War And Peace: Book 7 - CHAPTER IV

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

THE OLD COUNT, whose hunting establishment had always been kept up on a large

scale, had now handed it all over to his son's care, but on that day, the 15th

of September, being in excellent spirits he prepared to join the expedition.

Within an hour the whole party was before the porch. When Natasha and Petya said

something to Nikolay he walked by them with a stern and serious air, betokening

that he had no time to waste on trifles. He looked over everything to do with

the hunt, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to cut off the wolf from

behind, got on his chestnut Don horse, and whistling to the dogs of his leash,

he set off across the threshing-floor to the field leading to the Otradnoe

preserve. The old count's horse, a sorrel gelding, with a white mane and tail,

called Viflyanka, was led by the count's groom; he was himself to drive straight

in a light gig to the spot fixed for him to stand.

Fifty-four hounds were led out under the charge of six whippers-in and

grooms. Of huntsmen, properly speaking, there were taking part in the hunt eight

men besides the members of the family, and more than forty greyhounds ran behind

them, so that with the hounds in leashes there were about a hundred and thirty

dogs and twenty persons on horseback.

Every dog knew its master and its call. Every man in the hunt knew his task,

his place, and the part assigned him. As soon as they had passed beyond the

fence, they all moved without noise or talk, lengthening out along the road and

the field to the Otradnoe forest.

The horses stepped over the field as over a soft carpet, splashing now and

then into pools as they crossed the road. The foggy sky still seemed falling

imperceptibly and regularly down on the earth; the air was still and warm, and

there was no sound but now and then the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a

horse, the clack of a whip, or the whine of a dog who had dropped out of his

place. When they had gone a verst, five more horsemen accompanied by dogs

appeared out of the mist to meet the Rostovs. The foremost of them was a fresh,

handsome old man with large, grey moustaches.

“Good-day, uncle,” said Nikolay as the old man rode up to him.

“All's well and march!…I was sure of it,” began the man addressed as uncle.

He was not really the Rostovs' uncle, but a distant relative, who had a small

property in their neighbourhood.

‘I was sure you couldn't resist, and a good thing you have come out. All's

well and quick march.” (This was the uncle's favorite saying.) “You had better

attack the preserve at once, for my Girtchilk brought me word that the Ilagins

are out with their hounds at Korniky; they'll snatch the litter right under your

noses.”

“That's where I'm going. Shall we join the packs?” asked Nikolay.

The hounds were joined into one pack, and the uncle and Nikolay rode on side

by side.

Natasha, muffled up in a shawl which did not hide her eager face and shining

eyes, galloped up to them, accompanied by Petya, who kept beside her, and

Mihailo, the huntsman and groom, who had been told to look after her. Petya was

laughing and switching and pulling his horse. Natasha sat her raven Arabtchick

with grace and confidence and controlled him with an easy and steady hand.

The uncle looked with disapproval at Petya and Natasha. He did not like a

mixture of frivolity with the serious business of the hunt.

“Good-day, uncle; we're coming to the hunt too!” shouted Petya.

“Good-day, good-day, and mind you don't ride down the dogs,” said the uncle

sternly.

“Nikolenka, what a delightful dog Trunila is! he knew me,” said Natasha of

her favourite dog.

“In the first place, Trunila's not a dog, but a wolf-hound,” thought Nikolay.

He glanced at his sister trying to make her feel the distance that lay between

them at that moment. Natasha understood it.

“Don't imagine we shall get in anybody's way, uncle,” said Natasha.

“We'll stay in our right place and not stir from it.”

“And you'll do well, little countess,” said the uncle. “Only don't fall off

your horse,” he added, “or you'd never get on again—all's well, quick

march!”

The Otradnoe preserve came into sight, an oasis of greenness, two hundred and

fifty yards away. Rostov, settling finally with the uncle from what point to set

the dogs on, pointed out to Natasha the place where she was to stand, a place

where there was no chance of anything running out, and went round to close in

from behind above the ravine.

“Now, nephew, you're on the track of an old wolf,” said the uncle; “mind he

doesn't give you the slip.”

“That's as it happens,” answered Rostov. “Karay, hey!” he shouted, replying

to the uncle's warning by this call to his dog. Karay was an old, misshapen,

muddy-coloured hound, famous for attacking an old wolf unaided. All took their

places.

The old count, who knew his son's ardour in the hunt, hurried to avoid being

late, and the whippers-in had hardly reached the place when Count Ilya

Andreitch, with a cheerful face, and flushed and quivering cheeks, drove up with

his pair of raven horses, over the green field to the place left for him.

Straightening his fur coat and putting on his hunting appurtenances, he mounted

his sleek, well-fed, quiet, good-humoured Viflyanka, who was turning grey like

himself. The horses with the gig were sent back. Count Ilya Andreitch, though he

was at heart no sportsman, knew well all the rules of sport. He rode into the

edge of the thicket of bushes, behind which he was standing, picked up the

reins, settled himself at his ease in the saddle, and, feeling that he was

ready, looked about him smiling.

Near him stood his valet, Semyon Tchekmar, a veteran horseman, though now

heavy in the saddle. Tchekmar held on a leash three wolfhounds of a special

breed, spirited hounds, though they too had grown fat like their master and his

horse. Two other keen old dogs were lying beside them not in a leash. A hundred

paces further in the edge of the copse stood another groom of the count's,

Mitka, a reckless rider and passionate sportsman. The count had followed the old

custom of drinking before hunting a silver goblet of spiced brandy; he had had a

slight lunch and after that half a bottle of his favourite bordeaux.

Count Ilya Andreitch was rather flushed from the wine and the drive; his

eyes, covered by moisture, were particularly bright, and sitting in the saddle

wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a baby taken out for a drive.

After seeing after his duties, Tchekmar, with his thin face and sunken

cheeks, looked towards his master, with whom he had lived on the best of terms

for thirty years. Perceiving that he was in a genial humour, he anticipated a

pleasant chat. A third person rode circumspectly—he had no doubt been

cautioned—out of the wood, and stood still behind the count. This personage was

a grey-bearded old man, wearing a woman's gown and a high, peaked cap. It was

the buffoon, Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Well, Nastasya Ivanovna,” whispered the count, winking at him, “you only

scare off the game, and Danilo will give it you.”

“I wasn't born yesterday,” said Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Sh!” hissed the count, and he turned to Semyon. “Have you seen Natalya

Ilyinitchna?” he asked Semyon. “Where is she?”

“Her honour's with Pyotr Ilyitch, behind the high grass at Zharvry,” answered

Semyon, smiling. “Though she is a lady, she has a great love for the

chase.”

“And you wonder at her riding, Semyon,…eh?” said the count, “for a man even

it wouldn't be amiss!”

“Who wouldn't wonder! So daring, so smart!”

“And where's Nikolasha? Above the Lyadovsky upland, eh?” the count asked

still in a whisper.

“Yes, sir. His honour knows where he had best stand. He knows the ins and

outs of hunting, so that Danilo and I are sometimes quite astonished at him,”

said Semyon, who knew how to please his master.

“He's a good, clever sportsman, eh? And what do you say to his riding,

eh?”

“A perfect picture he is! How he drove the fox out of the Zavarzinsky thicket

the other day. He galloped down from the ravine, it was a sight—the horse worth

a thousand roubles, and the rider beyond all price. Yes, you would have to look

a long while to find his match!”

“To look a long while…” repeated the count, obviously regretting that

Semyon's praises had come to so speedy a termination. “A long while,” he

repeated, turning back the skirt of his coat and looking for his

snuff-box.

“The other day they were coming out from Mass in all their glory, Mihail

Sidoritch…” Semyon stopped short, hearing distinctly in the still air the rush

of the hounds, with no more than two or three dogs giving tongue. With his head

on one side, he listened, shaking a warning finger at his master. “They're on

the scent of the litter…” he whispered; “they have gone straight toward

Lyadovsky upland.”

The count, with a smile still lingering on his face, looked straight before

him along the path, and did not take a pinch from the snuff-box he held in his

hand. The hounds' cry was followed by the bass note of the hunting cry for a

wolf sounded on Danilo's horn. The pack joined the first three dogs, and the

voices of the hounds could be heard in full cry with the peculiar note which

serves to betoken that they are after a wolf. The whippers-in were not now

hallooing, but urging on the hounds with cries of “Loo! loo! loo!” and above all

the voices rose the voice of Danilo, passing from a deep note to piercing

shrillness. Danilo's voice seemed to fill the whole forest, to pierce beyond it,

and echo far away in the open country.

After listening for a few seconds in silence, the count and his groom felt

certain that the hounds had divided into two packs: one, the larger, was going

off into the distance, in particularly hot cry; the other part of the pack was

moving along the forest past the count, and it was with this pack that Danilo's

voice was heard urging the dogs on. The sounds from both packs melted into

unison and broke apart again, but both were getting further away. Semyon sighed

and stooped down to straighten the leash, in which a young dog had caught his

leg. The count too sighed, and noticing the snuff-box in his hand, he opened it

and took a pinch.

“Back!” cried Semyon to the dog, which had poked out beyond the bushes. The

count started, and dropped the snuff-box. Nastasya Ivanovna got off his horse

and began picking it up.

The count and Semyon watched him. All of a sudden, as so often happens, the

sound of the hunt was in an instant close at hand, as though the baying dogs and

Danilo's cries were just upon them.

The count looked round, and on the right he saw Mitka, who was staring at the

count with eyes starting out of his head. Lifting his cap, he pointed in front

to the other side.

“Look out!” he shouted in a voice that showed the words had long been

fretting him to be uttered. And letting go the dogs, he galloped towards the

count.

The count and Semyon galloped out of the bushes, and on their left they saw a

wolf. With a soft, rolling gait it moved at a slow amble further to their left

into the very thicket in which they had been standing. The angry dogs whined,

and pulling themselves free from the leash, flew by the horses' hoofs after the

wolf.

The wolf paused in his flight; awkwardly, like a man with a quinsy, he turned

his heavy-browed head towards the dogs, and still with the same soft, rolling

gait gave one bound and a second, and, waving its tail, disappeared into the

bushes. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, there sprang desperately

out of the thicket opposite one hound, then a second and a third, and all the

pack flew across the open ground towards the very spot where the wolf had

vanished. The bushes were parted behind the dogs, and Danilo's brown horse, dark

with sweat, emerged from them. On its long back Danilo sat perched up and

swaying forward. He had no cap on his grey hair, that fluttered in disorder

above his red, perspiring face.

“Loo! loo! loo!…” he was shouting. When he caught sight of the count, there

was a flash like lightning in his eyes.

“B—!” he shouted, using a brutally coarse term of abuse and menacing the

count with his lifted whip. “Let the wolf slip!…sportsmen indeed!” And as though

scorning to waste more words on the confused and frightened count, he lashed the

moist and heavy sides of his brown gelding with all the fury that had been ready

for the count, and flew off after the dogs. The count stood like a man who has

been thrashed, looking about him and trying to smile and call for Semyon to

sympathise with his plight. But Semyon was not there; he had galloped round to

cut the wolf off from the forest. The greyhounds, too, were running to and fro

on both sides. But the wolf got off into the bushes, and not one of the party

succeeded in coming across him.