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Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing
him against the dusky blue sky above the confused mass of tender
shoots of the aspens, he saw the flying bird. It was flying straight
towards him; the guttural cry, like the even tearing of some strong stuff,
sounded close to his ear; the long beak and neck of the bird could be
seen, and at the very instant when Levin was taking aim, behind the
bush where Oblonsky stood, there was a flash of red lightning: the bird
dropped like an arrow, and darted upwards again. Again came the red
flash and the sound of a blow, and fluttering its wings as though trying
to keep up in the air, the bird halted, stopped still and instant, and fell
with a heavy splash on the slushy ground.
“Can I have missed it?” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, who could
not see for the smoke.
“Here it is!” said Levin, pointing to Laska, who with one ear raised,
wagging the end of her shaggy tail, came slowly back as though she
would prolong the pleasure, and as it were smiling, brought the dead
bird to her master. “Well, I’m glad you were successful,” said Levin,
who, at the same time, had a sense of envy that he had not succeeded
in shooting the snipe.
“It was a bad shot from the right barrel,” responded Stepan
Arkadyevitch, loading his gun. “Sh...it’s flying!”
The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard again.
Two snipe, playing and chasing one another, and only whistling, not
crying, flew straight at the very heads of the sportsmen. There was the
report of four shots, and like swallows the snipe turned swift somer-
saults in the air and vanished from sight.
The stand-shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch shot two
more birds and Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get
dark. Venus, bright and silvery, shone with her soft light low down in
the west behind the birch trees, and high up in the east twinkled the
red lights of Arcturus. Over his head Levin made out the stars of the
Great Bear and lost them again. The snipe had ceased flying; but
Levin resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a
branch if birch, should be above it, and the stars of the Great Bear
should be perfectly plain. Venus had risen above the branch, and the
ear of the Great Bear with its shaft was now all plainly visible against
the dark blue sky, yet still he waited.
“Isn’t it time to go home?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
It was quite still now in the copse, and not a bird was stirring.
“Let’s stay a little while,” answered Levin.
“As you like.”
They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another.
“Stiva!” said Levin unexpectedly; “how is it you don’t tell me whether
your sister-in-law’s married yet, or when she’s going to be?”
Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could
affect him. But he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch
replied.
“She’s never thought of being married, and isn’t thinking of it; but
she’s very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They’re positively
afraid she may not live.”
“What!” cried Levin. “Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has
she...?”
While they were saying this, Laska, with ears pricked up, was
looking upwards at the sky, and reproachfully at them.
“They have chosen a time to talk,” she was thinking. “It’s on the
wing.... Here it is, yes, it is. They’ll miss it,” thought Laska.
But at that very instant both suddenly heard a shrill whistle which,
as it were, smote on their ears, and both suddenly seized their guns