"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered
Simon, smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting."
"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said the
count. "She's as good as many a man!"
"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!"
"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so
well that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, 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
Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped 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 Simon had not
said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of his
coat to get at his snuffbox.
"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael
Sidorych..." Simon 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 snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry
of the hounds came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's
hunting horn; 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 Daniel'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 Daniel's voice was heard
calling ulyulyu. The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart
again, but both were becoming more distant.
Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi
had entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in
his hand, opened it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a
borzoi that was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and
dropped the snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up.
The count and Simon were looking at him.
Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly
approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel 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 toward the count.
The count and Simon 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 toward 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 helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the
whole pack rushed across the field toward the very spot where the wolf
had disappeared. The hazel bushes parted behind the hounds and
Daniel's chestnut horse appeared, dark with sweat. On its long back
sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless, his disheveled gray 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 Simon's
sympathy for his plight. But Simon 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.
CHAPTER V
Nicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the
wolf. By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of
the dogs whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of
the huntsmen approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was
happening at the copse. He knew that young and old wolves were
there, that the hounds had separated into two packs, that somewhere
a wolf was being chased, and that something had gone wrong. He
expected the wolf to come his way any moment. He made thousands of
different conjectures as to where and from what side the beast would
come and how he would set upon it. Hope alternated with despair.
Several times he addressed a prayer to God that the wolf should come
his way. He prayed with that passionate and shame-faced feeling with
which men pray at moments of great excitement arising from trivial
causes. "What would it be to Thee to do this for me?" he said to
God. "I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask this of Thee,
but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let Karay
spring at it - in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over there - and
seize it by the throat in a death grip!" A thousand times during
that half-hour Rostov cast eager and restless glances over the edge of
the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth
and the gully with its water-worn side and "Uncle's" cap just
visible above the bush on his right.
"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what wouldn't it
be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am
always unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed
rapidly and clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get
an old wolf, I want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears
and looking to the left and then to the right and listening to the
slightest variation of note in the cries of the dogs.
Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him
across the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a
deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped
for. The height of happiness was reached - and so simply, without
warning, or noise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his
eyes and remained in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and
jumped heavily over a gully that lay in her path. She was an old
animal with a gray back and big reddish belly. She ran without
hurry, evidently feeling sure that no one saw her. Rostov, holding his
breath, looked round at the borzois. They stood or lay not seeing
the wolf or understanding the situation. Old Karay had turned his head
and was angrily searching for fleas, baring his yellow teeth and
snapping at his hind legs.
"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped
up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay
finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up
with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.
"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole
physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never
seen before - human eyes fixed upon her - and turning her head a
little toward Rostov, she paused.
"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to
say to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round
and with a quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.
"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own
accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies
to head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still.
Nicholas did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping,
nor see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only
the wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same
direction along the hollow. The first to come into view was Milka,
with her black markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the
wolf. Nearer and nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf
turned its head to face her, and instead of putting on speed as she
usually did Milka suddenly raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.
"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas.
The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang
impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but
immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her
teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of
a couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to
her.
"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still
shouting with a hoarse voice.
"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi
who was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left
him, stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf,
galloped heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the
wolf's lope and the borzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay
had miscalculated. Nicholas could already see not far in front of
him the wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she reach
it. But, coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping
almost straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish
young borzoi, one Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed
impetuously at the wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But
the wolf jumped up more quickly than anyone could have expected and,
gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a
piercing yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding from a
gash in its side.
"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas.
Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path,
the old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within
five paces of it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her
eyes on Karay, tucked her tail yet further between her legs, and
increased her speed. But here Nicholas only saw that something
happened to Karay - the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they
rolled together down into a gully just in front of them.
That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully
with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest
moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to
dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up
from among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge
of the gully. She clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the
throat), leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and
having disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again,
went forward. Karay, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or
wounded, climbed with difficulty out of the gully.
"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair.
"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the
wolf's path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance.
She was again hemmed in.
Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were
all riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward
again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she
would be safe.
Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the
ulyulyuing, had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf,
and checked his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he
saw that the horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself
and ran for safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf
but straight toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the
animal off. As a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just
when she had been stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois.
Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand
and thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip
as if it were a flail.
Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut,
breathing heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body
and saw Daniel lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to
seize her by the ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to
the wolf herself that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed
back her ears and tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her.
Daniel rose a little, took a step, and with his whole weight, as if
lying down to rest, fell on the wolf, seizing her by the ears.
Nicholas was about to stab her, but Daniel whispered, "Don't! We'll
gag her!" and, changing his position, set his foot on the wolf's neck.
A stick was thrust between her jaws and she was fastened with a leash,
as if bridled, her legs were bound together, and Daniel rolled her
over once or twice from side to side.
With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a
shying and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her,
took her to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had
killed two of the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled
with their booty and their stories, and all came to look at the
wolf, which, with her broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten
stick between her jaws, gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd
of dogs and men surrounding her. When she was touched, she jerked
her bound legs and looked wildly yet simply at everybody. Old Count
Rostov also rode up and touched the wolf.
"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one, eh?" he
asked Daniel, who was standing near.
"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.
The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with
Daniel.
"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count.
For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable
smile.
CHAPTER VI
The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return
very soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At
midday they put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with
young trees. Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his
whips.
Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood
alone in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been
loosed before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at
intervals; other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving
tongue. A moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a
fox had been found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along
the ravine toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.
He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the
ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself
at any moment on the ryefield opposite.
The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois,
and Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going
hard across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew
close to the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and
sharper curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white
borzoi dashed in followed by a black one, and everything was in
confusion; the borzois formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying
their bodies and with tails turned away from the center of the
group. Two huntsmen galloped up to the dogs; one in a red cap, the
other, a stranger, in a green coat.
"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman from? He
is not 'Uncle's' man."
The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without
strapping it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high
saddles, stood near them and there too the dogs were lying. The
huntsmen waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then from that
spot came the sound of a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of
a fight.
"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said
Nicholas' groom.
Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode
at a footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds
together. Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight
was going on.
Nicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden
up, stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would
end. Out of the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and
rode toward his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper.
While still at a distance he took off his cap and tried to speak
respectfully, but he was pale and breathless and his face was angry.
One of his eyes was black, but he probably was not even aware of it.
"What has happened?" asked Nicholas.
"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my
gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the
fox! I gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want
a taste of this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and
probably imagining himself still speaking to his foe.
Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and
Petya to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's,
Ilagin's, hunting party was.
The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,
surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.
The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel
and were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the
Rostovs, and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very
woods the Rostovs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs
had chased.
Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of
moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his
arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe.
He rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and
fully prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish
his enemy.
Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman
in a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black
horse, accompanied by two hunt servants.
Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and
courteous gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young
count's acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised
his beaver cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and
would have the man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox
hunted by someone else's borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted
with the count and invited him to draw his covert.
Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging
friendly greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver
cap still higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that
the young countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as
well as in her beauty, of which he had heard much.
To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to
come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for
himself and which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and
the hunt, now doubled, moved on.
The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt
servants fell into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov,
and Ilagin kept stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying
not to be observed by their companions and searching uneasily for
rivals to their own borzois.
Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small,
pure-bred, red-spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with
muscles like steel, a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He
had heard of the swiftness of Ilagin's borzois, and in that
beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own Milka.
In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the
year's harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.
"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone. "Is she
swift?"
"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after," answered
Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year
before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So
in your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he
went on, continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering
it polite to return the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his
borzois and picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her
breadth. "That black-spotted one of yours is fine - well shaped!"
said he.
"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought: "If only
a full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort
of borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a
ruble to anyone who found a hare.
"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some sportsmen can be
so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I
enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he
again raised his cap to Natasha) "but as for counting skins and what
one takes, I don't care about that."
"Of course not!"
"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches
something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not
so, Count? For I consider that..."
"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in,
who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip
aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call and
the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)
"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly. "Yes, we
must ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing
in Erza and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a
chance of pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo
my Milka at once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin
toward the hare.
"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had
sighted the hare - and not without agitation he looked round and
whistled to Erza.
"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing "Uncle."
The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.
"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your
borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours
against one another, you two, and I'll look on!"
"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily
by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on
this red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly
men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by
it.
The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and
the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were
far off on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but
not the gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and
sedately.
"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces
toward the whip who had sighted the hare.
But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming
next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash
rushed downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the
borzois that were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare.
All the hunt, who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling
in the hounds, while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped
across the field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin,
Nicholas, Natasha, and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they
went, seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose
sight even for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started
was a strong and swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at
once, but pricked his ears listening to the shouting and trampling
that resounded from all sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not
very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him, and, finally having
chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid back his ears and
rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble, but in front of
him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The two borzois
of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the nearest, were the
first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far before Ilagin's
red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare
with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had
seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back and
bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the
broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the
hare.
"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if
Milka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and
flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached
him, but when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the
distance, so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind
leg.
"Erza, darling!" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did
not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have
seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between
the winter rye and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast,
running like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the
hare, but it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the
borzois did not overtake him so quickly.
"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice just
then, and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught
up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of
the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off
the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously,
sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was
how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of
borzois surrounded him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the
crowd of dogs. Only the delighted "Uncle" dismounted, and cut off a
pad, shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and anxiously
glancing round with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He
spoke without himself knowing whom to or what about. "That's it,
come on! That's a dog!... There, it has beaten them all, the
thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble borzois. That's it, come
on!" said he, panting and looking wrathfully around as if he were
abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies and had insulted him,
and only now had he at last succeeded in justifying himself. "There
are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it, come on!..."
"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the hare's
muddy pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!"
"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself,"
said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of
whether he were heard or not.
"But what is there in running across it like that?" said Ilagin's
groom.
"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take
it," Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop
and his excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing
breath, screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set
everyone's ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the
others expressed by all talking at once, and it was so strange that
she must herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone
else would have been amazed at it at any other time. "Uncle" himself
twisted up the hare, threw it neatly and smartly across his horse's
back as if by that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and, with
an air of not wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode
off. The others all followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much
later were they able to regain their former affectation of
indifference. For a long time they continued to look at red Rugay who,
his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring of his leash,
walked along just behind "Uncle's" horse with the serene air of a
conqueror.
"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of
coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seemed to
Nicholas to be saying.
When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to
him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle"
deigned to speak to him.
CHAPTER VII
Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they
were so far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the
hunting party should spend the night in his little village of
Mikhaylovna.
"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,
come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you could
rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap."
"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for
a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to "Uncle's" house.
Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the
front porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and
young, as well as children, popped out from the back entrance to
have a look at the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natasha-
a woman, a lady, and on horseback - raised the curiosity of the serfs
to such a degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the
face, and unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though
she were some prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or
understand what was said about her.
"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!"
"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..."
"Isn't she a Tartar!"
"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of all,
addressing Natasha directly.
"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which
stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should
take themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made
to receive the guests and the visitors.
The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natasha off her horse and
taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch.
The house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean - it
did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless - but
neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of
fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.
"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with
a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a
round birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room
where there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of
Suvorov, of the host's father and mother, and of himself in military
uniform. The study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. "Uncle" asked
his visitors to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went
out of the room. Rugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and
lay down on the sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth.
Leading from the study was a passage in which a partition with
ragged curtains could be seen. From behind this came women's
laughter and whispers. Natasha, Nicholas, and Petya took off their
wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya, leaning on his elbow, fell
asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas were silent. Their faces
glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at one another
(now that the hunt was over and they were in the house, Nicholas no
longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority over
his sister), Natasha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long
from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a
pretext ready to account for it.
After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and
small top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one
she had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the
right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.
"Uncle" too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the
brother's and sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that
they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the
merriment.
"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw
anyone like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem
and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another
that had been cut short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as
fresh as ever!"
Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened, evidently
from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking
woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered
carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality
in her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and,
with a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional
stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and
throw back her head, this woman (who was "Uncle's" housekeeper) trod
very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her
plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors
d'oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had
finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on
her face. "Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand 'Uncle'?" her
expression said to Rostov. How could one help understanding? Not
only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the meaning of his puckered
brow and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips
when Anisya Fedorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb
wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with
buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead,
apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards
she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey,
and preserves made with sugar.
All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping,
gathered and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a
smack of Anisya Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness,
cleanliness, whiteness, and pleasant smiles.
"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered
Natasha first one thing and then another.
Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten
such buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets,
or such a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room.
After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle" talked of
past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat
upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried
several times to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only
muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so
lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only
feared the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause,
such as often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in
one's own house, "Uncle," answering a thought that was in his
visitors' mind, said:
"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.
That's it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?"
"Uncle's" face was very significant and even handsome as he said
this. Involuntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about
him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province
"Uncle" had the reputation of being the most honorable and
disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,
chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a
justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused
public appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on
his bay gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown
garden in summer.
"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?"
"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come
on! I can't make head or tail of it. That's for you - I haven't
brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter - that's it, come on!
Open the door, there!" he shouted. "Why have you shut it?"
The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as
they called the room for the hunt servants.
There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the
door into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a
balalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was
playing. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time and
now went out into the passage to hear better.
"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka.
I'm fond of it," said "Uncle."
It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the
huntsmen's room when "Uncle" returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond
of such music.
"How good! Really very good!" said Nicholas with some
unintentional superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the
sounds pleased him very much.
"Very good?" said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother's
tone. "Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!"
Just as "Uncle's" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had
seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that
moment, seemed to her the acme of musical delight.
"More, please, more!" cried Natasha at the door as soon as the
balalayka ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the
balalayka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. "Uncle"
sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air
was repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several
times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did
not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya
Fedorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.
"You like listening?" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely
like "Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added.
"He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an