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Chapter 12
Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions.
Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking thrust
out, was sleeping so soundly that he could elicit no response.
Oblonsky, half asleep, declined to get up so early. Even Laska,
who was asleep, curled up in the hay, got up unwillingly, and
lazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs one after the
other. Getting on his boots and stockings, taking his gun, and
carefully opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went out
into the road. The coachmen were sleeping in their carriages,
the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, dipping
its nose into the manger. It was still gray out-of-doors.
"Why are you up so early, my dear?" the old woman, their hostess,
said, coming out of the hut and addressing him affectionately as
an old friend.
"Going shooting, granny. Do I go this way to the marsh?"
"Straight out at the back; by our threshing floor, my dear, and
hemp patches; there's a little footpath." Stepping carefully
with her sunburnt, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, and
moved back the fence for him by the threshing floor.
"Straight on and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove the
cattle there yesterday evening."
Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followed
her with a light, rapid step, continually looking at the sky. He
hoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. But
the sun did not delay. The moon, which had been bright when he
went out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. The
pink flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, now
had to be sought to be discerned at all. What were before
undefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside could now be
distinctly seen. They were sheaves of rye. The dew, not visible
till the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above his
belt in the high growing, fragrant hemp patch, from which the
pollen had already fallen out. In the transparent stillness of
morning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin's
ear with the whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully,
and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from the
beehives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemp
patch in the direction of the marsh. The path led straight to
the marsh. The marsh could be recognized by the mist which rose
from it, thicker in one place and thinner in another, so that the
reeds and willow bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At the
edge of the marsh and the road, peasant boys and men, who had
been herding for the night, were lying, and in the dawn all were
asleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbled
horses. One of them clanked a chain. Laska walked beside her
master, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing the
sleeping peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examined
his pistols and let his dog off. One of the horses, a sleek,
dark-brown three-year-old, seeing the dog, started away, switched
its tail and snorted. The other horses too were frightened, and
splashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawing
their hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, they
bounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking ironically at
the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and
whistled as a sign that she might begin.
Laska ran joyfully and anxiously through the slush that swayed
under her.
Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marsh
plants, and slime, and the extraneous smell of horse dung, Laska
detected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scent
of that strong-smelling bird that always excited her more than
any other. Here and there among the moss and marsh plants this
scent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine in
which direction it grew stronger or fainter. To find the
direction, she had to go farther away from the wind. Not feeling
the motion of her legs, Laska bounded with a stiff gallop, so
that at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away from
the wind that blew from the east before sunrise, and turned
facing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, she
felt at once that not their tracks only but they themselves were
here before her, and not one, but many. Laska slackened her
speed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yet
determine. To find the very spot, she began to make a circle,
when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. "Laska! here?" he
asked, pointing her to a different direction. She stopped,
asking him if she had better not go on doing as she had begun.
But he repeated his command in an angry voice, pointing to a spot
covered with water, where there could not be anything. She
obeyed him, pretending she was looking, so as to please him, went
round it, and went back to her former position, and was at once
aware of the scent again. Now when he was not hindering her, she
knew what to do, and without looking at what was under her feet,
and to her vexation stumbling over a high stump into the water,
but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began
making the circle which was to make all clear to her. The scent
of them reached her, stronger and stronger, and more and more
defined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her that
one of them was here, behind this tuft of reeds, five paces in
front of her; she stopped, and her whole body was still and
rigid. On her short legs she could see nothing in front of her,
but by the scent she knew it was sitting not more than five paces
off. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, and
enjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight and
tense, and only wagging at the extreme end. Her mouth was
slightly open, her ears raised. One ear had been turned wrong
side out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, and
still more warily looked round, but more with her eyes than her
head, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knew
so well, though the eyes were always terrible to her. He
stumbled over the stump as he came, and moved, as she thought,
extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he was
running.
Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground,
as it were, scratching big prints with her hind paws, and with
her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at grouse,
and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the first
bird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he could
from his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what
she was seeing with her nose. In a space between two little
thickets, to a couple of yards' distance, he could see a
grouse. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightly
preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner
with a clumsy wag of its tail.
"Fetch it, fetch it!" shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove from
behind.
"But I can't go," thought Laska. "Where am I to go? From here I
feel them, but if I move forward I shall know nothing of where
they are or who they are." But then he shoved her with his knee,
and in an excited whisper said, "Fetch it, Laska."
"Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answer
for myself now," she thought, and darted forward as fast as her
legs would carry her between the thick bushes. She scented
nothing now; she could only see and hear, without understanding
anything.
Ten paces from her former place a grouse rose with a guttural cry
and the peculiar round sound of its wings. And immediately after
the shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wet
mire. Another bird did not linger, but rose behind Levin without
the dog. When Levin turned towards it, it was already some way
off. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces further, the
second grouse rose upwards, and whirling round like a ball,
dropped heavily on a dry place.
"Come, this is going to be some good!" thought Levin, packing the
warm and fat grouse into his game bag. "Eh, Laska, will it be
good?"
When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully
risen, though unseen behind the storm-clouds. The moon had lost
all of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not a
single star could be seen. The sedge, silvery with dew before,
now shone like gold. The stagnant pools were all like amber.
The blue of the grass had changed to yellow-green. The marsh
birds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the bushes
that glittered with dew and cast long shadows. A hawk woke up
and settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and
looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about the
field, and a bare-legged boy was driving the horses to an old
man, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing his
hair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green of
the grass.
One of the boys ran up to Levin.
"Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!" he shouted to him, and
he walked a little way off behind him.
And Levin was doubly pleased, in sight of the boy, who expressed
his approval, at killing three snipe, one after another, straight
off.
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