第253章

Laska ran eagerly forward along the little path. Levin followed her with a light, rapid step, continually looking at the sky. He hoped the sun would not be up before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not delay. The moon, which had been bright when he went out, by now shone only like a crescent of quicksilver. The rosy flush of dawn, which one could not help seeing before, now had to be sought to be discerned at all. What before had been undefined, vague blurs in the distant countryside, could now be distinctly seen. They were sheaves of rye. The dew, not visible till the sun was up, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above his belt in the high-growing, fragrant hemp patch, from which the male plants had already been gathered in. In the transparent stillness of morning the smallest sounds were audible. A bee flew by Levin's ear with the whizzing sound of a bullet. He looked carefully, and saw a second and a third. They were all flying from the beehives behind the hedge, and they disappeared over the hemp patch in the direction of the marsh. The path led straight to the marsh. The marsh could be recognized by the mist which rose from it, thicker in one place and thinner in another, so that the sedge and willow bushes swayed like islands in this mist. At the edge of the marsh and the road peasant boys and men, who had been herding for the night, were lying, and in the dawn all were asleep under their coats. Not far from them were three hobbled horses. One of them clanked a chain. Laska walked beside her master, pressing a little forward and looking round. Passing the sleeping peasants and reaching the first reeds, Levin examined his percussion caps and unleashed his dog. One of the horses, a sleek, dark-brown three-year-old, seeing the dog, started away, switched its tail and snorted. The other horses too were frightened, and splashing through the water with their hobbled legs, and drawing their hoofs out of the thick mud with a squelching sound, they bounded out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking ironically at the horses and inquiringly at Levin. Levin patted Laska, and whistled as a sign that she might begin.

Laska ran joyfully and anxiously through the quagmire that quaked under her.

Running into the marsh among the familiar scents of roots, marsh plants, and dross, and the extraneous smell of horse manure, Laska detected at once a smell that pervaded the whole marsh, the scent of that strong-smelling bird that always excited her more than any other. Here and there among the moss and marsh plants this scent was very strong, but it was impossible to determine in which direction it grew stronger or fainter. To find the direction, she had to get farther away from the wind. Not feeling the motion of her legs, Laska bounded with a still gallop, so that at each bound she could stop short, to the right, away from the wind that blew from the east before sunrise, and turned facing the wind. Sniffing in the air with dilated nostrils, she felt at once that not their traces only, but they themselves, were here before her - not one, but many. Laska slackened her speed. They were here, but where precisely she could not yet determine. To find the very spot, she began to make a circle, when suddenly her master's voice drew her off. `Laska! Here!' he said, 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 hummock spot covered with water, where there could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending she was searching so as to please him, went round it, and went back to her former position, and was at once aware of the scent again.

Now when he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and, without looking at what was under her feet, and to her vexation stumbling over a hummock into the water, but righting herself with her strong, supple legs, she began making the circuit which was to make all clear to her. The scent of them reached her, stronger and stronger, and more and more defined, and all at once it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was here, behind this hummock, five paces in front of her; she stopped, and her whole body was still and rigid. 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 paces off. She stood still, feeling more and more conscious of it, and enjoying it in anticipation. Her tail was stretched straight and tense, and only wagged at the extreme tip. Her mouth was slightly open, her ears raised.

One ear had been turned wrong side out as she ran up, and she breathed heavily but warily, and still more warily she turned around, but more with her eyes than her head, to her master. He was coming along with the face she knew so well, though the eyes were always terrible to her. He stumbled over the hummocks as he came, and moved, as she thought, extraordinarily slowly. She thought he came slowly, but he was running.

Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground, as it were, scratching big prints with her hind paws, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at double snipe, and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the first bird, he ran up to her.

Coming quite close up to her, he could from his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what she was seeing with her nose. In a space between two little hummocks, at a couple of yards' distance, he could see a double snipe. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightly preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner with a clumsy wag of its tail.

`Fetch it, fetch it!' shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove from behind.

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