Part Six: Chapter 12

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions.Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking thrustout, was sleeping so soundly that he could elicit no response.Oblonsky, half asleep, declined to get up so early. Even Laska,who was asleep, curled up in the hay, got up unwillingly, andlazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs one after theother. Getting on his boots and stockings, taking his gun, andcarefully opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went outinto the road. The coachmen were sleeping in their carriages,the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, dippingits nose into the manger. It was still gray out-of-doors.

　　"Why are you up so early, my dear?" the old woman, their hostess,said, coming out of the hut and addressing him affectionately asan old friend.

　　"Going shooting, granny. Do I go this way to the marsh?"

　　"Straight out at the back; by our threshing floor, my dear, andhemp patches; there's a little footpath." Stepping carefullywith her sunburnt, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, andmoved back the fence for him by the threshing floor.

　　"Straight on and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove thecattle there yesterday evening."

　　Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followedher with a light, rapid step, continually looking at the sky. Hehoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. Butthe sun did not delay. The moon, which had been bright when hewent out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. Thepink flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, nowhad to be sought to be discerned at all. What were beforeundefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside could now bedistinctly seen. They were sheaves of rye. The dew, not visibletill the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above hisbelt in the high growing, fragrant hemp patch, from which thepollen had already fallen out. In the transparent stillness ofmorning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin'sear with the whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully,and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from thebeehives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemppatch in the direction of the marsh. The path led straight tothe marsh. The marsh could be recognized by the mist which rosefrom it, thicker in one place and thinner in another, so that thereeds and willow bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At theedge of the marsh and the road, peasant boys and men, who hadbeen herding for the night, were lying, and in the dawn all wereasleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbledhorses. One of them clanked a chain. Laska walked beside hermaster, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing thesleeping peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examinedhis pistols and let his dog off. One of the horses, a sleek,dark-brown three-year-old, seeing the dog, started away, switchedits tail and snorted. The other horses too were frightened, andsplashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawingtheir hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, theybounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking ironically atthe horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, andwhistled as a sign that she might begin.

　　Laska ran joyfully and anxiously through the slush that swayedunder her.

　　Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marshplants, and slime, and the extraneous smell of horse dung, Laskadetected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scentof that strong-smelling bird that always excited her more thanany other. Here and there among the moss and marsh plants thisscent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine inwhich direction it grew stronger or fainter. To find thedirection, she had to go farther away from the wind. Not feelingthe motion of her legs, Laska bounded with a stiff gallop, sothat at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away fromthe wind that blew from the east before sunrise, and turnedfacing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, shefelt at once that not their tracks only but they themselves werehere before her, and not one, but many. Laska slackened herspeed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yetdetermine. To find the very spot, she began to make a circle,when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. "Laska! here?" heasked, pointing her to a different direction. She stopped,asking him if she had better not go on doing as she had begun.But he repeated his command in an angry voice, pointing to a spotcovered with water, where there could not be anything. Sheobeyed him, pretending she was looking, so as to please him, wentround it, and went back to her former position, and was at onceaware of the scent again. Now when he was not hindering her, sheknew what to do, and without looking at what was under her feet,and to her vexation stumbling over a high stump into the water,but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she beganmaking the circle which was to make all clear to her. The scentof them reached her, stronger and stronger, and more and moredefined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her thatone of them was here, behind this tuft of reeds, five paces infront of her; she stopped, and her whole body was still andrigid. On her short legs she could see nothing in front of her,but by the scent she knew it was sitting not more than five pacesoff. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, andenjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight andtense, and only wagging at the extreme end. Her mouth wasslightly open, her ears raised. One ear had been turned wrongside out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, andstill more warily looked round, but more with her eyes than herhead, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knewso well, though the eyes were always terrible to her. Hestumbled over the stump as he came, and moved, as she thought,extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he wasrunning.

　　Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground,as it were, scratching big prints with her hind paws, and withher mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at grouse,and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the firstbird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he couldfrom his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes whatshe was seeing with her nose. In a space between two littlethickets, to a couple of yards' distance, he could see agrouse. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightlypreening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a cornerwith a clumsy wag of its tail.

　　"Fetch it, fetch it!" shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove frombehind.

　　"But I can't go," thought Laska. "Where am I to go? From here Ifeel them, but if I move forward I shall know nothing of wherethey are or who they are." But then he shoved her with his knee,and in an excited whisper said, "Fetch it, Laska."

　　"Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answerfor myself now," she thought, and darted forward as fast as herlegs would carry her between the thick bushes. She scentednothing now; she could only see and hear, without understandinganything.

　　Ten paces from her former place a grouse rose with a guttural cryand the peculiar round sound of its wings. And immediately afterthe shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wetmire. Another bird did not linger, but rose behind Levin withoutthe dog. When Levin turned towards it, it was already some wayoff. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces further, thesecond grouse rose upwards, and whirling round like a ball,dropped heavily on a dry place.

　　"Come, this is going to be some good!" thought Levin, packing thewarm and fat grouse into his game bag. "Eh, Laska, will it begood?"

　　When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fullyrisen, though unseen behind the storm-clouds. The moon had lostall of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not asingle star could be seen. The sedge, silvery with dew before,now shone like gold. The stagnant pools were all like amber.The blue of the grass had changed to yellow-green. The marshbirds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the bushesthat glittered with dew and cast long shadows. A hawk woke upand settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side andlooking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about thefield, and a bare-legged boy was driving the horses to an oldman, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing hishair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green ofthe grass.

　　One of the boys ran up to Levin.

　　"Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!" he shouted to him, andhe walked a little way off behind him.

　　And Levin was doubly pleased, in sight of the boy, who expressedhis approval, at killing three snipe, one after another, straightoff.