Chapter 10

Vassenka drove the horses so smartly that they reached the marsh too early, while it was still hot.

As they drew near this more important marsh, the chief aim of their expedition, Levin could not help considering how he could get rid of Vassenka and be free in his movements. Stepan Arkadyevitch evidently had the same desire, and on his face Levin saw the look of anxiety always present in a true sportsman when beginning shooting, together with a certain good-humored slyness peculiar to him.

‘How shall we go? It’s a splendid marsh, I see, and there are hawks,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, pointing to two great birds hovering over the reeds. ‘Where there are hawks, there is sure to be game.’

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Levin, pulling up his boots and examining the lock of his gun with rather a gloomy expression, ‘do you see those reeds?’ He pointed to an oasis of blackish green in the huge half-mown wet meadow that stretched along the right bank of the river. ‘The marsh begins here, straight in front of us, do you see—where it is greener? From here it runs to the right where the horses are; there are breeding places there, and grouse, and all round those reeds as far as that alder, and right up to the mill. Over there, do you see, where the pools are? That’s the best place. There I once shot seventeen snipe. We’ll separate with the dogs and go in different directions, and then meet over there at the mill.’

‘Well, which shall go to left and which to right?’ asked Stepan Arkadyevitch. ‘It’s wider to the right; you two go that way and I’ll take the left,’ he said with apparent carelessness.

‘Capital! we’ll make the bigger bag! Yes, come along, come along!’ Vassenka exclaimed.

Levin could do nothing but agree, and they divided.

As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began hunting about together and made towards the green, slime-covered pool. Levin knew Laska’s method, wary and indefinite; he knew the place too and expected a whole covey of snipe.

‘Veslovsky, beside me, walk beside me!’ he said in a faint voice to his companion splashing in the water behind him. Levin could not help feeling an interest in the direction his gun was pointed, after that casual shot near the Kolpensky marsh.

‘Oh, I won’t get in your way, don’t trouble about me.’

But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty’s words at parting: ‘Mind you don’t shoot one another.’ The dogs came nearer and nearer, passed each other, each pursuing its own scent. The expectation of snipe was so intense that to Levin the squelching sound of his own heel, as he drew it up out of the mire, seemed to be the call of a snipe, and he clutched and pressed the lock of his gun.

‘Bang! bang!’ sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a flock of ducks which was hovering over the marsh and flying at that moment towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before Levin had time to look round, there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and some eight more rose one after another.

Stepan Arkadyevitch hit one at the very moment when it was beginning its zigzag movements, and the snipe fell in a heap into the mud. Oblonsky aimed deliberately at another, still flying low in the reeds, and together with the report of the shot, that snipe too fell, and it could be seen fluttering out where the sedge had been cut, its unhurt wing showing white beneath.

Levin was not so lucky: he aimed at his first bird too low, and missed; he aimed at it again, just as it was rising, but at that instant another snipe flew up at his very feet, distracting him so that he missed again.

While they were loading their guns, another snipe rose, and Veslovsky, who had had time to load again, sent two charges of small-shot into the water. Stepan Arkadyevitch picked up his snipe, and with sparkling eyes looked at Levin.

‘Well, now let us separate,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and limping on his left foot, holding his gun in readiness and whistling to his dog, he walked off in one direction. Levin and Veslovsky walked in the other.

It always happened with Levin that when his first shots were a failure he got hot and out of temper, and shot badly the whole day. So it was that day. The snipe showed themselves in numbers. They kept flying up from just under the dogs, from under the sportsmen’s legs, and Levin might have retrieved his ill luck. But the more he shot, the more he felt disgraced in the eyes of Veslovsky, who kept popping away merrily and indiscriminately, killing nothing, and not in the slightest abashed by his ill success. Levin, in feverish haste, could not restrain himself, got more and more out of temper, and ended by shooting almost without a hope of hitting. Laska, indeed, seemed to understand this. She began looking more languidly, and gazed back at the sportsmen, as it were, with perplexity or reproach in her eyes. Shots followed shots in rapid succession. The smoke of the powder hung about the sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the game bag there were only three light little snipe. And of these one had been killed by Veslovsky alone, and one by both of them together. Meanwhile from the other side of the marsh came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s shots, not frequent, but, as Levin fancied, well-directed, for almost after each they heard ‘Krak, Krak, apporte!’

This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over the marsh.

After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants’ mowing-grass was divided into long strips reaching to the reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass, in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been mown.

Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as the cut part, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadyevitch to meet him, and so he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches.

‘Hi, sportsmen!’ shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an unharnessed cart; ‘come and have some lunch with us! Have a drop of wine!’

Levin looked round.

‘Come along, it’s all right!’ shouted a good-humored-looking bearded peasant with a red face, showing his white teeth in a grin, and holding up a greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight.

‘Qu’est-ce qu’ils disent?’ asked Veslovsky.

‘They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they’ve been dividing the meadow into lots. I should have some,’ said Levin, not without some guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go away to them.

‘Why do they offer it?’

‘Oh, they’re merry-making. Really, you should join them. You would be interested.’

‘Allons, c’est curieux.’

‘You go, you go, you’ll find the way to the mill!’ cried Levin, and looking round he perceived with satisfaction that Veslovsky, bent and stumbling with weariness, holding his gun out at arm’s length, was making his way out of the marsh towards the peasants.

‘You come too!’ the peasants shouted to Levin. ‘Never fear! You taste our cake!’

Levin felt a strong inclination to drink a little vodka and to eat some bread. He was exhausted, and felt it a great effort to drag his staggering legs out of the mire, and for a minute he hesitated. But Laska was setting. And immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the swamp towards the dog. A snipe flew up at his feet; he fired and killed it. Laska still pointed.—‘Fetch it!’ Another bird flew up close to the dog. Levin fired. But it was an unlucky day for him; he missed it, and when he went to look for the one he had shot, he could not find that either. He wandered all about the reeds, but Laska did not believe he had shot it, and when he sent her to find it, she pretended to hunt for it, but did not really. And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his failure, things went no better. There were plenty of snipe still, but Levin made one miss after another.

The slanting rays of the sun were still hot; his clothes, soaked through with perspiration, stuck to his body; his left boot full of water weighed heavily on his leg and squeaked at every step; the sweat ran in drops down his powder-grimed face, his mouth was full of the bitter taste, his nose of the smell of powder and stagnant water, his ears were ringing with the incessant whir of the snipe; he could not touch the stock of his gun, it was so hot; his heart beat with short, rapid throbs; his hands shook with excitement, and his weary legs stumbled and staggered over the hillocks and in the swamp, but still he walked on and still he shot. At last, after a disgraceful miss, he flung his gun and his hat on the ground.

‘No, I must control myself,’ he said to himself. Picking up his gun and his hat, he called Laska, and went out of the swamp. When he got on to dry ground he sat down, pulled off his boot and emptied it, then walked to the marsh, drank some stagnant-tasting water, moistened his burning hot gun, and washed his face and hands. Feeling refreshed, he went back to the spot where a snipe had settled, firmly resolved to keep cool.

He tried to be calm, but it was the same again. His finger pressed the cock before he had taken a good aim at the bird. It got worse and worse.

He had only five birds in his game-bag when he walked out of the marsh towards the alders where he was to rejoin Stepan Arkadyevitch.

Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevitch he saw his dog. Krak darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, black all over with the stinking mire of the marsh, and with the air of a conqueror sniffed at Laska. Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He came to meet him, red and perspiring, with unbuttoned neckband, still limping in the same way.

‘Well? You have been popping away!’ he said, smiling good-humoredly.

‘How have you got on?’ queried Levin. But there was no need to ask, for he had already seen the full game bag.

‘Oh, pretty fair.’

He had fourteen birds.

‘A splendid marsh! I’ve no doubt Veslovsky got in your way. It’s awkward too, shooting with one dog,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, to soften his triumph.

Chapter 11

When Levin and Stepan Arkadyevitch reached the peasant’s hut where Levin always used to stay, Veslovsky was already there. He was sitting in the middle of the hut, clinging with both hands to the bench from which he was being pulled by a soldier, the brother of the peasant’s wife, who was helping him off with his miry boots. Veslovsky was laughing his infectious, good-humored laugh.

‘I’ve only just come. Ils ont ete charmants. Just fancy, they gave me drink, fed me! Such bread, it was exquisite! Delicieux! And the vodka, I never tasted any better. And they would not take a penny for anything. And they kept saying: ‘Excuse our homely ways.’’

‘What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you, to be sure. Do you suppose they keep vodka for sale?’ said the soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the blackened stocking.

In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean, and the smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room, and the absence of knives and forks, the party drank their tea and ate their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and clean, they went into a hay-barn swept ready for them, where the coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen.

Though it was dusk, not one of them wanted to go to sleep.

After wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns, of dogs, and of former shooting parties, the conversation rested on a topic that interested all of them. After Vassenka had several times over expressed his appreciation of this delightful sleeping place among the fragrant hay, this delightful broken cart (he supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been taken out), of the good nature of the peasants that had treated him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective masters, Oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting party at Malthus’s, where he had stayed the previous summer.

Malthus was a well-known capitalist, who had made his money by speculation in railway shares. Stepan Arkadyevitch described what grouse moors this Malthus had bought in the Tver province, and how they were preserved, and of the carriages and dogcarts in which the shooting party had been driven, and the luncheon pavilion that had been rigged up at the marsh.

‘I don’t understand you,’ said Levin, sitting up in the hay; ‘how is it such people don’t disgust you? I can understand a lunch with Lafitte is all very pleasant, but don’t you dislike just that very sumptuousness? All these people, just like our spirit monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them the contempt of everyone. They don’t care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved.’

‘Perfectly true!’ chimed in Vassenka Veslovsky. ‘Perfectly! Oblonsky, of course, goes out of bonhomie, but other people say: ‘Well, Oblonsky stays with them.’…’

‘Not a bit of it.’ Levin could hear that Oblonsky was smiling as he spoke. ‘I simply don’t consider him more dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They’ve all made their money alike—by their work and their intelligence.’

‘Oh, by what work? Do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them?’

‘Of course it’s work. Work in this sense, that if it were not for him and others like him, there would have been no railways.’

‘But that’s not work, like the work of a peasant or a learned profession.’

‘Granted, but it’s work in the sense that his activity produces a result—the railways. But of course you think the railways useless.’

‘No, that’s another question; I am prepared to admit that they’re useful. But all profit that is out of proportion to the labor expended is dishonest.’

‘But who is to define what is proportionate?’

‘Making profit by dishonest means, by trickery,’ said Levin, conscious that he could not draw a distinct line between honesty and dishonesty. ‘Such as banking, for instance,’ he went on. ‘It’s an evil—the amassing of huge fortunes without labor, just the same thing as with the spirit monopolies, it’s only the form that’s changed. Le roi est mort, vive le roi. No sooner were the spirit monopolies abolished than the railways came up, and banking companies; that, too, is profit without work.’

‘Yes, that may all be very true and clever…. Lie down, Krak!’ Stepan Arkadyevitch called to his dog, who was scratching and turning over all the hay. He was obviously convinced of the correctness of his position, and so talked serenely and without haste. ‘But you have not drawn the line between honest and dishonest work. That I receive a bigger salary than my chief clerk, though he knows more about the work than I do—that’s dishonest, I suppose?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Well, but I can tell you: your receiving some five thousand, let’s say, for your work on the land, while our host, the peasant here, however hard he works, can never get more than fifty roubles, is just as dishonest as my earning more than my chief clerk, and Malthus getting more than a station-master. No, quite the contrary; I see that society takes up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these people, which is utterly baseless, and I fancy there’s envy at the bottom of it….’

‘No, that’s unfair,’ said Veslovsky; ‘how could envy come in? There is something not nice about that sort of business.’

‘You say,’ Levin went on, ‘that it’s unjust for me to receive five thousand, while the peasant has fifty; that’s true. It is unfair, and I feel it, but…’

‘It really is. Why is it we spend our time riding, drinking, shooting, doing nothing, while they are forever at work?’ said Vassenka Veslovsky, obviously for the first time in his life reflecting on the question, and consequently considering it with perfect sincerity.

‘Yes, you feel it, but you don’t give him your property,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, intentionally, as it seemed, provoking Levin.

There had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism between the two brothers-in-law; as though, since they had married sisters, a kind of rivalry had sprung up between them as to which was ordering his life best, and now this hostility showed itself in the conversation, as it began to take a personal note.

‘I don’t give it away, because no one demands that from me, and if I wanted to, I could not give it away,’ answered Levin, ‘and have no one to give it to.’

‘Give it to this peasant, he would not refuse it.’

‘Yes, but how am I to give it up? Am I to go to him and make a deed of conveyance?’

‘I don’t know; but if you are convinced that you have no right…’

‘I’m not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel I have no right to give it up, that I have duties both to the land and to my family.’

‘No, excuse me, but if you consider this inequality is unjust, why is it you don’t act accordingly?…’

‘Well, I do act negatively on that idea, so far as not trying to increase the difference of position existing between him and me.’

‘No, excuse me, that’s a paradox.’

‘Yes, there’s something of a sophistry about that,’ Veslovsky agreed. ‘Ah! our host; so you’re not asleep yet?’ he said to the peasant who came into the barn, opening the creaking door. ‘How is it you’re not asleep?’

‘No, how’s one to sleep! I thought our gentlemen would be asleep, but I heard them chattering. I want to get a hook from here. She won’t bite?’ he added, stepping cautiously with his bare feet.

‘And where are you going to sleep?’

‘We are going out for the night with the beasts.’

‘Ah, what a night!’ said Veslovsky, looking out at the edge of the hut and the unharnessed wagonette that could be seen in the faint light of the evening glow in the great frame of the open doors. ‘But listen, there are women’s voices singing, and, on my word, not badly too. Who’s that singing, my friend?’

‘That’s the maids from hard by here.’

‘Let’s go, let’s have a walk! We shan’t go to sleep, you know. Oblonsky, come along!’

‘If one could only do both, lie here and go,’ answered Oblonsky, stretching. ‘It’s capital lying here.’

‘Well, I shall go by myself,’ said Veslovsky, getting up eagerly, and putting on his shoes and stockings. ‘Good-bye, gentlemen. If it’s fun, I’ll fetch you. You’ve treated me to some good sport, and I won’t forget you.’

‘He really is a capital fellow, isn’t he?’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, when Veslovsky had gone out and the peasant had closed the door after him.

‘Yes, capital,’ answered Levin, still thinking of the subject of their conversation just before. It seemed to him that he had clearly expressed his thoughts and feelings to the best of his capacity, and yet both of them, straightforward men and not fools, had said with one voice that he was comforting himself with sophistries. This disconcerted him.

‘It’s just this, my dear boy. One must do one of two things: either admit that the existing order of society is just, and then stick up for one’s rights in it; or acknowledge that you are enjoying unjust privileges, as I do, and then enjoy them and be satisfied.’

‘No, if it were unjust, you could not enjoy these advantages and be satisfied—at least I could not. The great thing for me is to feel that I’m not to blame.’

‘What do you say, why not go after all?’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, evidently weary of the strain of thought. ‘We shan’t go to sleep, you know. Come, let’s go!’

Levin did not answer. What they had said in the conversation, that he acted justly only in a negative sense, absorbed his thoughts. ‘Can it be that it’s only possible to be just negatively?’ he was asking himself.

‘How strong the smell of the fresh hay is, though,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up. ‘There’s not a chance of sleeping. Vassenka has been getting up some fun there. Do you hear the laughing and his voice? Hadn’t we better go? Come along!’

‘No, I’m not coming,’ answered Levin.

‘Surely that’s not a matter of principle too,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as he felt about in the dark for his cap.

‘It’s not a matter of principle, but why should I go?’

‘But do you know you are preparing trouble for yourself,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, finding his cap and getting up.

‘How so?’

‘Do you suppose I don’t see the line you’ve taken up with your wife? I heard how it’s a question of the greatest consequence, whether or not you’re to be away for a couple of days’ shooting. That’s all very well as an idyllic episode, but for your whole life that won’t answer. A man must be independent; he has his masculine interests. A man has to be manly,’ said Oblonsky, opening the door.

‘In what way? To go running after servant girls?’ said Levin.

‘Why not, if it amuses him? Ca ne tire pas a consequence. It won’t do my wife any harm, and it’ll amuse me. The great thing is to respect the sanctity of the home. There should be nothing in the home. But don’t tie your own hands.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said Levin dryly, and he turned on his side. ‘Tomorrow, early, I want to go shooting, and I won’t wake anyone, and shall set off at daybreak.’

‘Messieurs, venez vite!’ they heard the voice of Veslovsky coming back. ‘Charmante! I’ve made such a discovery. Charmante! a perfect Gretchen, and I’ve already made friends with her. Really, exceedingly pretty,’ he declared in a tone of approval, as though she had been made pretty entirely on his account, and he was expressing his satisfaction with the entertainment that had been provided for him.

Levin pretended to be asleep, while Oblonsky, putting on his slippers, and lighting a cigar, walked out of the barn, and soon their voices were lost.

For a long while Levin could not get to sleep. He heard the horses munching hay, then he heard the peasant and his elder boy getting ready for the night, and going off for the night watch with the beasts, then he heard the soldier arranging his bed on the other side of the barn, with his nephew, the younger son of their peasant host. He heard the boy in his shrill little voice telling his uncle what he thought about the dogs, who seemed to him huge and terrible creatures, and asking what the dogs were going to hunt next day, and the soldier in a husky, sleepy voice, telling him the sportsmen were going in the morning to the marsh, and would shoot with their guns; and then, to check the boy’s questions, he said, ‘Go to sleep, Vaska; go to sleep, or you’ll catch it,’ and soon after he began snoring himself, and everything was still. He could only hear the snort of the horses, and the guttural cry of a snipe.

‘Is it really only negative?’ he repeated to himself. ‘Well, what of it? It’s not my fault.’ And he began thinking about the next day.

‘Tomorrow I’ll go out early, and I’ll make a point of keeping cool. There are lots of snipe; and there are grouse too. When I come back there’ll be the note from Kitty. Yes, Stiva may be right, I’m not manly with her, I’m tied to her apron-strings…. Well, it can’t be helped! Negative again….’

Half asleep, he heard the laughter and mirthful talk of Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch. For an instant he opened his eyes: the moon was up, and in the open doorway, brightly lighted up by the moonlight, they were standing talking. Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying something of the freshness of one girl, comparing her to a freshly peeled nut, and Veslovsky with his infectious laugh was repeating some words, probably said to him by a peasant: ‘Ah, you do your best to get round her!’ Levin, half asleep, said:

‘Gentlemen, tomorrow before daylight!’ and fell asleep.