now everything’s going to go well. Only, to atone for my sins, I’m bound to
sit on the box. That’s so? eh? No, no! I’ll be your Automedon. You shall see
how I’ll get you along,” he answered, not letting go the rein, when Levin
begged him to let the coachman drive. “No, I must atone for my sins, and
I’m very comfortable on the box.” And he drove.
Levin was a little afraid he would exhaust the horses, especially the
chestnut, whom he did not know how to hold in; but unconsciously he fell
under the influence of his gaiety and listened to the songs he sang all the
way on the box, or the descriptions and representations he gave of driving
in the English fashion, four-in-hand; and it was in the very best of spirits
that after lunch they drove to the Gvozdyov marsh.
Chapter 10
Vassenka drove the horses so smartly that they reached the marsh too
early, while it was still hot.
As they drew near this more important marsh, the chief aim of their
expedition, Levin could not help considering how he could get rid of
Vassenka and be free in his movements. Stepan Arkadyevitch evidently had
the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the look of anxiety always
present in a true sportsman when beginning shooting, together with a
certain good-humored slyness peculiar to him.
“How shall we go? It’s a splendid marsh, I see, and there are hawks,”
said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing to two great birds hovering over the
reeds. “Where there are hawks, there is sure to be game.”
“Now, gentlemen,” said Levin, pulling up his boots and examining the
lock of his gun with rather a gloomy expression, “do you see those reeds?”
He pointed to an oasis of blackish green in the huge half-mown wet
meadow that stretched along the right bank of the river. “The marsh begins
here, straight in front of us, do you see—where it is greener? From here it
runs to the right where the horses are; there are breeding places there, and
grouse, and all round those reeds as far as that alder, and right up to the
mill. Over there, do you see, where the pools are? That’s the best place.
There I once shot seventeen snipe. We’ll separate with the dogs and go in
different directions, and then meet over there at the mill.”
“Well, which shall go to left and which to right?” asked Stepan
Arkadyevitch. “It’s wider to the right; you two go that way and I’ll take the
left,” he said with apparent carelessness.
“Capital! we’ll make the bigger bag! Yes, come along, come along!”
Vassenka exclaimed.
Levin could do nothing but agree, and they divided.
As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began hunting about
together and made towards the green, slime-covered pool. Levin knew
Laska’s method, wary and indefinite; he knew the place too and expected a
whole covey of snipe.
“Veslovsky, beside me, walk beside me!” he said in a faint voice to his
companion splashing in the water behind him. Levin could not help feeling
an interest in the direction his gun was pointed, after that casual shot near
the Kolpensky marsh.
“Oh, I won’t get in your way, don’t trouble about me.”
But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty’s words at parting:
“Mind you don’t shoot one another.” The dogs came nearer and nearer,
passed each other, each pursuing its own scent. The expectation of snipe
was so intense that to Levin the squelching sound of his own heel, as he
drew it up out of the mire, seemed to be the call of a snipe, and he clutched
and pressed the lock of his gun.
“Bang! bang!” sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a flock of
ducks which was hovering over the marsh and flying at that moment
towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before Levin had time to look
round, there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and some eight
more rose one after another.
Stepan Arkadyevitch hit one at the very moment when it was beginning
its zigzag movements, and the snipe fell in a heap into the mud. Oblonsky
aimed deliberately at another, still flying low in the reeds, and together with
the report of the shot, that snipe too fell, and it could be seen fluttering out
where the sedge had been cut, its unhurt wing showing white beneath.
Levin was not so lucky: he aimed at his first bird too low, and missed; he
aimed at it again, just as it was rising, but at that instant another snipe flew
up at his very feet, distracting him so that he missed again.
While they were loading their guns, another snipe rose, and Veslovsky,
who had had time to load again, sent two charges of small-shot into the
water. Stepan Arkadyevitch picked up his snipe, and with sparkling eyes
looked at Levin.
“Well, now let us separate,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and limping on
his left foot, holding his gun in readiness and whistling to his dog, he
walked off in one direction. Levin and Veslovsky walked in the other.
It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were a failure he
got hot and out of temper, and shot badly the whole day. So it was that day.
The snipe showed themselves in numbers. They kept flying up from just
under the dogs, from under the sportsmen’s legs, and Levin might have
retrieved his ill luck. But the more he shot, the more he felt disgraced in the
eyes of Veslovsky, who kept popping away merrily and indiscriminately,
killing nothing, and not in the slightest abashed by his ill success. Levin, in
feverish haste, could not restrain himself, got more and more out of temper,
and ended by shooting almost without a hope of hitting. Laska, indeed,
seemed to understand this. She began looking more languidly, and gazed
back at the sportsmen, as it were, with perplexity or reproach in her eyes.
Shots followed shots in rapid succession. The smoke of the powder hung
about the sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the game bag there
were only three light little snipe. And of these one had been killed by
Veslovsky alone, and one by both of them together. Meanwhile from the
other side of the marsh came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s shots, not
frequent, but, as Levin fancied, well-directed, for almost after each they
heard “Krak, Krak, apporte!”
This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the
air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh
cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first
and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two
hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over the
marsh.
After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky
reached the place where the peasants’ mowing-grass was divided into long
strips reaching to the reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass,
in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been
mown.
Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as
the cut part, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadyevitch to meet him, and so
he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches.
“Hi, sportsmen!” shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an
unharnessed cart; “come and have some lunch with us! Have a drop of
wine!”
Levin looked round.
“Come along, it’s all right!” shouted a good-humored-looking bearded
peasant with a red face, showing his white teeth in a grin, and holding up a
greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight.
“Qu’est-ce qu’ils disent?” asked Veslovsky.
“They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they’ve been dividing
the meadow into lots. I should have some,” said Levin, not without some
guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go
away to them.
“Why do they offer it?”
“Oh, they’re merry-making. Really, you should join them. You would be
interested.”
“Allons, c’est curieux.”
“You go, you go, you’ll find the way to the mill!” cried Levin, and
looking round he perceived with satisfaction that Veslovsky, bent and
stumbling with weariness, holding his gun out at arm’s length, was making
his way out of the marsh towards the peasants.
“You come too!” the peasants shouted to Levin. “Never fear! You taste
our cake!”
Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a little vodka and to eat some
bread. He was exhausted, and felt it a great effort to drag his staggering legs
out of the mire, and for a minute he hesitated. But Laska was setting. And
immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the
swamp towards the dog. A snipe flew up at his feet; he fired and killed it.
Laska still pointed.—“Fetch it!” Another bird flew up close to the dog.
Levin fired. But it was an unlucky day for him; he missed it, and when he
went to look for the one he had shot, he could not find that either. He
wandered all about the reeds, but Laska did not believe he had shot it, and
when he sent her to find it, she pretended to hunt for it, but did not really.
And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his
failure, things went no better. There were plenty of snipe still, but Levin
made one miss after another.
The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, soaked through
with perspiration, stuck to his body; his left boot full of water weighed
heavily on his leg and squeaked at every step; the sweat ran in drops down
his powder-grimed face, his mouth was full of the bitter taste, his nose of
the smell of powder and stagnant water, his ears were ringing with the
incessant whir of the snipe; he could not touch the stock of his gun, it was
so hot; his heart beat with short, rapid throbs; his hands shook with
excitement, and his weary legs stumbled and staggered over the hillocks
and in the swamp, but still he walked on and still he shot. At last, after a
disgraceful miss, he flung his gun and his hat on the ground.
“No, I must control myself,” he said to himself. Picking up his gun and
his hat, he called Laska, and went out of the swamp. When he got on to dry
ground he sat down, pulled off his boot and emptied it, then walked to the
marsh, drank some stagnant-tasting water, moistened his burning hot gun,
and washed his face and hands. Feeling refreshed, he went back to the spot
where a snipe had settled, firmly resolved to keep cool.
He tried to be calm, but it was the same again. His finger pressed the
cock before he had taken a good aim at the bird. It got worse and worse.
He had only five birds in his game-bag when he walked out of the marsh
towards the alders where he was to rejoin Stepan Arkadyevitch.
Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog. Krak
darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, black all over with the
stinking mire of the marsh, and with the air of a conqueror sniffed at Laska.
Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely
figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He came to meet him, red and perspiring,
with unbuttoned neckband, still limping in the same way.
“Well? You have been popping away!” he said, smiling good-humoredly.
“How have you got on?” queried Levin. But there was no need to ask, for
he had already seen the full game bag.
