`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 toward the peasants.

`You come too!' the peasant shouted to Levin. `Never fear! Taste our pie!'

Levin felt a strong inclination for a drink of vodka and a bite of 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 pointing. And immediately all his weariness vanished, and he walked lightly through the swamp toward 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 sedge, 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 do so.

And in the absence of Vassenka, on whom Levin threw the blame of his failure, things went no better. There was 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 squelched at every step; the sweat ran in drops down his powder-grimed face, his mouth was full of a 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 barrel 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 hummocks 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 onto dry ground he sat down on a hummock, pulled off his boot and emptied it, then walked to the marsh, drank some rust-tasting water, moistened the burning hot barrel of his 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 trigger before he had taken a good aim at the bird. It got worse and worse.

He had only five birds in his gamebag when he walked out of the marsh toward the alders, where he was to rejoin Stepan Arkadyevich.

Before he caught sight of Stepan Arkadyevich he saw his dog. Krak, black all over with the stinking mire of the marsh, darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, and, with the air of a conqueror, sniffed Laska. Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevich. 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 gamebag.

`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 Arkadyevich, to soften his triumph.


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