Noticing the special way Laska was searching, pressed flat to the ground, as if raking it with her hind legs in big strides, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin understood that she was after great snipe, and, praying to God in his heart that he would be successful, especially with the first bird, he ran to her. Coming right up to her, he began looking in front of him from his height and saw with his eyes what she had seen with her nose. In a space between two hummocks, close to one of them, he made out a great snipe. It was listening, its head turned. Then, fluffing its wings slightly and folding them again, it wagged its behind clumsily and disappeared round the corner.
‘Flush it, flush it,’ cried Levin, nudging Laska from behind.
‘But I can’t flush anything,’ thought Laska. ‘Where will I flush it from? I can sense them from here, but if I move forward, I won’t be able to tell where they are or what they are.’ Yet here he was nudging her with his knee and saying in an excited whisper: ‘Flush it, Lasochka, flush it!’
‘Well, if that’s what he wants, I’ll do it, but I can’t answer for myself any more,’ she thought and tore forward at full speed between the hummocks. She no longer smelled anything, but only saw and heard, without understanding anything.
Ten steps from the former place, with a thick creech and the swelling noise of wings peculiar to its kind, a single great snipe flew up. And following a shot it plopped down heavily, its white breast against the wet bog. Another did not wait but flew up behind Levin without the dog.
When Levin turned to it, it was already far away. But the shot reached it. Having flown some twenty yards, the second snipe suddenly jerked upwards and, tumbling like a thrown ball, fell heavily on to a dry patch.
‘That’ll do nicely!’ thought Levin, putting the two plump, warm birds into his game bag. ‘Eh, Lasochka, won’t it do nicely?’
By the time Levin reloaded his gun and started off again, the sun, though still invisible behind the clouds, was already up. The crescent moon, having lost all its brilliance, showed white like a cloud in the sky; there was no longer a single star to be seen. The marshy patches, silvery with dew earlier, now became golden. The rustiness turned to amber. The blue of the grass changed to yellowish green. Little marsh birds pottered by the brook, in bushes glistening with dew and casting long shadows. A hawk woke up and sat on a haystack, turning its head from side to side, looking with displeasure at the marsh. Jackdaws flew into the fields, and a barefoot boy was already driving the horses towards an old man, who had got up from under his caftan and was scratching himself. Smoke from the shooting, like milk, spread white over the green grass.
One of the boys came running to Levin.
‘Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!’ he cried to him and followed him at a distance.
And in the sight of this boy, who expressed his approval, Levin took a double pleasure in straight away killing three more snipe, one after the other.
XIII
The hunters’ omen proved true, that if the first beast or bird was taken the field would be lucky.
Tired, hungry, happy, Levin returned towards ten o‘clock, having walked some twenty miles on foot, with nineteen pieces of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt because there was no room for it in his game bag. His comrades had long been awake and had had time to get hungry and have breakfast.
‘Wait, wait, I know it’s nineteen,’ said Levin, counting for a second time the snipe and great snipe, doubled up and dry, caked with blood, their heads twisted to the side, no longer looking as impressive as when they flew.
The count was correct, and Levin was pleased at Stepan Arkadyich’s envy. He was also pleased to find on his return that the messenger had already arrived with a note from Kitty.
‘I am quite well and cheerful. If you are afraid for me, you may be more at ease than ever. I have a new bodyguard, Marya Vlasyevna’ (this was the midwife, a new, important person in Levin’s family life). ‘She came to see how I am. She found me perfectly well, and we are having her stay until you come. Everyone is cheerful and well, so please don’t you be in a hurry, and if the hunting is good, stay another day.’
These two joys, the lucky hunting and the note from his wife, were so great that the two minor unpleasantnesses that occurred afterwards passed easily for him. One was that the chestnut outrunner, evidently overworked the day before, was off her feed and looked dull. The coachman said she had been strained.
‘She was overdriven yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrich,’ he said. ‘Of course, she was pushed hard those seven miles!’
