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
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.