Chapter 12

Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his companions. Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg in a stocking thrust out, was sleeping so soundly that he could elicit no response. Oblonsky, half asleep, declined to get up so early. Even Laska, who was asleep, curled up in the hay, got up unwillingly, and lazily stretched out and straightened her hind legs one after the other. Getting on his boots, taking his gun, and carefully opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went out into the road. The coachmen were sleeping near their carriages; the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, scattering them in the manger when snorting. It was still gray out-of-doors.

`Why are you up so early, my dear?' the old woman, their hostess, said, coming out of the hut and addressing him affectionately as an old friend.

`Going shooting, auntie. Do I go this way to the marsh?'

`Straight out at the back; by our threshing floor, my dear, and hemp patches; there's a little footpath.'

Stepping carefully with her sunburned, bare feet, the old woman conducted Levin, and moved back the gate for him by the threshing floor.

`Straight ahead, and you'll come to the marsh. Our lads drove the horses there yesterday evening.'

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


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