فصل 4

4

THE old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment but had now handed it all completely over to his son’s care, being in very good spirits on this 15th of September, prepared to go out with the others.

In an hour’s time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nikolai, with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for attending to trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off across the threshing-ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood. The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.

They were taking fifty-four hounds with six hunt-attendants and whippers-in. Besides the family there were eight borzoi kennel-men and more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on leash belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.

Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his business, his place, and what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the fence they all spread out evenly and quietly without noise or talk, along the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert.

The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly towards the earth, the air was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling hound, could be heard.

When they had gone about a verst, five more riders with dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a fresh-looking handsome old man with a large grey moustache.

‘Good morning, Uncle!’ said Nikolai when the old man drew near.

‘That’s it. Come on! … I was sure of it,’ began Uncle. (He was a distant relative of the Rostovs’, a man of small means, and their neighbour.) ‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it and it’s a good thing you’re going. That’s it! Come on!’ (This was Uncle’s favourite expression.) ‘Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Dagins are at Korniki with their hounds. That’s it. Come on! … They’ll take the cubs from under your very nose.’ ‘That’s where I’m going. Shall we join up our packs?’ asked Nikolai.

The hounds were joined into one pack, and Uncle and Nikolai rode on side by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Petya who always kept close to her, by Mikhail a huntsman, and by a groom appointed to look after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled at his horse. Natasha sat easily and confidently on her black Arabchick and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.

Uncle looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He did not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.

‘Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!’ shouted Petya.

‘Good morning, good morning! But don’t go overriding the hounds,’ said Uncle sternly.

‘Nikolenka, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me,’ said Natasha, referring to her favourite hound.

‘In the first place Trunila is not a “dog” but a harrier,’ thought Nikolai, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha understood it.

‘You mustn’t think we’ll be in anyone’s way, Uncle,’ she said. ‘We’ll go to our places and won’t budge.’

‘A good thing too, little Countess,’ said Uncle, ‘only mind you don’t fall off your horse,’ he added, ‘because—that’s it, come on!—you’ve nothing to hold on to.’ The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a couple of hundred yards off, the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled with Uncle where they should set on the hounds, and having shown Natasha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly run out—went round above the ravine.

‘Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,’ said Uncle. ‘Mind and don’t let her slip!’

‘That’s as may happen,’ answered Rostov. ‘Karay, here!’ he shouted, answering Uncle’s remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places.

The old count, knowing his son’s ardour in the hunt, hurried so as not to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count Ilya Andreich, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened on his hunting-knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed and comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning grey like himself. His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilya Rostov, though not at heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the bushy edge of the wood where he was to stand, arranged his reins, settled himself in the saddle and, feeling that he was ready, looked about with a smile.

Beside him was Semyon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable wolf-hounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along the edge of the wood stood Mitka, the count’s other groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favourite Bordeaux.

He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle wrapped up in his fur coat he looked like a child taken for an outing.

The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in, expected a pleasant chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This person was a grey-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak with a tall peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon,* who went by a woman’s name, Nastasya Ivanovna.

‘Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!’ whispered the count, winking at him. ‘If you scare away the beast, Danilo’ll give it you!’ ‘I know a thing or two myself!’ said Nastasya Ivanovna.

‘Hush!’ whispered the count and turned to Semyon. ‘Have you seen the young countess?’ he asked. ‘Where is she?’

‘With young Count Pyotr, by the Zharov rank grass,’ answered Semyon, smiling. ‘Though she’s a lady she’s very fond of hunting.’ ‘And you’re surprised at the way she rides, Semyon, eh?’ said the count. ‘She’s as good as many a man!’

‘Of course! It’s marvellous. So bold, so easy!’

‘And Nikolai? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn’t he?’

‘Yes sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well that Danilo and I are often quite astounded,’ said Semyon, well knowing what would please his master.

‘Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?’

‘A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the Zavarzinsky thicket the other day! Leapt a fearful place; what a sight when they rushed from the covert … the horse worth a thousand rubles and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to find another as smart.’ ‘To search far …’ repeated the count, evidently sorry Semyon had not said more. ‘To search far,’ he said, turning back the skirt of his coat to get at his snuff-box.

‘The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Mikhail Sidorych …’ Semyon did not finish, for on the still air he had distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning finger at his master. ‘They are on the scent of the cubs …’ he whispered, ‘straight to the Lyadov uplands.’ The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding the snuff-box in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds came the deep tones of the wolf-call from Danilo’s huntinghorn; the pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry, with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Danilo’s voice, now a deep bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and carried far beyond out into the open field.

After listening a few moments in silence the count and his attendant convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it was with this that Danilo’s voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more distant.

Semyon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had entangled, the count too sighed, and noticing the snuff-box in his hand opened it and took a pinch. ‘Back!’ cried Semyon to a borzoi that was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the snuff-box. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and Semyon were looking at him.

Then unexpectedly, as often happens, the sounds of the hunt suddenly approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Danilo ulyulyuing were just in front of them.

The count turned and saw on his right Mitka, staring at him with eyes starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the other side.

‘Look out!’ he shouted in a voice plainly showing that he had long fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped towards the count.

The count and Semyon galloped out of the wood, and saw on their left a wolf which, softly swaying from side to side was coming at a quiet lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The angry borzois whined, and getting free of the leash rushed past the horses’ feet at the wolf.

The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead towards the dogs awkwardly, like a man suffering from the quinsy, and still slightly swaying from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang out helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across the field towards the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds, and Danilo’s chestnut horse appeared, dark with sweat. On its long back sat Danilo, hunched forward, capless, his dishevelled grey hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.

‘Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu! …’ he cried. When he caught sight of the count his eyes flashed lightning.

‘Blast you!’ he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count.

‘You’ve let the wolf go! … What sportsmen!’ and as if scorning to say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had aroused, and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished schoolboy, looked round trying by a smile to win Semyon’s sympathy for his plight. But Semyon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.