They heard a shrill whistle in the distance, and after the two seconds’ interval so familiar to sportsmen, another followed, and then a third, and after the third whistle came a cry.
Levin looked to the right and to the left, and there before him against the dull light-blue sky, over the lower branches of the aspen tops, appeared the flying birds. They were flying straight toward him; the near sound of their cry — something like the sound made when tightly stretched cloth is steadily torn — seemed close to his ears; the long beak and neck of a bird were quite visible, and just as Levin took aim a red flash came from behind the bush where Oblonsky was standing and the bird descended like an arrow and then fluttered up again. Another flash, followed by a report, and the bird, flapping its wings as if trying to keep up in the air, remained stationary for a moment and then with a heavy thud fell on the swampy ground.
‘Can I have missed?’ cried Oblonsky, who could not see through the smoke.
‘Here it is!’ answered Levin, pointing to Laska, who with one ear erect, wagging her fluffy, high-arched tail, stepping slowly as if to prolong the pleasure and seeming almost to smile, brought the dead bird to her master. ‘Well, I’m glad you got it,’ said Levin, and while he spoke he was already experiencing a feeling of envy at not having killed the bird himself.
‘A wretched miss with the right barrel,’ replied Oblonsky, reloading. ‘Hush … coming!’
Indeed, they heard two shrill whistles quickly following each other. Two snipe, playing and racing one another, whistling but not crying, flew almost over the sportsmen’s heads. Then there were four reports, the birds took a swift turn like swallows and vanished from sight.
· · · · · · ·
The shooting was splendid. Oblonsky brought down two more birds, and Levin brought down two, of which one was not recovered. It began to get dark. Through the young birches, Venus bright and silvery was already shining with her delicate glitter low down in the west, and high up in the east flickered the red fire of the dim Arcturus. Above his head Levin found, and again lost, stars of the Great Bear. The snipe had ceased flying; but Levin decided to stay until Venus which he could see underneath a branch, should rise above it and all the stars of the Great Bear should be visible.
Venus had risen above the branch and the car of the Great Bear as well as its shafts showed clearly against the dark blue sky, but he still waited.
‘Is it not time to go?’ asked Oblonsky.
It was quite quiet in the wood, not a bird stirred.
‘Let’s stay a little longer,’ answered Levin.
‘As you please.’
They were now standing some fifteen yards apart.
‘Stephen!’ said Levin suddenly and unexpectedly; ‘why don’t you tell me whether your sister-in-law is married, or when she will be?’
Levin felt so strong and calm that he thought the answer, whatever it might be, could not agitate him, but he did not at all expect the reply Oblonsky gave him.
‘She has not thought, and is not thinking, of getting married, but she is very ill and the doctors have sent her abroad. They are even afraid for her life.’
‘You don’t mean it!’ exclaimed Levin. ‘Very ill? What’s the matter with her? How did she? …’
While they were talking Laska, pricking her ears, kept looking up at the sky and then reproachfully at them.
‘What a time they have chosen to talk,’ thought she. ‘And there it comes flying… . Just so, here it is. They’ll miss it… .’
But at that moment both men heard a shrill whistle that seemed to smite on their ears; they both seized their guns and there were two flashes and two reports at the same moment. The woodcock that was flying high up instantly folded its wings and fell into the thicket, bending down the thin young shoots.
‘That’s good! It belongs to both!’ cried Levin and ran into the thicket with Laska to look for the bird. ‘Oh! but there was something unpleasant!’ he thought. ‘Yes, of course, Kitty is ill! But what can I do? I am very sorry,’ he thought. ‘Found? good dog!’ he said, taking the warm bird from Laska’s mouth and putting it into his well-filled game-bag.
‘We’ve found it, Stephen!’ he shouted.
Chapter 16
ON their way home Levin inquired the particulars of Kitty’s illness and of the Shcherbatskys’ plans, and though he would have been ashamed to confess it, what he heard was agreeable to him. It was agreeable because there was still hope for him, and even more because she was suffering, she who had made him suffer so much. But when Oblonsky began to speak of what caused Kitty’s illness and to mention Vronsky’s name, Levin interrupted him:
‘I have no right whatever to know such family details, and frankly I am not interested in them either.’
Oblonsky gave a scarcely perceptible smile on noticing the quick change, so familiar to him, in Levin’s face, which became as gloomy as it had been bright a moment before.
‘Have you finally settled with Ryabinin about the forest?’ asked Levin.
‘Yes, I have. I’m getting a splendid price for it: thirty-eight thousand roubles; eight at once, and the rest to be paid within six years. I have been bothering about it a long time. No one would give more.’
‘The fact is you are giving the forest away,’ said Levin moodily.
‘Why giving away?’ said Oblonsky with a good-natured smile, knowing well that everything would now seem wrong to Levin.
‘Because the forest is worth at least five hundred roubles a desyatina,’ replied Levin.
‘Oh, you country gentlemen!’ said Oblonsky jokingly. ‘And your tone of contempt for us poor townfolk! … But when it comes to getting business done, we do it better than anyone. Believe me, I have reckoned it all out,’ continued he, ‘and have sold the forest so well that I am afraid he may change his mind. You know it’s not timber but, for the most part, only fit for fuel,’ said he, hoping by this remark finally to convince Levin of the injustice of his suspicions. ‘And it will not yield more than ten sazhens of wood to the desyatina … and he is paying me at the rate of two hundred roubles.’
Levin smiled contemptuously. ‘I know this manner,’ he thought, ‘not his only, but all townsmen’s, who visit the country two or three times in ten years, get hold of two or three expressions, use them in and out of season, and are firmly convinced they know everything. “Timber”, and “yield ten sazhens”. He uses these words but understands nothing about the business.’
‘I should not try to teach you the things you scribble about at your office,’ he said, ‘but in case of need would come to you for advice about them, but you are firmly convinced that you understand all this forest lore. It is not easy! Have you counted the trees?’
‘How can one count the trees?’ said Oblonsky, still anxious to dispel his friend’s ill-humour.
“Count grains of sand, and planets’ rays,
E’en though a lofty mind were able …” ’
‘Well, Ryabinin’s lofty mind is able to do it. And no dealer will ever buy without first counting, unless the forest is given to him for nothing, as you are doing. I know your forest. I go shooting there every year, and it is worth five hundred roubles a desyatina cash down, and he is paying you two hundred on long term. That means that you have made him a present of about thirty thousand roubles.’
‘Come, don’t get so carried away,’ said Oblonsky piteously. ‘Why did no one offer more?’
‘Because