Nikolay didn’t see Danilo and didn’t hear him until the gasping chestnut flashed past and he heard the sound of a falling body and saw Danilo lying in the midst of the dogs on the wolf’s back, trying to grab her by the ears. It was obvious to them all, dogs, hunters and wolf, that this was the end. The beast, flattening its ears in terror, tried to get up, but the dogs hung on. Danilo half-rose, then stumbled down, and as if he was going to bed collapsed with all his weight on top of the wolf and grabbed her by the ears. Nikolay was about to finish her off with the dagger, but Danilo whispered, ‘No, don’t. We’ll string her up!’ and he changed position to put his foot on the wolf’s neck. They put a stick between the wolf’s jaws and tied her up as if they were putting her on the leash, and also tied her legs. Danilo swung the she-wolf from side to side once or twice.
With weary, happy faces they tied the great beast, still alive, to a horse, which bridled and snorted, and with all the dogs milling round and yelping at her, they brought her to the place where they were all supposed to meet. The wolfhounds had taken two of the cubs, and the borzois the other three. The hunters were coming in now, proud of their booty and swapping stories, and everyone came over to have a look at the grand old wolf with her big broad head hanging down and the stick in her teeth, as she gazed with great, glassy eyes at the crowd of dogs and men around her. When they poked her, her tied legs jerked and she looked at them all, wild-eyed yet somehow innocent. Count Ilya Rostov rode over too, and had a poke at the wolf.
‘Splendid beast!’ he said. ‘An old one, eh?’ he asked.
‘That she be, your Excellency,’ answered Danilo, swift to doff his cap.
The count remembered the wolf he had missed, and his clash with Danilo. ‘Have to do something about your temper, my boy,’ said the count.
Danilo said nothing, but his nervous smile was as sweet and gentle as a child’s.
CHAPTER 6
The old count went home. Natasha and Petya stayed on with the hunt but promised to follow immediately. It was still early in the day so the hunting party went on further. At midday they let the hounds loose in a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees. Nikolay stood at the top on some stubble land, from where he could see all his party.
Across from Nikolay was a field of winter rye, in which he could see one of his huntsmen standing alone in a hollow behind a hazel bush. No sooner had they loosed the hounds when Nikolay heard an intermittent baying sound coming from a dog he knew, Voltorn; other hounds joined in, pausing now and then, only to take up the same call. A moment later he heard from the ravine a call that told him they were on the scent of a fox, and the whole pack made off together along a narrow run, up towards the rye-field away from Nikolay.
He could see the whippers-in in their red caps galloping along the edge of the overgrown ravine. He could even see the dogs, and he was expecting the fox to come into sight at any moment now in the field across the ravine.
The huntsman standing in the hollow made a move and let his dogs go, and Nikolay saw a odd-looking red fox with stumpy legs and a big bushy tail scurrying across the green field. The hounds bore down on it, closing in, and the fox began to weave in and out in smaller and smaller circles, trailing its big brush, when all of a sudden a white dog – not one of ours – leapt on it, followed by a black one, and then there was a general hurly-burly which ended with the dogs standing over it, scarcely moving, their heads thrust in and behinds sticking out like the points of a star. Two huntsmen galloped over to the dogs, one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green kaftan.
‘Hello, what’s this?’ wondered Nikolay. ‘Where did he come from? He’s not one of “Uncle’s” men.’
The huntsmen retrieved the fox, and stood there for quite some time without making any effort to tie it to a saddle. He could see the tethered horses and the outline of their empty saddles as they stood close to the huntsmen, and the dogs were there too, lying down. There was much waving of arms as the huntsmen did something to the fox. Someone blew a horn – which always signalled a fight.
‘That’s one of Ilagin’s huntsmen, and he’s having some sort of row with our Ivan,’ said Nikolay’s groom.
Nikolay told the groom to fetch his sister and Petya, and rode off at walking pace towards the spot where the whippers-in were rounding up the hounds. Several of the party galloped over to the scene of the squabble.
