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.
Chapter 13
The sportsman’s saying, that if the first beast or the first bird is not
missed, the day will be lucky, turned out correct.
At ten o’clock Levin, weary, hungry, and happy after a tramp of twenty
miles, returned to his night’s lodging with nineteen head of fine game and
one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would not go into the game bag.
His companions had long been awake, and had had time to get hungry and
have breakfast.
“Wait a bit, wait a bit, I know there are nineteen,” said Levin, counting a
second time over the grouse and snipe, that looked so much less important
now, bent and dry and bloodstained, with heads crooked aside, than they did
when they were flying.
The number was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch’s envy pleased Levin.
He was pleased too on returning to find the man sent by Kitty with a note
was already there.
“I am perfectly well and happy. If you were uneasy about me, you can
feel easier than ever. I’ve a new bodyguard, Marya Vlasyevna,”—this was
the midwife, a new and important personage in Levin’s domestic life. “She
has come to have a look at me. She found me perfectly well, and we have
kept her till you are back. All are happy and well, and please, don’t be in a
hurry to come back, but, if the sport is good, stay another day.”
These two pleasures, his lucky shooting and the letter from his wife, were
so great that two slightly disagreeable incidents passed lightly over Levin.
One was that the chestnut trace horse, who had been unmistakably
overworked on the previous day, was off his feed and out of sorts. The
coachman said he was “Overdriven yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrievitch.
Yes, indeed! driven ten miles with no sense!”
The other unpleasant incident, which for the first minute destroyed his
good humor, though later he laughed at it a great deal, was to find that of all
the provisions Kitty had provided in such abundance that one would have
thought there was enough for a week, nothing was left. On his way back,
tired and hungry from shooting, Levin had so distinct a vision of meat-pies
that as he approached the hut he seemed to smell and taste them, as Laska
had smelt the game, and he immediately told Philip to give him some. It
appeared that there were no pies left, nor even any chicken.
“Well, this fellow’s appetite!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing and
pointing at Vassenka Veslovsky. “I never suffer from loss of appetite, but
he’s really marvelous!…”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” said Levin, looking gloomily at Veslovsky.
“Well, Philip, give me some beef, then.”
“The beef’s been eaten, and the bones given to the dogs,” answered
Philip.
Levin was so hurt that he said, in a tone of vexation, “You might have left
me something!” and he felt ready to cry.
“Then put away the game,” he said in a shaking voice to Philip, trying
not to look at Vassenka, “and cover them with some nettles. And you might
at least ask for some milk for me.”
But when he had drunk some milk, he felt ashamed immediately at
having shown his annoyance to a stranger, and he began to laugh at his
hungry mortification.
In the evening they went shooting again, and Veslovsky had several
successful shots, and in the night they drove home.
Their homeward journey was as lively as their drive out had been.
Veslovsky sang songs and related with enjoyment his adventures with the
peasants, who had regaled him with vodka, and said to him, “Excuse our
homely ways,” and his night’s adventures with kiss-in-the-ring and the
