Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenina

(Barré) #1
918 919

Before they had time to stop, the dogs had flown one before the
other into the marsh.
“Krak! Laska!...”
The dogs came back.
“There won’t be room for three. I’ll stay here,” said Levin, hoping
they would find nothing but peewits, who had been startled by the
dogs, and turning over in their flight, were plaintively wailing over the
marsh.
“No! Come along, Levin, let’s go together!” Veslovsky called.
“Really, there’s not room. Laska, back, Laska! You won’t want
another dog, will you?”
Levin remained with the wagonette, and looked enviously at the
sportsmen. They walked right across the marsh. Except little birds
and peewits, of which Vassenka killed one, there was nothing in the
marsh.
“Come, you see now that it was not that I grudged the marsh,” said
Levin, “only it’s wasting time.”
“Oh, no, it was jolly all the same. Did you see us?” said Vassenka
Veslovsky, clambering awkwardly into the wagonette with his gun and
his peewit in his hands. “How splendidly I shot this bird! Didn’t I?
Well, shall we soon be getting to the real place?”
The horses started off suddenly, Levin knocked his head against
the stock of someone’s gun, and there was the report of a shot. The gun
did actually go off first, but that was how it seemed to Levin. It ap-
peared that Vassenka Veslovsky had pulled only one trigger, and had
left the other hammer still cocked. The charge flew into the ground
without doing harm to anyone. Stepan Arkadyevitch shook his head
and laughed reprovingly at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to
reprove him. In the first place, any reproach would have seemed to be


called forth by the danger he had incurred and the bump that had
come up on Levin’s forehead. And besides, Veslovsky was at first so
naively distressed, and then laughed so good-humoredly and infec-
tiously at their general dismay, that one could not but laugh with him.
When they reached the second marsh, which was fairly large, and
would inevitably take some time to shoot over, Levin tried to persuade
them to pass it by. But Veslovsky again overpersuaded him. Again, as
the marsh was narrow, Levin, like a good host, remained with the
carriage.
Krak made straight for some clumps of sedge. Vassenka Veslovsky
was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan Arkadyevitch had
time to come up, a grouse flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into
an unmown meadow. This grouse was left for Veslovsky to follow up.
Krak found it again and pointed, and Veslovsky shot it and went back
to the carriage. “Now you go and I’ll stay with the horses,” he said.
Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman’s envy. He
handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh.
Laska, who had been plaintively whining and fretting against the
injustice of her treatment, flew straight ahead to a hopeful place that
Levin knew well, and that Krak had not yet come upon.
“Why don’t you stop her?” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“She won’t scare them,” answered Levin, sympathizing with his
bitch’s pleasure and hurrying after her.
As she came nearer and nearer to the familiar breeding places
there was more and more earnestness in Laska’s exploration. A little
marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She
made one circuit round the clump of reeds, was beginning a second,
and suddenly quivered with excitement and became motionless.
“Come, come, Stiva!” shouted Levin, feeling his heart beginning to
Free download pdf