Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 15
Levin looked about him to right and to left, and there, just facing him against the
dusky blue sky above the confused mass of tender shoots of the aspens, he saw the
flying bird. It was flying straight towards him; the guttural cry, like the even tearing
of some strong stuff, sounded close to his ear; the long beak and neck of the bird
could be seen, and at the very instant when Levin was taking aim, behind the bush
where Oblonsky stood, there was a flash of red lightning: the bird dropped like an
arrow, and darted upwards again. Again came the red flash and the sound of a
blow, and fluttering its wings as though trying to keep up in the air, the bird halted,
stopped still an instant, and fell with a heavy splash on the slushy ground.
“Can I have missed it?” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch, who could not see for the
smoke.
“Here it is!” said Levin, pointing to Laska, who with one ear raised, wagging the
end of her shaggy tail, came slowly back as though she would prolong the pleasure,
and as it were smiling, brought the dead bird to her master. “Well, I’m glad you were
successful,” said Levin, who, at the same time, had a sense of envy that he had not
succeeded in shooting the snipe.
“It was a bad shot from the right barrel,” responded Stepan Arkadyevitch, loading
his gun. “Sh...it’s flying!”
The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were heard again. Two snipe,
playing and chasing one another, and only whistling, not crying, flew straight at the
very heads of the sportsmen. There was the report of four shots, and like swallows
the snipe turned swift somersaults in the air and vanished from sight.
The stand-shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch shot two more birds and
Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get dark. Venus, bright and
silvery, shone with her soft light low down in the west behind the birch trees, and
high up in the east twinkled the red lights of Arcturus. Over his head Levin made
out the stars of the Great Bear and lost them again. The snipe had ceased flying;
but Levin resolved to stay a little longer, till Venus, which he saw below a branch of
birch, should be above it, and the stars of the Great Bear should be perfectly plain.
Venus had risen above the branch, and the ear of the Great Bear with its shaft was
now all plainly visible against the dark blue sky, yet still he waited.
“Isn’t it time to go home?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
It was quite still now in the copse, and not a bird was stirring.
“Let’s stay a little while,” answered Levin.
“As you like.”
They were standing now about fifteen paces from one another.
“Stiva!” said Levin unexpectedly; “how is it you don’t tell me whether your sisterin-law’s
married yet, or when she’s going to be?”
Levin felt so resolute and serene that no answer, he fancied, could affect him. But
he had never dreamed of what Stepan Arkadyevitch replied.
“She’s never thought of being married, and isn’t thinking of it; but she’s very ill,
and the doctors have sent her abroad. They’re positively afraid she may not live.”
“What!” cried Levin. “Very ill? What is wrong with her? How has she...?”
155