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WINTRY WEATHER was already setting in, the morning frosts hardened the earth
drenched by the autumn rains. Already the grass was full of tufts, and stood out
bright green against the patches of brown winter cornland trodden by the cattle,
and the pale yellow stubble of the summer cornfields, and the reddish strips of
buckwheat. The uplands and copses, which at the end of August had still been
green islands among the black fields ploughed ready for winter corn, and the
stubble had become golden and lurid red islands in a sea of bright green autumn
crops. The grey hare had already half-changed its coat, the foxes' cubs were
beginning to leave their parents, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It
was the best time of the year for the chase. The dogs of an ardent young
sportsman like Rostov were only just coming into fit state for hunting, so that
at a common council of the huntsmen it was decided to give the dogs three days'
rest, and on the 16th of September to go off on a hunting expedition, beginning
with Dubravy, where there was a litter of wolves that had never been
hunted.
Such was the position of affairs on the 14th of September.
All that day the dogs were kept at home. It was keen and frosty weather, but
towards evening the sky clouded over and it began to thaw. On the morning of the
15th of September when young Rostov in his dressing-gown looked out of window he
saw a morning which was all the heart could desire for hunting. It looked as
though the sky were melting, and without the slightest wind, sinking down upon
the earth. The only movement in the air was the soft downward motion of
microscopic drops of moisture or mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung
with transparent drops which dripped on to the freshly fallen leaves. The earth
in the kitchen-garden had a gleaming, wet, black look like the centre of a
poppy, and at a short distance away it melted off into the damp, dim veil of
fog.
Nikolay went out on to the wet and muddy steps. There was a smell of decaying
leaves and dogs. The broad-backed, black and tan bitch Milka, with her big,
prominent, black eyes, caught sight of her master, got up, stretched out her
hindlegs, lay down like a hare, then suddenly jumped up and licked him right on
his nose and moustache. Another harrier, catching sight of his master from the
bright coloured path, arched its back, darted headlong to the steps, and,
lifting its tail, rubbed itself against Nikolay's legs.
“O, hoy!” He heard at that moment the inimitable hunting halloo which unites
the deepest bass and the shrillest tenor notes. And round the corner came the
huntsman and whipper-in, Danilo, a grey, wrinkled man, with his hair cropped
round in the Ukrainian fashion. He held a bent whip in his hand, and his face
had that expression of independence and scorn for everything in the world, which
is only to be seen in huntsmen. He took off his Circassian cap to his master and
looked scornfully at him. That scorn was not offensive to his master. Nikolay
knew that this Danilo, disdainful of all, and superior to everything, was still
his man and his huntsman.
“Danilo,” said Nikolay, at the sight of this hunting weather, those dogs, and
the huntsman, feeling shyly that he was being carried away by that irresistible
sporting passion in which a man forgets all his previous intentions, like a man
in love at the sight of his mistress.
“What is your bidding, your excellency?” asked a bass voice, fit for a head
deacon, and hoarse from hallooing, and a pair of flashing black eyes glanced up
from under their brows at the silent young master. “Surely you can't resist it?”
those two eyes seemed to be asking.
“It's a good day, eh? Just right for riding and hunting, eh?” said Nikolay,
scratching Milka behind the ears.
Danilo winked and made no reply.
“I sent Uvarka out to listen at daybreak,” his bass boomed out after a
moment's silence. “He brought word she's moved into the Otradnoe
enclosure; there was howling there.” (“She's moved” meant that the mother wolf,
of whom both knew, had moved with her cubs into the Otradnoe copse, which was a
small hunting preserve about two versts away.)
“Shouldn't we go, eh?” said Nikolay. “Come to me with Uvarka.”
“As you desire.”
“Then put off feeding them.”
“Yes, sir!”
Five minutes later Danilo and Uvarka were standing in Nikolay's big study.
Although Danilo was not tall, to see him in a room gave one an impression such
as one has on seeing a horse or bear standing on the floor among the furniture
and surroundings of human life. Danilo felt this himself, and as usual he kept
close to the door and tried to speak more softly, and not to move for fear of
causing some breakage in the master's apartments. He did his utmost to get
everything said quickly so as to get as soon as might be out into the open
again, from under a ceiling out under the sky.
After making inquiries and extracting from Danilo an admission that the dogs
were fit (Danilo himself was longing to go), Nikolay told them to have the
horses saddled. But just as Danilo was about to go, Natasha, wrapped in a big
shawl of her old nurse's, ran into the room, not yet dressed, and her hair in
disorder. Petya ran in with her.
“Are you going?” said Natasha. “I knew you would! Sonya said you weren't
going. I knew that on such a day you couldn't help going!”
“Yes, we're going,” Nikolay answered reluctantly. As he meant to attempt
serious hunting he did not want to take Natasha and Petya. “We are going, but
only wolf-hunting; it will be dull for you.”
“You know that it's the greatest of my pleasures,” said Natasha. “It's too
bad—he's going himself, has ordered the horses out and not a word to us.”
“No hindrance bars a Russian's path!” declaimed Petya; “let's go!”
“But you mustn't, you know; mamma said you were not to,” said Nikolay to
Natasha.
“No, I'm going, I must go,” said Natasha stoutly. “Danilo, bid them saddle my
horse, and tell Mihailo to come with my leash,” she said to the huntsman.
Simply to be in a room seemed irksome and unfitting to Danilo, but to have
anything to do with a young lady he felt to be utterly impossible. He cast down
his eyes and made haste to get away, making as though it were no affair of his,
and trying to avoid accidentally doing some hurt to the young lady.
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