Noticing Laska's special attitude as she crouched on the ground,

as it were, scratching big prints with her hind paws, and with

her mouth slightly open, Levin knew she was pointing at grouse,

and with an inward prayer for luck, especially with the first

bird, he ran up to her. Coming quite close up to her, he could

from his height look beyond her, and he saw with his eyes what

she was seeing with her nose. In a space between two little

thickets, at a couple of yards' distance, he could see a

grouse. Turning its head, it was listening. Then lightly

preening and folding its wings, it disappeared round a corner

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with a clumsy wag of its tail.

"Fetch it, fetch it!" shouted Levin, giving Laska a shove from

behind.

"But I can't go," thought Laska. "Where am I to go? From here I

feel them, but if I move forward I shall know nothing of where

they are or who they are." But then he shoved her with his knee,

and in an excited whisper said, "Fetch it, Laska."

"Well, if that's what he wishes, I'll do it, but I can't answer

for myself now," she thought, and darted forward as fast as her

legs would carry her between the thick bushes. She scented

nothing now; she could only see and hear, without understanding

anything.

Ten paces from her former place a grouse rose with a guttural cry

and the peculiar round sound of its wings. And immediately after

the shot it splashed heavily with its white breast on the wet

mire. Another bird did not linger, but rose behind Levin without

the dog. When Levin turned towards it, it was already some way

off. But his shot caught it. Flying twenty paces further, the

second grouse rose upwards, and whirling round like a ball,

dropped heavily on a dry place.

"Come, this is going to be some good!" thought Levin, packing the

warm and fat grouse into his game bag. "Eh, Laska, will it be

good?"

When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully

risen, though unseen behind the storm-clouds. The moon had lost

all of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky. Not a

single star could be seen. The sedge, silvery with dew before,

now shone like gold. The stagnant pools were all like amber.

The blue of the grass had changed to yellow-green. The marsh

birds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the bushes

that glittered with dew and cast long shadows. A hawk woke up

and settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and

looking discontentedly at the marsh. Crows were flying about the

field, and a bare-legged boy was driving the horses to an old

man, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing his

hair. The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green of

the grass.




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