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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 limp-
ing 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 sports-
men, 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.