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‘Hasn’t the fresh hay a strong scent¹!’ remarked Oblonsky, sitting up. ‘Nothing will make me sleep. Vasenka is up to something out there. Don’t you hear the laughter and his voice? Shan’t we go too? Let’s!’

 

‘No, I am not going,’ answered Levin.

 

‘Maybe you are stopping here on principle?’ said Oblonsky, smiling, as he searched in the dark for his cap.

 

‘No, not on principle, but why should I go?’

 

‘D’you know, you will bring trouble on yourself,’ said Oblonsky, having found his cap and getting up.

 

‘Why?’

 

‘Don’t I see how you have placed yourself with your wife? I heard you discussing as a question of first-rate importance, whether you should go away shooting for two days or not! That’s all very well for an idyll, but it can’t last a lifetime. A man should be independent — he has his own masculine interests. A man must be manly²,’ said Oblonsky, opening the door.

 

‘Is that to say, he should court the maid-servants?’ asked Levin.

 

‘Why not, if it’s amusing? Ça ne tire pas à conséquence! [It’s of no consequence!] My wife won’t be the worse for it, and I shall have a spree. The important part is to guard the sanctity of the home! Nothing of that kind at home; but you needn’t tie your hands.’

 

‘Perhaps!’ said Levin drily, and turned on his side. ‘To-morrow one should start early, and I shall wake no one but shall start at daybreak.’

 

‘Messieurs! Venez vite! [Gentlemen! Come quickly!]’ came the voice of Veslovsky, who had come back. ‘Charmante! [Charming!] It’s my discovery. Charmante! A perfect Gretchen, and I have already made her acquaintance. Really, very pretty!’ he said in such an approving way, as if she had been made pretty specially³ for him, and he was satisfied with the maker⁴.

 

Levin pretended to be asleep, but Oblonsky, having put on his slippers⁵ and lit a cigar, left the barn, and their voices soon died away.

 

Levin could not fall asleep for a long time. He heard his horses chewing hay; then how the master and his eldest⁶ son got ready and rode away for the night to pasture their horses; then how the soldier settled down to sleep on the other side of the barn with his nephew, their host’s little son; he heard the boy in his treble voice imparting to his uncle his impressions of the dogs, which seemed to him terrible and enormous; then how the boy asked what those dogs were going to catch, and he heard how the soldier replied in a hoarse⁷ and sleepy voice that the sportsmen would go next day to the marshes⁸ and fire guns, adding, to stop the questioning: ‘Sleep, Vaska, sleep, or else look out!’ Soon the soldier himself began to snore, and all was still, except for the neighing of the horses and the cry of snipe. ‘Can it be only done in a negative sense?’ Levin repeated to himself. ‘Well, what then? It’s not my fault.’ And he began to think of the coming day.

 

‘To-morrow I will start early in the morning, and make up my mind not to get excited. There are quantities of snipe and great snipe too. And when I come back, there will be a note from Kitty. Well, perhaps Stiva is right! I am not manly with her, I have grown effeminate. . . . Well, what’s to be done! Again, the negative answer.’

 

Through his sleep he heard laughter and Veslovsky’s and Oblonsky’s merry talk. He opened his eyes for an instant: they were standing⁹ chatting in the open doorway¹⁰, brightly lit up by the moon which had now risen. Oblonsky was saying something about the freshness of a girl, comparing her to a fresh kernel¹¹ just taken from its shell; and Veslovsky was laughing his merry infectious laugh, and repeating something that had probably been told him by a peasant: ‘You’d better strive for a wife of your own!’

 

‘Gentlemen! To-morrow at dawn!’ Levin mumbled¹² drowsily¹³, and fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 12

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WAKING at early dawn Levin tried to rouse his companions. Vasenka, lying prone with one stockinged leg outstretched, was sleeping so soundly that it was impossible to get any answer out of him.

 

Oblonsky, half asleep, refused to budge so early. Even Laska, sleeping curled into a ring on a corner of the hay heap, got up reluctantly, and lazily stretched and adjusted first one hind leg and then the other. Having put on his boots, taken his gun, and carefully opened the creaking barn doors, Levin went out into the street. The coachmen were asleep beside the vehicles, the horses were drowsing. Only one of them was lazily eating oats, scattering them over the edge of the trough. The outside world was still grey.

 

‘Why have you risen so early, my dear?’ said his aged hostess, who came out of her hut, addressing him cordially as a good old acquaintance.

 

‘Why, I am off shooting, Granny! Can I get to the marsh this way?’

 

‘Straight along at the back of the huts, past our threshing floors, my dear; and then through the hemp-field. There’s a path.’

 

Carefully stepping with her bare sunburnt feet the old woman showed him the way and lifted for him one of the bars enclosing the threshing-floor.

 

‘Go straight on, and you’ll step right into the marsh. Our lads took the horses that way last night.’

 

Laska ran ahead gaily along the footpath, and Levin followed at a brisk pace, continually glancing at the sky. He did not wish the sun to rise before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not tarry. The moon, which was still giving light when first he went out, now shone only like quicksilver; the streak of dawn, previously so noticeable, now had to be looked for; what had been vague spots on the distant field were now clearly visible. They were shocks of rye. Still invisible in the absence of the sun, the dew on the tall scented hemp, from which the male plants had already been weeded out, wetted Levin’s legs and his blouse to above his belt. In the translucent stillness of the morning the slightest sounds were audible. A bee flew past his ear, whistling like a bullet. He looked close and saw another and a third. They all came from behind the wattle fence of an apiary, and flying across the hemp-field disappeared in the direction of the marsh. The path led him straight to the marsh, which was recognizable by the mist rising from it, thicker at one spot and thinner at another, so that the sedge and willow bushes looked like islets swaying in the mist. At the edge of the marsh the peasant boys and men who had pastured their horses in the night lay, covered with their coats, having fallen asleep at daybreak. Not far from them, three hobbled horses were moving about. One of them clattered its shackles. Laska walked beside her master, seeking permission to run forward and looking around. When he had passed the sleeping peasants and reached the first wet place, Levin examined his percussion caps and allowed Laska to go. One of the horses, a well-fed three-year-old chestnut, on seeing the dog, started, lifted his tail, and snorted. The other horses, also alarmed, splashed through the water with their hobbled feet, making a sound of slapping as they drew their hoofs out of the thick clayey mud, and began floundering their way out of the marsh. Laska paused with a mocking look at the horses and a questioning one at Levin. He stroked her, and whistled as a sign that she might now set off.

 

Joyful and preoccupied, Laska started running across the bog, which swayed beneath her feet.

 

On entering the marsh Laska at once perceived, mingled with the various familiar smells of roots, marsh, grass, and rust, and with the unfamiliar smell of horse dung, the scent of the birds — those strong-smelling birds that excited her most — spreading all over the place. Here and there among the marsh mosses and docks, that smell was very strong; but it was impossible to decide in which direction it grew stronger or weaker. To find this out it was necessary to go further away in the direction of the wind. Hardly aware of her legs under her, Laska ran at a strained gallop, which she could cut short at a bound should occasion arise, to the right, away from the morning breeze which blew from the east, and then turned to windward. After inhaling the air with distended nostrils she knew at once that not their scent only but they themselves were there, before her, not one only but many of them. She slackened speed. They were there, but she could not yet determine exactly where. To decide this she began working round in a circle, when her master’s voice disturbed her. ‘Laska! Here!’ he said, pointing to the other side. She stood still, as if asking him whether it would not be better to continue as she had begun; but he repeated his command in a stern voice, pointing to a group of hummocks covered with water where there could not be anything. She obeyed, pretending to search in order to please him, went over the whole place and then returned to the first spot and immediately scented them once more. Now that he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and without looking where she was stepping, stumbling over hummocks and getting into the water, but surmounting the obstacles with her flexible strong legs, she began the circle which was to make everything clear. Their scent came to her more and more pungently, more and more distinctly, and all at once it became quite clear to her that one of them was here behind a hummock, five steps in front. She stopped and her whole body grew rigid. The shortness of her legs prevented her seeing anything before her, but from the scent she could tell that it was not five paces off. She stood, more and more conscious of its presence and enjoying the anticipation. Her rigid tail was outstretched, only its very tip twitching. Her mouth was slightly open and her ears erect. One of her ears had turned back while she ran, she breathed heavily but cautiously, and yet more cautiously looked toward her master, turning her eyes rather than her head. He, with his familiar face but ever-terrible eyes, came stumbling over the hummocks, but unusually slowly, she thought. So it seemed to her, though in reality he was running.

 

Noticing Laska’s peculiar manner of searching, as lowering her body almost to the ground she appeared to be dragging her broad hind paws, he knew that she was pointing at snipe, and while running up to her he prayed inwardly for success, especially with the first bird. Having come close up to her he looked beyond, and from his height saw with his eyes what she had found with her nose. In the space between the hummocks, at a distance of about a sazhen, he could see a snipe. It sat with turned head, listening. Then, just spreading its wings slightly and folding them again, it vanished round a corner with an awkward backward jerk.

 

‘Seize it! Seize it!’ shouted Levin, pushing Laska from behind.

 

‘But I can’t go,’ thought she. ‘Where should I go to? From here I scent them, but if I go forward, I shall not know what I am doing, nor where they are, nor who they are.’ But now he pushed her with his knee, saying in an excited whisper, ‘Seize it, Laska! Seize it!’

 

‘Well, if he wishes it, I will, but I can no longer answer for anything,’ thought Laska, and rushed forward at full tilt between the hummocks. She now scented nothing more, but only saw and heard without understanding anything.

 

With lusty cries and a sound of the beating of concave wings so peculiar to the great snipe, a bird rose; and, following the report of the gun, it fell heavily on its white breast ten paces from the first spot into the wet bog. Another rose behind Levin without waiting to be disturbed by the dog. By the time Levin had turned toward it, it had already gone far: but his shot reached it. After flying some twenty feet, the second snipe rose at an acute angle, and then, turning round and round like a ball, fell heavily on a dry spot.

 

‘Now, things will go right,’ thought Levin, putting the warm fat snipe into his bag. ‘Eh, Laska dear, will things go right?’

 

When, having reloaded, Levin went on again, the sun, though still invisible because of the clouds, had already risen. The moon had lost all her brilliancy and gleamed like a little cloud in the sky. Not a single star was any longer visible. The marsh grass that had glittered like silver in the dew was now golden. The rusty patches were like amber. The bluish grasses had turned yellowish green. Marsh birds were busy in the dew-bespangled bushes that cast long shadows beside the brook. A hawk had woken up and was sitting on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying to the fields, and a barefooted boy was already driving the horses toward an old man, who had got up from beneath his coat and sat scratching himself. The powder-smoke spread like milk over the green grass.

 

A boy ran up to Levin.

 

‘Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!’ he shouted, following Levin from afar.

 

And Levin felt increased pleasure in killing three snipe one after another within sight of this little boy, who expressed his approval.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

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THE sportsman’s saying, that if you don’t miss your first beast or first bird your day will be successful was justified.

 

Tired, hungry, and happy, Levin returned to his lodging toward ten o’clock, having tramped some thirty versts and bringing nineteen red-fleshed birds, besides a duck tied to his girdle, as there was no room for it in his bag. His comrades had wakened long before, and had time to get hungry and have their breakfast.

 

‘Wait a bit — wait a bit! I know there are nineteen,’ said Levin, for a second time counting his snipe and great snipe, which no longer had the important appearance they bore when on the wing, but were twisted, dried up, smeared with congealed blood, and had heads bent to one side.

 

The tale was correct, and Oblonsky’s envy gratified Levin. He was also pleased that on his return he found a messenger had already arrived from Kitty with a note.

 

‘I am quite well and happy. If you were uneasy about me, you may be quite at ease now. I have a new bodyguard — Mary Vlasyevna,’ this was the midwife, a new and important personage in the Levins’ family life. ‘She has come to see me and finds me perfectly well, and we have got her to stay till your return. All are cheerful and well, so don’t hurry and even stay another day if your sport is good.’

 

These two joys, his successful shooting and the news from his wife, were so great that two small unpleasantnesses which occurred after the shooting were easy to disregard. One was that the chestnut side-horse, having evidently been overworked the previous day, was off its feed and seemed dull. The coachman said it had been strained.

 

‘It was overdriven yesterday, Constantine Dmitrich,’ he said. ‘Why, it was driven hard for ten versts!’

 

The other unpleasantness, which for a moment upset his good-humour, but about which he afterwards laughed heartily, was that of all the provisions that Kitty had provided so lavishly that it had appeared impossible to eat them up in a week, nothing was left! Returning tired and hungry from his sport, Levin so vividly anticipated the pies that on approaching his lodging he seemed to smell and taste them — just as Laska scented game — and he immediately ordered Philip to serve them. It turned out that there were no pies, nor even any chicken left!

 

‘He has an appetite!’ said Oblonsky, laughing and pointing to Vasenka Veslovsky. ‘I don’t suffer from lack of appetite, but he’s quite surprising . . .’

 

‘Well, it can’t be helped!’ said Levin, looking morosely at Veslovsky. ‘Well then, bring me some beef, Philip!’

 

‘The beef has been eaten, and the bone was given to the dogs,’ answered Philip.

 

Levin was so annoyed that he said crossly: ‘Something might have been left for me!’ and he felt inclined to cry. ‘Well then, draw the birds and stuff them with nettles,’ said he in a trembling voice to Philip, trying not to look at Veslovsky; ‘and ask at least for some milk for me.’

 

Later on, when he had satisfied his hunger with the milk, he felt ashamed of having shown annoyance to a stranger, and he began laughing at his hungry irritation.

 

In the evening they again went out shooting, when Veslovsky also killed some birds, and late at night they set off home.

 

The drive back was as merry as the drive out had been. Veslovsky now sang, now recalled with relish his adventures with the peasants who entertained him with vodka and said ‘No offence!’; and now his night exploits with hazel nuts, the maid-servant, and the peasant who asked him whether he was married, and learning that he was not said: ‘Don’t hanker after other men’s wives, but above all things strive to get one of your own!’ These words particularly amused Veslovsky.

 

‘Altogether I am awfully pleased with our outing. . . . And you, Levin?’

 

‘I am very pleased with it too,’ said Levin sincerely. He was glad not only to feel no hostility such as he had felt at home toward Vasenka Veslovsky, but on the contrary to feel quite friendly toward him.

 

 

 

Chapter 14

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NEXT morning at ten o’clock Levin, having made the round of his farm, knocked at the door of Vasenka’s room.

 

‘Entrez!’ shouted Veslovsky. ‘Excuse me — I have only just finished my ablutions,’ he said smiling, as he stood before Levin in his underclothes.

 

‘Please don’t mind me,’ and Levin sat down by the window. ‘Have you slept well?’

 

‘Like the dead! What a day it is for shooting!’

 

‘What do you drink, tea or coffee?’

 

‘Neither. Nothing before lunch. I am really quite ashamed. I expect the ladies are already up? It would be fine to go for a walk now. You must show me your horses.’

 

When they had walked round the garden, visited the stables, and even done some gymnastics together on the parallel bars, Levin returned to the house with his guest and entered the drawing-room with him.

 

‘We had fine sport, and so many new impressions!’ said Veslovsky, approaching Kitty, who sat at the samovar. ‘What a pity ladies are deprived of that pleasure.’

 

‘Well, what of it? He must say something to the mistress of the house,’ Levin told himself. He again thought he noticed something in the smile and conquering air with which the visitor addressed Kitty. . . .

 

The Princess, who sat at the other end of the table with Mary Vlasyevna and Oblonsky, called Levin and began a conversation about moving to Moscow for Kitty’s confinement and taking a house there. Just as all the preparations for the wedding had been disagreeable to him, since they detracted by their insignificance from the majesty of what was taking place, so now the preparations for the coming birth, the time of which they were reckoning on their fingers, appeared to him yet more offensive. He always tried not to hear those conversations about the best way of swaddling the future infant, tried to turn away and not see those mysterious endless knitted binders and three-cornered pieces of linen, to which Dolly attached special importance, — and all the rest. The birth of a son (he was certain it would be a son) which they promised him, but in which he still could not believe, so extraordinary did it seem, appeared to him on the one hand such an immense and therefore impossible happiness, and on the other such a mysterious event, that this pretended knowledge of what was going to happen and consequent preparations as for something ordinary, something produced by human beings, seemed to him an indignity and a degradation.

 

But the Princess did not understand his feelings and attributed his unwillingness to think and speak about it to thoughtlessness and indifference, and therefore gave him no peace. She was now commissioning Oblonsky to see about a house, and called Levin to her.

 

‘I don’t know at all, Princess. Do as you think best,’ he said.

 

‘You must decide when you will move.’

 

‘I really don’t know. I know that millions of children are born without Moscow and without doctors; then why . . .’

 

‘Well, if that’s . . .’

 

‘Oh no! Just as Kitty likes.’

 

‘But one can’t talk to Kitty about it! Why, do you want me to frighten her? You know, only this spring Nataly Golitsin died because she had a bad doctor.’

 

‘I will do whatever you tell me to,’ he replied morosely.

 

The Princess began telling him, but he did not listen to her. Though this talk with the Princess upset him, it was not that but what he saw by the samovar which made him morose.

 

‘No, this is impossible,’ he thought, glancing occasionally at Vasenka, who was leaning toward Kitty and saying something, with his handsome smile, and at Kitty, blushing and agitated.

 

There was something impure in Vasenka’s attitude, his look and his smile. Levin even saw something impure in Kitty’s pose and smile; and again the light faded from his eyes. Again, as on the previous occasion, he suddenly, without the least interval, felt thrown from the height of happiness, peace, and dignity into an abyss of despair, malevolence, and degradation. Again every one and everything became revolting to him.