War and Peace
the corner came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray,
wrinkled old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian
fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence
and scorn of everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his
Circassian cap to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn
was not offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel,
disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all
the same his serf and huntsman.
“Daniel!” Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the
weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away
by that irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all
his previous resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his
mistress.
“What orders, your excellency?” said the huntsman in his deep bass,
deep as a proto-deacon’s and hoarse with hallooing—and two flashing
black eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent.
“Can you resist it?” those eyes seemed to be asking.
“It’s a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?” asked
Nicholas, scratching Mílka behind the ears.
Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.
“I sent Uvárka at dawn to listen,” his bass boomed out after a
minute’s pause. “He says she’s moved them into the Otrádnoe
enclosure. They were howling there.” (This meant that the she-wolf,
about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otrádnoe
copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.)
“We ought to go, don’t you think so?” said Nicholas. “Come to me
with Uvárka.”
“As you please.”
“Then put off feeding them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Five minutes later Daniel and Uvárka were standing in Nicholas’ big
study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was
like seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and
surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood
just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of
breaking something in the master’s apartment, and he hastened to say
all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into
the open under the sky once more.
Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that
the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas
ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to
go Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or
finished dressing and with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped round
her. Pétya ran in at the same time.
“You are going?” asked Natásha. “I knew you would! Sónya said
you wouldn’t go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you
couldn’t help going.”
“Yes, we are going,” replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he
intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya.
“We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you.”
“You know it is my greatest pleasure,” said Natásha. “It’s not
fair; you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said
nothing to us about it.”
“‘No barrier bars a Russian’s path’—we’ll go!” shouted
Pétya.
“But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,” said Nicholas to
Natásha.
“Yes, I’ll go. I shall certainly go,” said Natásha decisively.
“Daniel, tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my
dogs,” she added to the huntsman.
It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to
have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He
cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,
careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young
lady.
CHAPTER IV
The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment
but had now handed it all completely over to his son’s care, being
in very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out
with the others.
In an hour’s time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,
with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for
attending to trifles, went past Natásha and Pétya who were trying to
tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent
a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his
chestnut Donéts, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off
across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otrádnoe wood.
The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyánka, was led by
the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in
a small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.
They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and
whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen
and more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash
belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and
thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.
Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his
business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the
fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,
along the road and field leading to the Otrádnoe covert.
The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then
splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still
seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air
was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman,
the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling
hound could be heard.
When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with
dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostóvs. In front rode a
fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.
“Good morning, Uncle!” said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.
“That’s it. Come on!... I was sure of it,” began “Uncle.” (He
was a distant relative of the Rostóvs’, a man of small means, and
their neighbor.) “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it and
it’s a good thing you’re going. That’s it! Come on!” (This was
“Uncle’s” favorite expression.) “Take the covert at once, for my
Gírchik says the Ilágins are at Kornikí with their hounds. That’s
it. Come on!... They’ll take the cubs from under your very nose.”
“That’s where I’m going. Shall we join up our packs?” asked
Nicholas.
The hounds were joined into one pack, and “Uncle” and Nicholas rode
on side by side. Natásha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her
eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by
Pétya who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a
groom appointed to look after her. Pétya, who was laughing, whipped and
pulled at his horse. Natásha sat easily and confidently on her black
Arábchik and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.
“Uncle” looked round disapprovingly at Pétya and Natásha. He did
not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.
“Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!” shouted Pétya.
“Good morning, good morning! But don’t go overriding the hounds,”
said “Uncle” sternly.
“Nicholas, what a fine dog Truníla is! He knew me,” said Natásha,
referring to her favorite hound.
“In the first place, Truníla is not a ‘dog,’ but a harrier,”
thought Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her
feel the distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natásha
understood it.
“You mustn’t think we’ll be in anyone’s way, Uncle,” she said.
“We’ll go to our places and won’t budge.”
“A good thing too, little countess,” said “Uncle,” “only mind
you don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “because—that’s it,
come on!—you’ve nothing to hold on to.”
The oasis of the Otrádnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,
the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostóv, having finally settled
with “Uncle” where they should set on the hounds, and having shown
Natásha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly
run out—went round above the ravine.
“Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,” said “Uncle.”
“Mind and don’t let her slip!”
“That’s as may happen,” answered Rostóv. “Karáy, here!” he
shouted, answering “Uncle’s” remark by this call to his borzoi.
Karáy was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having
tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places.
The old count, knowing his son’s ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not
to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count
Ilyá Rostóv, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up
with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,
where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened
on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,
and comfortable horse, Viflyánka, which was turning gray, like himself.
His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyá Rostóv, though not at
heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to
the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,
settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked
about with a smile.
Beside him was Simon Chekmár, his personal attendant, an old horseman
now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmár held in leash three
formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master
and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces
farther along the edge of the wood stood Mítka, the count’s other
groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by
old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken
a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.
He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were
rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,
wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an
outing.
The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmár, having got everything ready, kept
glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for
thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant
chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was
plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This
person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak, with a tall
peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman’s
name, Nastásya Ivánovna.
“Well, Nastásya Ivánovna!” whispered the count, winking at him.
“If you scare away the beast, Daniel’ll give it you!”
“I know a thing or two myself!” said Nastásya Ivánovna.
“Hush!” whispered the count and turned to Simon. “Have you seen
the young countess?” he asked. “Where is she?”
“With young Count Peter, by the Zhárov rank grass,” answered Simon,
smiling. “Though she’s a lady, she’s very fond of hunting.”
“And you’re surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?” said the
count. “She’s as good as many a man!”
“Of course! It’s marvelous. So bold, so easy!”
“And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyádov upland, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well
that Daniel and I are often quite astounded,” said Simon, well knowing
what would please his master.
“Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?”
“A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the
Zavárzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight
when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles
and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to
find another as smart.”
“To search far...” repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not
said more. “To search far,” he said, turning back the skirt of his
coat to get at his snuffbox.