‘Could we have missed?’ cried Stepan Arkadyich, who was unable to see on account of the smoke.
‘Here it is!’ said Levin, pointing at Laska, who, with one ear raised and the tip of her fluffy tail wagging on high, stepping slowly as if she wished to prolong the pleasure, and almost smiling, brought the dead bird to her master. ‘Well, I’m glad you got it,’ said Levin, at the same time already feeling envious that it was not he who had succeeded in shooting this woodcock.
‘A rotten miss with the right barrel,’ Stepan Arkadyich replied, loading the gun. ‘Shh ... here they come.’
Indeed, they heard a quick succession of piercing whistles. Two woodcock, playing and chasing each other and only whistling, not chirring, came flying right over the hunters’ heads. Four shots rang out and, like swallows, the woodcock made a quick swerve and vanished from sight.
The fowling was splendid. Stepan Arkadyich shot another two birds, and Levin two, one of which could not be found. It was getting dark. Bright, silvery Venus, low in the west, was already shining with her tender gleam behind the birches, and high in the east the sombre Arcturus already played its red fires. Overhead Levin kept finding and losing the stars of the Great Bear. The woodcock had stopped flying; but Levin decided to wait longer, until Venus, which he could see under a birch branch, rose above it and the stars of the Great Bear showed clearly. Venus had already risen above the branch, the chariot of the Great Bear with its shaft was already quite visible in the dark blue sky, but he still waited.
‘Isn’t it time?’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
It was quiet in the forest and not a single bird moved.
‘Let’s stay longer.’
‘As you wish.’
They were now standing about fifteen paces apart.
‘Stiva!’ Levin said suddenly and unexpectedly. ‘Why don’t you tell me whether your sister-in-law got married or when she’s going to?’
Levin felt himself so firm and calm that he thought no answer could stir him. But he never expected what Stepan Arkadyich replied.
‘She wasn’t and isn’t thinking of getting married, but she’s very ill, and the doctors have sent her abroad. They even fear for her life.’
‘What’s that!’ cried Levin. ‘Very ill? What’s wrong with her? How did she ...’
While they were saying this, Laska, her ears pricked up, kept glancing at the sky and then reproachfully at them.
‘Found a fine time to talk!’ she thought. ‘And there’s one coming ... There it is, all right. They’ll miss it ...’ thought Laska.
But just then both men heard the piercing whistle, which seemed to lash at their ears, and they suddenly seized their guns and lightning flashed twice and two claps rang out simultaneously. The high-flying woodcock instantly folded its wings and fell into the thicket, bending the slender shoots.
‘That’s excellent! We shared one!’ Levin cried out and ran into the thicket with Laska to look for the woodcock. ‘Ah, yes, what was that unpleasant thing?’ he recollected. ‘Yes, Kitty’s sick ... Nothing to be done, very sorry,’ he thought.
‘Ah, she’s found it! Good girl,’ he said, taking the warm bird out of Laska’s mouth and putting it into the nearly full game bag. ‘I’ve found it, Stiva!’ he cried.
XVI
On the way home, Levin asked for all the details of Kitty’s illness and the Shcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to admit it, what he learned was pleasing to him. Pleasing because there was still hope, and all the more pleasing because she, who had made him suffer so much, was suffering herself. But when Stepan Arkadyich began to speak of the causes of Kitty’s illness and mentioned Vronsky’s name, Levin interrupted him:
‘I have no right to know family details and, to tell the truth, I’m also not interested.’
Stepan Arkadyich smiled barely perceptibly, catching one of those instantaneous changes so familiar to him in Levin’s face, which became as gloomy as it had been cheerful a moment before.
‘You’ve already quite settled with Ryabinin about the wood?’ asked Levin.
‘Yes, I have. An excellent price, thirty-eight thousand. Eight down and the rest over six years. I was busy with it for a long time. No one offered more.’
‘That means you gave your wood away,’ Levin said gloomily.
‘Why is that?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked with a good-natured smile, knowing that Levin would now find everything bad.
‘Because that wood is worth at least two hundred roubles an acre,’ Levin replied.
‘Ah, these country squires!’ Stepan Arkadyich said jokingly. ‘This tone of scorn for us city people! ... Yet when it comes to business, we always do better. Believe me, I worked it all out,’ he said, ‘and the wood has been sold very profitably - I’m even afraid he’ll go back on it. You see, it’s mostly second growth,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, wishing with the words ‘second growth’ to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts, ‘fit only for stove wood. It won’t stand you more than ten cord per acre, and he’s giving me seventy-five roubles.’
