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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 sun-
burnt, 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 coun-
tryside 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 morn-
ing 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 recog-
nized 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 peas-
ants 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 ironi-
cally at the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and