________________________________________________
_ 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 fifteenth of September,
prepared to go out with the others.
In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch.
Nicholas, 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 kennelmen and
more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the 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, 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 toward 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 a little less than a mile, 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 gray
mustache.
"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, 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
neighbor.) "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" favorite
expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins
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
Nicholas.
The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas
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 Michael, 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 Arabchik 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.
"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said Natasha,
referring to her favorite hound.
"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier," thought
Nicholas, 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 few 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 ardor in the hunt, hurried so as
not to be late, and the hunstmen had not yet reached their places when
Count Ilya Rostov, 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 gray,
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 road 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 Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old
horseman now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three
formidable wolfhounds, 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
favorite 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 out
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 gray-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, Daniel'll give it you!"
"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivanovna.
"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you seen
the young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?"
"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. _
Read next: Book Seven: 1810-11: Chapter 5
Read previous: Book Seven: 1810-11: Chapter 3
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