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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 do-
mestic 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 appe-
tite, 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,” an-
swered 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