《War And Peace》Book7 CHAPTER IV

《War And Peace》　Book7 　CHAPTER IV
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

THE OLD COUNT, whose hunting establishment had always been kept up on a large
scale, had now handed it all over to his son's care, but on that day, the 15th
of September, being in excellent spirits he prepared to join the expedition.
Within an hour the whole party was before the porch. When Natasha and Petya said
something to Nikolay he walked by them with a stern and serious air, betokening
that he had no time to waste on trifles. He looked over everything to do with
the hunt, sent a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to cut off the wolf from
behind, got on his chestnut Don horse, and whistling to the dogs of his leash,
he set off across the threshing-floor to the field leading to the Otradnoe
preserve. The old count's horse, a sorrel gelding, with a white mane and tail,
called Viflyanka, was led by the count's groom; he was himself to drive straight
in a light gig to the spot fixed for him to stand.

Fifty-four hounds were led out under the charge of six whippers-in and
grooms. Of huntsmen, properly speaking, there were taking part in the hunt eight
men besides the members of the family, and more than forty GREyhounds ran behind
them, so that with the hounds in leashes there were about a hundred and thirty
dogs and twenty persons on horseback.

Every dog knew its master and its call. Every man in the hunt knew his task,
his place, and the part assigned him. As soon as they had passed beyond the
fence, they all moved without noise or talk, lengthening out along the road and
the field to the Otradnoe forest.

The horses stepped over the field as over a soft carpet, splashing now and
then into pools as they crossed the road. The foggy sky still seemed falling
imperceptibly and regularly down on the earth; the air was still and warm, and
there was no sound but now and then the whistle of a huntsman, the snort of a
horse, the clack of a whip, or the whine of a dog who had dropped out of his
place. When they had gone a verst, five more horsemen accompanied by dogs
appeared out of the mist to meet the Rostovs. The foremost of them was a fresh,
handsome old man with large, GREy moustaches.

“Good-day, uncle,” said Nikolay as the old man rode up to him.

“All's well and march!…I was sure of it,” began the man addressed as uncle.
He was not really the Rostovs' uncle, but a distant relative, who had a small
property in their neighbourhood.

‘I was sure you couldn't resist, and a good thing you have come out. All's
well and quick march.” (This was the uncle's favorite saying.) “You had better
attack the preserve at once, for my Girtchilk brought me word that the Ilagins
are out with their hounds at Korniky; they'll snatch the litter right under your
noses.”

“That's where I'm going. Shall we join the packs?” asked Nikolay.

The hounds were joined into one pack, and the uncle and Nikolay rode on side
by side.

Natasha, muffled up in a shawl which did not hide her eager face and shining
eyes, galloped up to them, accompanied by Petya, who kept beside her, and
Mihailo, the huntsman and groom, who had been told to look after her. Petya was
laughing and switching and pulling his horse. Natasha sat her raven Arabtchick
with grace and confidence and controlled him with an easy and steady hand.

The uncle looked with disapproval at Petya and Natasha. He did not like a
mixture of frivolity with the serious business of the hunt.

“Good-day, uncle; we're coming to the hunt too!” shouted Petya.

“Good-day, good-day, and mind you don't ride down the dogs,” said the uncle
sternly.

“Nikolenka, what a delightful dog Trunila is! he knew me,” said Natasha of
her favourite dog.

“In the first place, Trunila's not a dog, but a wolf-hound,” thought Nikolay.
He glanced at his sister trying to make her feel the distance that lay between
them at that moment. Natasha understood it.

“Don't imagine we shall get in anybody's way, uncle,” said Natasha.

“We'll stay in our right place and not stir from it.”

“And you'll do well, little countess,” said the uncle. “Only don't fall off
your horse,” he added, “or you'd never get on again—all's well, quick
march!”

The Otradnoe preserve came into sight, an oasis of GREenness, two hundred and
fifty yards away. Rostov, settling finally with the uncle from what point to set
the dogs on, pointed out to Natasha the place where she was to stand, a place
where there was no chance of anything running out, and went round to close in
from behind above the ravine.

“Now, nephew, you're on the track of an old wolf,” said the uncle; “mind he
doesn't give you the slip.”

“That's as it happens,” answered Rostov. “Karay, hey!” he shouted, replying
to the uncle's warning by this call to his dog. Karay was an old, misshapen,
muddy-coloured hound, famous for attacking an old wolf unaided. All took their
places.

The old count, who knew his son's ardour in the hunt, hurried to avoid being
late, and the whippers-in had hardly reached the place when Count Ilya
Andreitch, with a cheerful face, and flushed and quivering cheeks, drove up with
his pair of raven horses, over the GREen field to the place left for him.
Straightening his fur coat and putting on his hunting appurtenances, he mounted
his sleek, well-fed, quiet, good-humoured Viflyanka, who was turning grey like
himself. The horses with the gig were sent back. Count Ilya Andreitch, though he
was at heart no sportsman, knew well all the rules of sport. He rode into the
edge of the thicket of bushes, behind which he was standing, picked up the
reins, settled himself at his ease in the saddle, and, feeling that he was
ready, looked about him smiling.

Near him stood his valet, Semyon Tchekmar, a veteran horseman, though now
heavy in the saddle. Tchekmar held on a leash three wolfhounds of a special
breed, spirited hounds, though they too had grown fat like their master and his
horse. Two other keen old dogs were lying beside them not in a leash. A hundred
paces further in the edge of the copse stood another groom of the count's,
Mitka, a reckless rider and passionate sportsman. The count had followed the old
custom of drinking before hunting a silver goblet of spiced brandy; he had had a
slight lunch and after that half a bottle of his favourite bordeaux.

Count Ilya Andreitch was rather flushed from the wine and the drive; his
eyes, covered by moisture, were particularly bright, and sitting in the saddle
wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a baby taken out for a drive.

After seeing after his duties, Tchekmar, with his thin face and sunken
cheeks, looked towards his master, with whom he had lived on the best of terms
for thirty years. Perceiving that he was in a genial humour, he anticipated a
pleasant chat. A third person rode circumspectly—he had no doubt been
cautioned—out of the wood, and stood still behind the count. This personage was
a GREy-bearded old man, wearing a woman's gown and a high, peaked cap. It was
the buffoon, Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Well, Nastasya Ivanovna,” whispered the count, winking at him, “you only
scare off the game, and Danilo will give it you.”

“I wasn't born yesterday,” said Nastasya Ivanovna.

“Sh!” hissed the count, and he turned to Semyon. “Have you seen Natalya
Ilyinitchna?” he asked Semyon. “Where is she?”

“Her honour's with Pyotr Ilyitch, behind the high grass at Zharvry,” answered
Semyon, smiling. “Though she is a lady, she has a GREat love for the
chase.”

“And you wonder at her riding, Semyon,…eh?” said the count, “for a man even
it wouldn't be amiss!”

“Who wouldn't wonder! So daring, so smart!”

“And where's Nikolasha? Above the Lyadovsky upland, eh?” the count asked
still in a whisper.

“Yes, sir. His honour knows where he had best stand. He knows the ins and
outs of hunting, so that Danilo and I are sometimes quite astonished at him,”
said Semyon, who knew how to please his master.

“He's a good, clever sportsman, eh? And what do you say to his riding,
eh?”

“A perfect picture he is! How he drove the fox out of the Zavarzinsky thicket
the other day. He galloped down from the ravine, it was a sight—the horse worth
a thousand roubles, and the rider beyond all price. Yes, you would have to look
a long while to find his match!”

“To look a long while…” repeated the count, obviously reGREtting that
Semyon's praises had come to so speedy a termination. “A long while,” he
repeated, turning back the skirt of his coat and looking for his
snuff-box.

“The other day they were coming out from Mass in all their glory, Mihail
Sidoritch…” Semyon stopped short, hearing distinctly in the still air the rush
of the hounds, with no more than two or three dogs giving tongue. With his head
on one side, he listened, shaking a warning finger at his master. “They're on
the scent of the litter…” he whispered; “they have gone straight toward
Lyadovsky upland.”

The count, with a smile still lingering on his face, looked straight before
him along the path, and did not take a pinch from the snuff-box he held in his
hand. The hounds' cry was followed by the bass note of the hunting cry for a
wolf sounded on Danilo's horn. The pack joined the first three dogs, and the
voices of the hounds could be heard in full cry with the peculiar note which
serves to betoken that they are after a wolf. The whippers-in were not now
hallooing, but urging on the hounds with cries of “Loo! loo! loo!” and above all
the voices rose the voice of Danilo, passing from a deep note to piercing
shrillness. Danilo's voice seemed to fill the whole forest, to pierce beyond it,
and echo far away in the open country.

After listening for a few seconds in silence, the count and his groom felt
certain that the hounds had divided into two packs: one, the larger, was going
off into the distance, in particularly hot cry; the other part of the pack was
moving along the forest past the count, and it was with this pack that Danilo's
voice was heard urging the dogs on. The sounds from both packs melted into
unison and broke apart again, but both were getting further away. Semyon sighed
and stooped down to straighten the leash, in which a young dog had caught his
leg. The count too sighed, and noticing the snuff-box in his hand, he opened it
and took a pinch.

“Back!” cried Semyon to the dog, which had poked out beyond the bushes. The
count started, and dropped the snuff-box. Nastasya Ivanovna got off his horse
and began picking it up.

The count and Semyon watched him. All of a sudden, as so often happens, the
sound of the hunt was in an instant close at hand, as though the baying dogs and
Danilo's cries were just upon them.

The count looked round, and on the right he saw Mitka, who was staring at the
count with eyes starting out of his head. Lifting his cap, he pointed in front
to the other side.

“Look out!” he shouted in a voice that showed the words had long been
fretting him to be uttered. And letting go the dogs, he galloped towards the
count.

The count and Semyon galloped out of the bushes, and on their left they saw a
wolf. With a soft, rolling gait it moved at a slow amble further to their left
into the very thicket in which they had been standing. The angry dogs whined,
and pulling themselves free from the leash, flew by the horses' hoofs after the
wolf.

The wolf paused in his flight; awkwardly, like a man with a quinsy, he turned
his heavy-browed head towards the dogs, and still with the same soft, rolling
gait gave one bound and a second, and, waving its tail, disappeared into the
bushes. At the same instant, with a cry like a wail, there sprang desperately
out of the thicket opposite one hound, then a second and a third, and all the
pack flew across the open ground towards the very spot where the wolf had
vanished. The bushes were parted behind the dogs, and Danilo's brown horse, dark
with sweat, emerged from them. On its long back Danilo sat perched up and
swaying forward. He had no cap on his GREy hair, that fluttered in disorder
above his red, perspiring face.

“Loo! loo! loo!…” he was shouting. When he caught sight of the count, there
was a FLASH like lightning in his eyes.

“B—!” he shouted, using a brutally coarse term of abuse and menacing the
count with his lifted whip. “Let the wolf slip!…sportsmen indeed!” And as though
scorning to waste more words on the confused and frightened count, he lashed the
moist and heavy sides of his brown gelding with all the fury that had been ready
for the count, and flew off after the dogs. The count stood like a man who has
been thrashed, looking about him and trying to smile and call for Semyon to
sympathise with his plight. But Semyon was not there; he had galloped round to
cut the wolf off from the forest. The GREyhounds, too, were running to and fro
on both sides. But the wolf got off into the bushes, and not one of the party
succeeded in coming across him.