War And Peace: Book 7 - CHAPTER V

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

NIKOLAY ROSTOV was standing meanwhile at his post waiting for the wolf. He

was aware of what must be taking place within the copse from the rush of the

pack coming closer and going further away, from the cries of the dogs, whose

notes were familiar to him, from the nearness, and then greater remoteness, and

sudden raising of the voices of the huntsmen. He knew that there were both young

and also old wolves in the enclosure. He knew the hounds had divided into two

packs, that in one place they were close on the wolf, and that something had

gone wrong. Every second he expected the wolf on his side. He made a thousand

different suppositions of how and at what spot the wolf would run out, and how

he would set upon it. Hope was succeeded by despair. Several times he prayed to

God that the wolf would rush out upon him. He prayed with that feeling of

passion and compunction with which men pray in moments of intense emotion due to

trivial causes. “Why, what is it to Thee,” he said to God, “to do this for me? I

know Thou art great and that it's a sin to pray to Thee about this, but for

God's sake do make the old wolf come out upon me, and make Karay fix his teeth

in his throat and finish him before the eyes of ‘uncle,' who is looking this

way.” A thousand times over in that half-hour, with intent, strained, and uneasy

eyes Rostov scanned the thickets at the edge of the copse with two scraggy oaks

standing up above the undergrowth of aspen, and the ravine with its overhanging

bank, and “uncle's” cap peering out from behind a bush on the right. “No, that

happiness is not to be,” thought Rostov, “yet what would it cost Him! It's not

to be! I'm always unlucky, at cards, in war, and everything.” Austerlitz and

Dolohov flashed in distinct but rapid succession through his imagination. “Only

once in my life to kill an old wolf; I ask for nothing beyond!” he thought,

straining eyes and ears, looking from left to right, and back again, and

listening to the slightest fluctuations in the sounds of the dogs. He looked

again to the right and saw something running across the open ground towards him.

“No, it can't be!” thought Rostov, taking a deep breath, as a man does at the

coming of what he has long been hoping for. The greatest piece of luck had come

to him, and so simply, without noise, or flourish, or display to signalise it.

Rostov could not believe his eyes, and this uncertainty lasted more than a

second. The wolf was running forward; he leaped clumsily over a rut that lay

across his path.

It was an old wolf with a grey back and full, reddish belly. He was running

without haste, plainly feeling secure of being unseen. Rostov held his breath

and looked round at the dogs. They were lying and standing about, not seeing the

wolf and quite unaware of him. Old Karay had his head turned round, and was

angrily searching for a flea, snapping his yellow teeth on his haunches. “Loo!

loo! loo!” Rostov whispered, pouting out his lips. The dogs leaped up, jingling

the iron rings of the leashes, and pricked up their ears. Karay scratched his

hind-leg and got up, pricking up his ears and wagging his tail, on which there

were hanging matted locks of his coat.

“Loose them? or not loose them?” Nikolay said to himself as the wolf moved

away from the copse towards him. All at once the whole physiognomy of the wolf

was transformed. He started, seeing—probably for the first time—human eyes fixed

upon him; and, turning his head a little towards Rostov, stood still, in doubt

whether to go back or forward. “Ay! Never mind, forward!…” the wolf seemed to be

saying to himself, and he pushed on ahead, without looking round, softly and not

rapidly, with an easy but resolute movement. “Loo! loo!…” Nikolay cried in a

voice not his own, and of its own accord his gallant horse galloped at

break-neck pace downhill, and leaped over the watercourse to cut off the wolf's

retreat; the hounds dashed on even more swiftly, overtaking it.

Nikolay did not hear his own cry; he had no consciousness of galloping; he

saw neither the dogs nor the ground over which he galloped. He saw nothing but

the wolf, which, quickening its pace, was bounding in the same direction across

the glade. Foremost of the hounds was the black and tan, broad-backed bitch,

Milka, and she was getting close upon him. But the wolf turned a sidelong glance

upon her, and instead of flying at him, as she always had done, Milka suddenly

stopped short, her fore-legs held stiffly before her and her tail in the

air.

“Loo! loo! loo!” shouted Nikolay.

The red hound, Lyubima, darted forward from behind Milka, dashed headlong at

the wolf, and got hold of him by the hind-leg, but in the same second bounded

away on the other side in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed its teeth, rose

again, and bounded forward, followed at a couple of yards' distance by all the

dogs: they did not try to get closer.

“He'll get away! No, it's impossible!” thought Nikolay, still shouting in a

husky voice.

“Karay! Loo! loo!…” he kept shouting, looking for the old hound, who was his

one hope now.

Karay, straining his old muscles to the utmost, and watching the wolf

intently, was bounding clumsily away from the beast, to cut across his path in

front of him. But it was plain from the swiftness of the wolf's course and the

slowness of the hounds that Karay was out in his reckoning. Nikolay saw the

copse not far now ahead of him. If once the wolf reached it, he would escape to

a certainty. But in front dogs and men came into sight, dashing almost straight

towards the wolf. There was still hope. A long, young hound, not one of the

Rostovs'—Nikolay did not recognise him—flew from in front straight at the wolf,

and almost knocked him over. The wolf got up again with a surprising rapidity

and flew at the young hound; his teeth clacked, and the hound, covered with

blood from a gash in his side, thrust its head in the earth, squealing

shrilly.

“Karay! old man!” Nikolay wailed.

The old dog, with the tufts of matted hair, quivering on his haunches, had

succeeded, thanks to the delay, in cutting across the wolf's line of advance,

and was now five paces in front of him. The wolf stole a glance at Karay, as

though aware of his danger, and tucking his tail further between his legs, he

quickened his pace. But then—Nikolay could only see that something was happening

with Karay—the hound had dashed instantly at the wolf and had rolled in a

struggling heap with him into the watercourse before them.

The moment when Nikolay saw the dogs struggling with the wolf in the

watercourse, saw the wolf's grey coat under them, his outstretched hind-leg, his

head gasping in terror, and his ears turned back (Karay had him by the

throat)—the moment when Nikolay saw all this was the happiest moment of his

life. He had already grasped the pommel of his saddle to dismount and stab the

wolf, when suddenly the beast's head was thrust up above the mass of dogs, then

his fore-legs were on the bank of the watercourse. The wolf clacked his teeth

(Karay had not hold of his throat now), leaped with his hind-legs out of the

hollow, and with his tail between his legs, pushed forward, getting away from

the dogs again. Karay, his hair starting up, had difficulty in getting out of

the water-course; he seemed to be bruised or wounded. “My God, why is this!”

Nikolay shouted in despair. The uncle's huntsman galloped across the line of the

wolf's advance from the other side, and again his hounds stopped the wolf, again

he was hemmed in.

Nikolay, his groom, the uncle, and his huntsman pranced about the beast with

shouts and cries of “loo,” every minute on the point of dismounting when the

wolf crouched back, and dashing forward again every time the wolf shook himself

free and moved towards the copse, where his safety lay.

At the beginning of this onset Danilo, hearing the hunters' cries, had darted

out of the copse. He saw that Karay had hold of the wolf and checked his horse,

supposing the deed was done. But seeing that the hunters did not dismount from

their horses, and that the wolf was shaking himself free, and again making his

escape, Danilo galloped his own horse, not towards the wolf, but in a straight

line towards the copse, to cut him off, as Karay had done. Thanks to this

man