Chapter 8

Next day, before the ladies were up, the wagonette and a trap for the shooting party were at the door, and Laska, aware since early morning that they were going shooting, after much whining and darting to and fro, had sat herself down in the wagonette beside the coachman, and, disapproving of the delay, was excitedly watching the door from which the sportsmen still did not come out. The first to come out was Vassenka Veslovsky, in new high boots that reached half-way up his thick thighs, in a green blouse, with a new Russian leather cartridge-belt, and in his Scotch cap with ribbons, with a brand-new English gun without a sling. Laska flew up to him, welcomed him, and jumping up, asked him in her own way whether the others were coming soon, but getting no answer from him, she returned to her post of observation and sank into repose again, her head on one side, and one ear pricked up to listen. At last the door opened with a creak, and Stepan Arkadyevitch’s spot-and-tan pointer Krak flew out, running round and round and turning over in the air. Stepan Arkadyevitch himself followed with a gun in his hand and a cigar in his mouth.

‘Good dog, good dog, Krak!’ he cried encouragingly to the dog, who put his paws up on his chest, catching at his game bag. Stepan Arkadyevitch was dressed in rough leggings and spats, in torn trousers and a short coat. On his head there was a wreck of a hat of indefinite form, but his gun of a new patent was a perfect gem, and his game bag and cartridge belt, though worn, were of the very best quality.

Vassenka Veslovsky had had no notion before that it was truly chic for a sportsman to be in tatters, but to have his shooting outfit of the best quality. He saw it now as he looked at Stepan Arkadyevitch, radiant in his rags, graceful, well-fed, and joyous, a typical Russian nobleman. And he made up his mind that next time he went shooting he would certainly adopt the same get-up.

‘Well, and what about our host?’ he asked.

‘A young wife,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling.

‘Yes, and such a charming one!’

‘He came down dressed. No doubt he’s run up to her again.’

Stepan Arkadyevitch guessed right. Levin had run up again to his wife to ask her once more if she forgave him for his idiocy yesterday, and, moreover, to beg her for Christ’s sake to be more careful. The great thing was for her to keep away from the children—they might any minute push against her. Then he had once more to hear her declare that she was not angry with him for going away for two days, and to beg her to be sure to send him a note next morning by a servant on horseback, to write him, if it were but two words only, to let him know that all was well with her.

Kitty was distressed, as she always was, at parting for a couple of days from her husband, but when she saw his eager figure, looking big and strong in his shooting-boots and his white blouse, and a sort of sportsman elation and excitement incomprehensible to her, she forgot her own chagrin for the sake of his pleasure, and said good-bye to him cheerfully.

‘Pardon, gentlemen!’ he said, running out onto the steps. ‘Have you put the lunch in? Why is the chestnut on the right? Well, it doesn’t matter. Laska, down; go and lie down!’

‘Put it with the herd of oxen,’ he said to the herdsman, who was waiting for him at the steps with some question. ‘Excuse me, here comes another villain.’

Levin jumped out of the wagonette, in which he had already taken his seat, to meet the carpenter, who came towards the steps with a rule in his hand.

‘You didn’t come to the counting house yesterday, and now you’re detaining me. Well, what is it?’

‘Would your honor let me make another turning? It’s only three steps to add. And we make it just fit at the same time. It will be much more convenient.’

‘You should have listened to me,’ Levin answered with annoyance. ‘I said: Put the lines and then fit in the steps. Now there’s no setting it right. Do as I told you, and make a new staircase.’

The point was that in the lodge that was being built the carpenter had spoiled the staircase, fitting it together without calculating the space it was to fill, so that the steps were all sloping when it was put in place. Now the carpenter wanted, keeping the same staircase, to add three steps.

‘It will be much better.’

‘But where’s your staircase coming out with its three steps?’

‘Why, upon my word, sir,’ the carpenter said with a contemptuous smile. ‘It comes out right at the very spot. It starts, so to speak,’ he said, with a persuasive gesture; ‘it comes down, and comes down, and comes out.’

‘But three steps will add to the length too…where is it to come out?’

‘Why, to be sure, it’ll start from the bottom and go up and go up, and come out so,’ the carpenter said obstinately and convincingly.

‘It’ll reach the ceiling and the wall.’

‘Upon my word! Why, it’ll go up, and up, and come out like this.’

Levin took out a ramrod and began sketching him the staircase in the dust.

‘There, do you see?’

‘As your honor likes,’ said the carpenter, with a sudden gleam in his eyes, obviously understanding the thing at last. ‘It seems it’ll be best to make a new one.’

‘Well, then, do it as you’re told,’ Levin shouted, seating himself in the wagonette. ‘Down! Hold the dogs, Philip!’

Levin felt now at leaving behind all his family and household cares such an eager sense of joy in life and expectation that he was not disposed to talk. Besides that, he had that feeling of concentrated excitement that every sportsman experiences as he approaches the scene of action. If he had anything on his mind at that moment, it was only the doubt whether they would start anything in the Kolpensky marsh, whether Laska would show to advantage in comparison with Krak, and whether he would shoot well that day himself. Not to disgrace himself before a new spectator—not to be outdone by Oblonsky—that too was a thought that crossed his brain.

Oblonsky was feeling the same, and he too was not talkative. Vassenka Veslovsky kept up alone a ceaseless flow of cheerful chatter. As he listened to him now, Levin felt ashamed to think how unfair he had been to him the day before. Vassenka was really a nice fellow, simple, good-hearted, and very good-humored. If Levin had met him before he was married, he would have made friends with him. Levin rather disliked his holiday attitude to life and a sort of free and easy assumption of elegance. It was as though he assumed a high degree of importance in himself that could not be disputed, because he had long nails and a stylish cap, and everything else to correspond; but this could be forgiven for the sake of his good nature and good breeding. Levin liked him for his good education, for speaking French and English with such an excellent accent, and for being a man of his world.

Vassenka was extremely delighted with the left horse, a horse of the Don Steppes. He kept praising him enthusiastically. ‘How fine it must be galloping over the steppes on a steppe horse! Eh? isn’t it?’ he said. He had imagined riding on a steppe horse as something wild and romantic, and it turned out nothing of the sort. But his simplicity, particularly in conjunction with his good looks, his amiable smile, and the grace of his movements, was very attractive. Either because his nature was sympathetic to Levin, or because Levin was trying to atone for his sins of the previous evening by seeing nothing but what was good in him, anyway he liked his society.

After they had driven over two miles from home, Veslovsky all at once felt for a cigar and his pocketbook, and did not know whether he had lost them or left them on the table. In the pocketbook there were thirty-seven pounds, and so the matter could not be left in uncertainty.

‘Do you know what, Levin, I’ll gallop home on that left trace-horse. That will be splendid. Eh?’ he said, preparing to get out.

‘No, why should you?’ answered Levin, calculating that Vassenka could hardly weigh less than seventeen stone. ‘I’ll send the coachman.’

The coachman rode back on the trace-horse, and Levin himself drove the remaining pair.

Chapter 9

‘Well, now what’s our plan of campaign? Tell us all about it,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch.

‘Our plan is this. Now we’re driving to Gvozdyov. In Gvozdyov there’s a grouse marsh on this side, and beyond Gvozdyov come some magnificent snipe marshes where there are grouse too. It’s hot now, and we’ll get there—it’s fifteen miles or so—towards evening and have some evening shooting; we’ll spend the night there and go on tomorrow to the bigger moors.’

‘And is there nothing on the way?’

‘Yes; but we’ll reserve ourselves; besides it’s hot. There are two nice little places, but I doubt there being anything to shoot.’

Levin would himself have liked to go into these little places, but they were near home; he could shoot them over any time, and they were only little places—there would hardly be room for three to shoot. And so, with some insincerity, he said that he doubted there being anything to shoot. When they reached a little marsh Levin would have driven by, but Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the experienced eye of a sportsman, at once detected reeds visible from the road.

‘Shan’t we try that?’ he said, pointing to the little marsh.

‘Levin, do, please! how delightful!’ Vassenka Veslovsky began begging, and Levin could but consent.

Before they had time to stop, the dogs had flown one before the other into the marsh.

‘Krak! Laska!…’

The dogs came back.

‘There won’t be room for three. I’ll stay here,’ said Levin, hoping they would find nothing but peewits, who had been startled by the dogs, and turning over in their flight, were plaintively wailing over the marsh.

‘No! Come along, Levin, let’s go together!’ Veslovsky called.

‘Really, there’s not room. Laska, back, Laska! You won’t want another dog, will you?’

Levin remained with the wagonette, and looked enviously at the sportsmen. They walked right across the marsh. Except little birds and peewits, of which Vassenka killed one, there was nothing in the marsh.

‘Come, you see now that it was not that I grudged the marsh,’ said Levin, ‘only it’s wasting time.’

‘Oh, no, it was jolly all the same. Did you see us?’ said Vassenka Veslovsky, clambering awkwardly into the wagonette with his gun and his peewit in his hands. ‘How splendidly I shot this bird! Didn’t I? Well, shall we soon be getting to the real place?’

The horses started off suddenly, Levin knocked his head against the stock of someone’s gun, and there was the report of a shot. The gun did actually go off first, but that was how it seemed to Levin. It appeared that Vassenka Veslovsky had pulled only one trigger, and had left the other hammer still cocked. The charge flew into the ground without doing harm to anyone. Stepan Arkadyevitch shook his head and laughed reprovingly at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to reprove him. In the first place, any reproach would have seemed to be called forth by the danger he had incurred and the bump that had come up on Levin’s forehead. And besides, Veslovsky was at first so naively distressed, and then laughed so good-humoredly and infectiously at their general dismay, that one could not but laugh with him.

When they reached the second marsh, which was fairly large, and would inevitably take some time to shoot over, Levin tried to persuade them to pass it by. But Veslovsky again overpersuaded him. Again, as the marsh was narrow, Levin, like a good host, remained with the carriage.

Krak made straight for some clumps of sedge. Vassenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan Arkadyevitch had time to come up, a grouse flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into an unmown meadow. This grouse was left for Veslovsky to follow up. Krak found it again and pointed, and Veslovsky shot it and went back to the carriage. ‘Now you go and I’ll stay with the horses,’ he said.

Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman’s envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh.

Laska, who had been plaintively whining and fretting against the injustice of her treatment, flew straight ahead to a hopeful place that Levin knew well, and that Krak had not yet come upon.

‘Why don’t you stop her?’ shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch.

‘She won’t scare them,’ answered Levin, sympathizing with his bitch’s pleasure and hurrying after her.

As she came nearer and nearer to the familiar breeding places there was more and more earnestness in Laska’s exploration. A little marsh bird did not divert her attention for more than an instant. She made one circuit round the clump of reeds, was beginning a second, and suddenly quivered with excitement and became motionless.

‘Come, come, Stiva!’ shouted Levin, feeling his heart beginning to beat more violently; and all of a sudden, as though some sort of shutter had been drawn back from his straining ears, all sounds, confused but loud, began to beat on his hearing, losing all sense of distance. He heard the steps of Stepan Arkadyevitch, mistaking them for the tramp of the horses in the distance; he heard the brittle sound of the twigs on which he had trodden, taking this sound for the flying of a grouse. He heard too, not far behind him, a splashing in the water, which he could not explain to himself.

Picking his steps, he moved up to the dog.

‘Fetch it!’

Not a grouse but a snipe flew up from beside the dog. Levin had lifted his gun, but at the very instant when he was taking aim, the sound of splashing grew louder, came closer, and was joined with the sound of Veslovsky’s voice, shouting something with strange loudness. Levin saw he had his gun pointed behind the snipe, but still he fired.

When he had made sure he had missed, Levin looked round and saw the horses and the wagonette not on the road but in the marsh.

Veslovsky, eager to see the shooting, had driven into the marsh, and got the horses stuck in the mud.

‘Damn the fellow!’ Levin said to himself, as he went back to the carriage that had sunk in the mire. ‘What did you drive in for?’ he said to him dryly, and calling the coachman, he began pulling the horses out.

Levin was vexed both at being hindered from shooting and at his horses getting stuck in the mud, and still more at the fact that neither Stepan Arkadyevitch nor Veslovsky helped him and the coachman to unharness the horses and get them out, since neither of them had the slightest notion of harnessing. Without vouchsafing a syllable in reply to Vassenka’s protestations that it had been quite dry there, Levin worked in silence with the coachman at extricating the horses. But then, as he got warm at the work and saw how assiduously Veslovsky was tugging at the wagonette by one of the mud-guards, so that he broke it indeed, Levin blamed himself for having under the influence of yesterday’s feelings been too cold to Veslovsky, and tried to be particularly genial so as to smooth over his chilliness. When everything had been put right, and the carriage had been brought back to the road, Levin had the lunch served.

‘Bon appetit—bonne conscience! Ce poulet va tomber jusqu’au fond de mes bottes,’ Vassenka, who had recovered his spirits, quoted the French saying as he finished his second chicken. ‘Well, now our troubles are over, now everything’s going to go well. Only, to atone for my sins, I’m bound to sit on the box. That’s so? eh? No, no! I’ll be your Automedon. You shall see how I’ll get you along,’ he answered, not letting go the rein, when Levin begged him to let the coachman drive. ‘No, I must atone for my sins, and I’m very comfortable on the box.’ And he drove.

Levin was a little afraid he would exhaust the horses, especially the chestnut, whom he did not know how to hold in; but unconsciously he fell under the influence of his gaiety and listened to the songs he sang all the way on the box, or the descriptions and representations he gave of driving in the English fashion, four-in-hand; and it was in the very best of spirits that after lunch they drove to the Gvozdyov marsh.