‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it, and you were right to come out. Fair for the chase!’ (Uncle’s favourite saying.) ‘I should get over to the covert straightaway. My Girchik tells me the Ilagins are out with their hounds over at Korniki. Fair for the chase! They’ll pinch the litter from under your noses.’
‘That’s where I’m going. Shall we join forces?’ asked Nikolay.
The hounds were brought together into a single pack, and ‘Uncle’ and Nikolay rode on side by side.
Natasha’s eager face and gleaming eyes peeped out from her shawls and scarves as she galloped over to them, doggedly pursued by Petya and Mikhaylo, the huntsman and groom who had been detailed to look after her. Petya was laughing, whipping his horse and pulling back on the reins. Natasha sat on her jet-black Arabchick with easy confidence, controlling him with a gentle, steady hand.
The uncle looked askance at Petya and Natasha. For him, playing games and the serious business of hunting didn’t go together.
‘Good morning, Uncle. We’re coming hunting too!’ shouted Petya.
‘Good morning to you. Mind you don’t trample the dogs,’ said the uncle sternly.
‘Oh, Nikolay, darling, Trunila is such a nice dog! He knew me,’ said Natasha, referring to her favourite hunting dog.
‘Hmph, for one thing, Trunila’s not a dog, he’s a wolfhound,’ thought Nikolay, glancing at his sister in an effort to put some noticeable distance between them at this particular time. Natasha took the hint.
‘Oh, please don’t think we’re going to get in the way, Uncle,’ said Natasha. ‘We’ll stay where we’re put and we won’t move a muscle.’
‘Quite right too, little Countess,’ said ‘Uncle’. ‘But don’t fall off your horse,’ he added, ‘otherwise . . . Fair for the chase! . . . you won’t have anything to sit on and watch.’
The little island of the Otradnoye covert hove into sight, a couple of hundred yards ahead. Rostov and his ‘uncle’ decided between them where best to loose the dogs, then Nikolay showed Natasha where to stand – in a spot where there was no chance of anything ever running out – and circled round above the ravine to close in from the rear.
‘Listen, nephew, you’re after a wise old bird,’ said the uncle. ‘One slip and she’s gone.’
‘Well, we’ll see what happens. Karay! Here boy!’ he shouted, this call being the best response he could think of. Karay was an old hound, misshapen and scabby, famous for having once taken on an old wolf single-handedly. Everyone was now in place.
The old count, knowing how keen his son was when it came to hunting, put on all speed so as not to arrive late, and the whippers-in were hardly in their places when Count Ilya Rostov, a picture of bonhomie, red in the face, jowls quivering, drove up behind his pair of fine black horses, crossed the green field and came to the place where the wolf might come out. Smoothing down his heavy coat and gathering everything he needed for the hunt, he was soon astride his glossy steed, the corpulent Viflyanka, who was gentle, sweet-tempered and, like himself, going grey. The horses and trap were sent back home. Count Ilya Rostov, no true sportsman at heart but a man familiar with every last rule of hunting, rode into the outskirts of the wood and took up a position near to some bushes, where he gathered the reins, settled down in his saddle, and, ready at last, looked around with a broad smile on his face.
Near by stood his personal attendant, Semyon Chekmar, a horseman of long standing, now rather heavy in the saddle. Chekmar held three wolfhounds on a leash, lively enough beasts, though they too had put on weight like their master and his horse. Two other dogs, old and wise, lay there off the leash. A hundred paces along the edge of the wood stood another of the count’s grooms, Mitka, a daredevil rider and very keen hunter. The count had followed the old custom of toasting the hunt with a silver goblet of mulled brandy, followed by a light lunch washed down by half a bottle of his favourite claret.
Count Ilya was rather flushed from the wine and the effort of getting there. His watering eyes gleamed with a special brightness, and as he sat there in the saddle nicely swaddled in his heavy coat, he looked like a baby ready to be taken out on a trip in the open air.
With everything checked and in order, Chekmar, lean and gaunt, kept glancing across at his master, with whom he had lived on the best of terms these thirty years. He was clearly in a good mood and Chekmar could look forward to a pleasant chat. Then a third person rode towards them through the wood, very cautiously – clearly having been warned – and reined in behind the count. It was a grey-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak, wearing a high peaked cap – the family fool with a woman’s name, Nastasya Ivanovna.
‘Listen, Nastasya Ivanovna,’ whispered the count with a broad wink, ‘scare that wolf away, and you’ll get it in the neck from Danilo.’
‘I knows what I be doing,’ said Nastasya.
