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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.
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