Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
Waking at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions. Vasenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking, was sleeping so soundly that it was impossible to get any reply from him. Oblonsky, only half awake, refused to start out so early. And even Laska, sleeping curled up in a round ball at the edge of the hay, got up reluctantly, and lazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs, one after the other. Levin, putting on his boots, took his gun and cautiously opening the creaking door of the shed, went outdoors. The coachmen were sleeping near the wagons; the horses were dozing. Only one sheep was drowsily eating with his nose in the trough. It was still gray in the yard.
"You are up early, aren't you, my dear," said the old peasant woman, the mistress of the house, coming out from the izba, and addressing him in a friendly way, like an old acquaintance.
"Yes, I'm going out shooting, auntie. Can I go this way to the swamp?"
"Directly behind the barns, follow the foot-path along by the hemp-field." Stepping cautiously with her bare, sunburnt feet, the old woman accompanied Levin as far as the fence back of the barn. "Go straight on and you'll come to the swamp. Our boys went there last evening."
Laska ran merrily ahead along the foot-path. Levin followed her with swift, light steps, constantly watching the sky. He had an idea that he would reach the swamp before the sun would be up. But the sun did not loiter. The moon, which had been shining brightly when he first came out, was now growing pallid like a lump of quicksilver. The morning star, which before was most conspicuous, now almost defied detection; certain spots before almost indistinguishable on the distant field, now were becoming plainly visible; these were heaps of rye. The dew, though it could not be seen in the absence of the sunlight, was so dense on the fragrant tall hemp from which the seed had already been gathered, that it wet Levin's legs and blouse above his belt. In the transparent stillness of the morning the slightest sounds were audible. A bee, humming like a bullet, whizzed by Levin's ear. He looked around and discovered a second and yet a third. They were coming from the hives and were flying over the hemp-field and disappearing in the direction of the swamp. The foot-path led directly into the marsh, which could be detected by the mists rising over it, here denser, there thinner, so that clumps of grass and cytisus bushes looked like little islands emerging from them. Peasant boys and men, who had been on night duty, were scattered about on the edge of the swamp and along the roadside, and all of them were sleeping wrapped up in their kaftans. At a little distance from them three horses were moving about unfastened. One of them carried clinking chains. Laska ran along by her master's side, eager to dash ahead, and with her eyes on everything. After they had passed the sleeping muzhiks and had reached the first swampy places. Levin examined the priming of his gun and let the dog go.
One of the horses, a fat chestnut three-year-old, seeing Laska, shied, and, lifting his tail, whinnied. The two other horses were also startled, and dashed through the water and galloped out of the swamp. As they pulled their hoofs out of the soft, sticky mud, they made a noise like smacking. Laska paused, looking with amused eyes at the horses, and seemed to ask her master what she should do. Levin caressed her and gave a whistle as a signal that she might begin her work. Laska, joyous and full of importance, darted on over the soil of the marsh, which quaked under her weight.
As soon as she got fairly into the bog, Laska instantly distinguished amid all the well-known odors of roots and swamp-grass and the mud and the droppings of the horses, the scent of the bird perceptible through the whole place—the penetrating bird odor which more than anything else excited her. Wherever there was moss or sage bushes this odor was peculiarly strong, but it was impossible to make out in which direction it increased or diminished in strength. In order to get her bearings, the dog had to bear to the lee of the wind. Unconscious of any effort in moving her legs, Laska in an eager gallop, yet so restrained that she was able to stop at a bound, if anything of consequence presented itself, dashed toward the right away from the breeze which was now beginning to blow freshly from the east. Snuffing the air with her widespread nostrils, she suddenly became conscious that she was no longer following a trail, but was on the game itself—not one bird alone, but many. Laska slackened her speed. The birds were there, but she could not as yet determine exactly where. In order to find the exact spot, she began another circle, when suddenly the voice of her master called her back.
"Here, Laska," he cried, directing her toward the other side. She paused as if to ask him if she had not better keep on as she had begun. But he repeated his command in a stern voice, sending her to a tussock-covered place overflowed with water, where there could not possibly be anything.
She heard him, and, pretending to obey him, so as to satisfy him, ran hastily over the spot indicated, and then returned to the place which had attracted her before, and instantly perceived them again. Now that he no longer bothered her she knew exactly what to do, and without looking where she was going, stumbling over tussocks to her great indignation and falling into the water, but quickly extricating herself with her strong, agile legs, she began to circle round, so as to get her exact bearings.
The scent of the birds kept growing stronger and stronger, more and more distinct, and suddenly it became perfectly evident to her that one of them was there, just behind a certain tussock not five steps in front of her, and she stopped and trembled all over. Her legs were so short that she could not see anything, but she knew by the scent that the bird was sitting there not five steps distant from her. She pointed, growing each instant more certain of her game and full of joy in the anticipation. Her tail stuck straight out and only the end of it quivered. Her mouth was open slightly. Her ears were cocked up. Indeed, one ear had been all the time pricked up as she ran, and she was panting heavily, but cautiously, and looking round still more cautiously, rather with her eyes than with her head, to see if her master was coming. He was coming, leaping from tussock to tussock, and more slowly than usual it seemed to her; his face bore the expression which she knew so well, and which was so terrible to her. It seemed to her that he was coming slowly, and yet he was running!
Remarking Laska's peculiar method of search as she crouched down close to the ground and took such long strides that her hind legs seemed to rake the ground, and noticing her slightly opened mouth. Levin knew that she was on the track of snipe, and offering a mental prayer to God that he might not miss especially his first shot, he followed the dog. As he came up close to her he looked from his superior height and saw with his eyes what she perceived only with her nose. In a nook between two tussocks not more than six feet away from him a snipe was sitting. With head raised it was listening. Then, slightly spreading and closing its wings and awkwardly wagging its tail, it hid behind its nook.
"At him, at him!" cried Levin, pushing Laska from behind.
"But I can't move," thought Laska. "Where shall I go? From here I smell 'em, but if I stir I shan't find anything, or know what they are or where they are."
But Levin again pushed the dog with his knee, and in an excited whisper he cried again, "At him, Lasotchka, at him!"
"Well, if he wants me to do it, I will, but I won't answer for the consequences now," she said to herself, and she darted forward with all her might between the tussocks! She no longer went by scent, but only by her eyes and ears, and did not know what she was doing.
Ten paces from the first place a second snipe arose with a loud squawking and a characteristic drumming of wings. Instantly the shot rang out and the bird fell heavily with its white breast on the moist ground. Still another immediately flew up, not even roused by the dog.
When Levin aimed at it it was already a long shot, but he brought it down. After flying twenty feet or more the second snipe rose high into the air, then, spinning like a top, fell heavily to the ground on a dry spot.
"That is the talk," thought Levin, thrusting the fat snipe, still warm, into his hunting-bag. "Ha, Lasotchka, there's some sense in this, hey?"
When Levin, having reloaded, went still farther into the swamp, the sun was already up, though it was as yet hidden behind masses of clouds. The moon, which had now lost all its brilliancy, looked like a white cloud against the sky; not a star was to be seen. The swampy places, which before had been silvered with the dew, were now yellow. The whole swamp was amber. The blue of the grass changed into yellowish green. The marsh birds bustled about among the bushes glittering with dew and casting long shadows along by the brook. A hawk awoke and perched on a hayrick, turning his head from side to side, looking with displeasure at the marsh. The jackdaws flew fieldward, and a barefooted urchin was already starting to drive the horses up to an old man who had been spending the night there, and was now crawling out from under his kaftan. The gun-powder smoke lay white as milk along the green grass. One of the peasant children ran down to Levin.
"There were some ducks here last evening, uncle,"[1] he cried, and followed him at a distance.
And Levin experienced a feeling of the keenest satisfaction in killing three woodcock, one after the other, while the boy was watching him and expressing his approbation.
- ↑ Dyadenka, little uncle.