Leo Tolstoy - Leo Tolstoy - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 4)

“Well, then, do it as you’re told,” Levin shouted, seating himself in the wagonette. “Down! Hold the dogs, Philip!”

Levin felt now at leaving behind all his family and household cares such an eager sense of joy in life and expectation that he was not disposed to talk. Besides that, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every sportsman experiences as he approaches the scene of action. If he had anything on his mind at that moment, it was only the doubt whether they would start anything in the Kolpensky marsh, whether Laska would show to advantage in comparison with Krak, and whether he would shoot well that day himself. Not to disgrace himself before a new spectator—not to be outdone by Oblonsky—that too was a thought that crossed his brain.

Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky kept up alone a ceaseless flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to him the day before. Vassenka was really a nice fellow, simple, good-hearted, and very good-humored. If Levin had met him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked his holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It was as though he assumed a high degree of importance in himself that could not be disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and everything else to correspond; but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding. Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such an excellent accent, and for being a man of his world.

Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don Steppes. He kept praising him enthusiastically. “How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn’t it?” he said. He had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort. But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his society.

After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocketbook, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocketbook there were thirty-seven pounds, and so the matter could not be left in uncertainty.

“Do you know what, Levin, I’ll gallop home on that left trace-horse. That will be splendid. Eh?” he said, preparing to get out.

“No, why should you?” answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than seventeen stone. “I’ll send the coachman.”

The coachman rode back on the trace-horse, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair.

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“Well, now what’s our plan of campaign? Tell us all about it,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.

“Our plan is this. Now we’re driving to Gvozdyov. In Gvozdyov there’s a grouse marsh on this side, and beyond Gvozdyov come some magnificent snipe marshes where there are grouse too. It’s hot now, and we’ll get there—it’s fifteen miles or so—towards evening and have some evening shooting; we’ll spend the night there and go on tomorrow to the bigger moors.”

“And is there nothing on the way?”

“Yes; but we’ll reserve ourselves; besides it’s hot. There are two nice little places, but I doubt there being anything to shoot.”

Levin would himself have liked to go into these little places, but they were near home; he could shoot them over any time, and they were only little places—there would hardly be room for three to shoot. And so, with some insincerity, he said that he doubted there being anything to shoot. When they reached a little marsh Levin would have driven by, but Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the experienced eye of a sportsman, at once detected reeds visible from the road.

“Shan’t we try that?” he said, pointing to the little marsh.

“Levin, do, please! how delightful!” Vassenka Veslovsky began begging, and Levin could but consent.

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 appeared 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 naïvely distressed, and then laughed so good-humoredly and infectiously 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 beat more violently; and all of a sudden, as though some sort of shutter had been drawn back from his straining ears, all sounds, confused but loud, began to beat on his hearing, losing all sense of distance. He heard the steps of Stepan Arkadyevitch, mistaking them for the tramp of the horses in the distance; he heard the brittle sound of the twigs on which he had trodden, taking this sound for the flying of a grouse. He heard too, not far behind him, a splashing in the water, which he could not explain to himself.