bite with us. We'll give you some wine."
Levin looked round.
"Come on, we 've plenty," shouted a jolly bearded muzhik with a red face, displaying his white teeth and holding up a green bottle which glittered in the sun.
"Q'est-ce qu'ils disent?" asked Veslovsky.
"They invite us to drink some vodka with them. They have probably just finished their meadows. I'd go if I were you," said Levin, not without craftiness, for he hoped that Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka and would go for it.
"Why should they treat us?"
"Oh, they are probably having a jollification. Really, you had better go. It will interest you."
"Allons, c'est curieux."
"Go ahead, go, you will find the road to the mill," cried Levin; and, looking round, he saw to his delight that Veslovsky, stooping over and dragging one leg after the other, and carrying his musket on his outstretched arm, was making his way from the swamp toward the peasants.
"You come too," cried the muzhik to Levin. "Don't be afeared,[1] we'll give you a tart."
Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a glass of vodka and to eat a piece of bread. He was tired and could hardly lift his feet out of the bog, and for a moment he hesitated. But the dog was pointing, and immediately all his weariness vanished, and he lightly made his way over the marsh toward the dog. The woodcock flew from under his feet; he fired and brought it down. The dog pointed again—pil! From in front of the dog another arose. Levin blazed away. But the day was unfortunate; he missed, and when he looked for the one he had killed, it was nowhere to be found. He searched all through the tall grass, but Laska had no faith that her master had killed it, and when he sent her to find it, she pretended to circle round but did not really search.
Even without Vasenka, on whom Levin had laid the blame for his bad luck, there was no improvement. There also woodcock abounded, but Levin missed shot after shot.
The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, wet through with perspiration, stuck to his body; his left boot, full of water, was heavy and made a sucking noise; over his face, begrimed with gunpowder, the perspiration ran in drops; there was a bitter taste in his mouth; his nose was filled with the odor of smoke and of the bog; in his ears rang the incessant cries of the woodcock; his gun-barrels were so hot that he could not touch them; his heart beat with loud and rapid strokes, his hands trembled with excitement, his weary legs kept stumbling and catching in the roots and tussocks: but still he kept on shooting. At last, having made a disgraceful failure, he threw down his gun and cap.
"No, I must get my wits back," he said to himself; and, picking up his gun and cap, he called Laska to heel, and quitted the swamp. As he came out on the dry ground he sat down on a tussock, took off his boots and stockings, poured out the water, then he went back to the swamp, took a long drink of the boggy-smelling water, soaked his hot gun-barrels, and washed his face and hands. After he had cooled off, he again went down to the place where he would find the woodcock, and he made up his mind not to lose his self-control again. He meant to be calm, but it was the same as before. His finger would press the trigger before he had taken fair aim at the bird. Indeed, it went from bad to worse.
He had only five birds in his game-bag when he quitted the marsh and went to the alder-wood where he had agreed to meet Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog Krak, all black with the marsh slime, and with an air of triumph as he came leaping out from under the up-turned root of an alder and began to snuff at Laska. Then appeared Stepan Arkadyevitch's stately figure in the shade of the alders. He came along, still limping, but with flushed face, all covered with perspiration and with his collar flung open.
"Well, how is it? Have you killed many?" he cried, with a gay smile.
"How is it with you?" asked Levin, But there was no need of asking, because he could see his overflowing game-bag.
"Oh, just a trifle." He had fourteen birds. "What a splendid marsh. Veslovsky must have bothered you. Two can't hunt well with the same dog," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, to soften the effect of his triumph.
- ↑ He says niabos' for nebos', nichavo for nichevo.