War and Peace
“The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael
Sidórych...” Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had
distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds
giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning
finger at his master. “They are on the scent of the cubs...” he
whispered, “straight to the Lyádov uplands.”
The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into
the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding
the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds
came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel’s hunting horn; the
pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,
with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after
a wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the
cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel’s voice, now a deep
bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and
carried far beyond out into the open field.
After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant
convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the
sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in
the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and
it was with this that Daniel’s voice was heard calling ulyulyu.
The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were
becoming more distant.
Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had
entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,
opened it and took a pinch. “Back!” cried Simon to a borzoi that
was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the
snuffbox. Nastásya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and
Simon were looking at him.
Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly
approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just
in front of them.
The count turned and saw on his right Mítka staring at him with eyes
starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the
other side.
“Look out!” he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long
fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped
toward the count.
The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a
wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet
lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing.
The angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the
horses’ feet at the wolf.
The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,
like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying
from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail
disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry
like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang
helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across
the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel
bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel’s chestnut horse appeared,
dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,
his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.
“Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!...” he cried. When he caught sight of the
count his eyes flashed lightning.
“Blast you!” he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the
count.
“You’ve let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!” and as if scorning to
say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving
flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count
had aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished
schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon’s sympathy for
his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the
bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head
the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.
CHAPTER V
Nicholas Rostóv meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf.
By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs
whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen
approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the
copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had
separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and
that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any
moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and
from what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope
alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God
that the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and
shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement
arising from trivial causes. “What would it be to Thee to do this for
me?” he said to God. “I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to
ask this of Thee, but for God’s sake do let the old wolf come my way
and let Karáy spring at it—in sight of ‘Uncle’ who is watching
from over there—and seize it by the throat in a death grip!” A
thousand times during that half-hour Rostóv cast eager and restless
glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising
above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and
“Uncle’s” cap just visible above the bush on his right.
“No, I shan’t have such luck,” thought Rostóv, “yet what
wouldn’t it be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in
war, I am always unlucky.” Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov
flashed rapidly and clearly through his mind. “Only once in my life
to get an old wolf, I want only that!” thought he, straining eyes and
ears and looking to the left and then to the right and listening to the
slightest variation of note in the cries of the dogs.
Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across
the deserted field. “No, it can’t be!” thought Rostóv, taking a
deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for.
The height of happiness was reached—and so simply, without warning, or
noise, or display, that Rostóv could not believe his eyes and remained
in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over
a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and
big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no
one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.
They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.
Old Karáy had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,
baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.
“Ulyulyulyu!” whispered Rostóv, pouting his lips. The borzois
jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears.
Karáy finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got
up with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.
“Shall I loose them or not?” Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf’s whole
physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never
seen before—human eyes fixed upon her—and turning her head a little
toward Rostóv, she paused.
“Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward...” the wolf seemed to say
to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a
quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.
“Ulyulyu!” cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own
accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies
to head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still.
Nicholas did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor
see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the
wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along
the hollow. The first to come into view was Mílka, with her black
markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and
nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face
her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Mílka suddenly
raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.
“Ulyulyulyulyu!” shouted Nicholas.
The reddish Lyubím rushed forward from behind Mílka, sprang
impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but
immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her
teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a
couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.
“She’ll get away! No, it’s impossible!” thought Nicholas, still
shouting with a hoarse voice.
“Karáy, ulyulyu!...” he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi
who was now his only hope. Karáy, with all the strength age had left
him, stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped
heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf’s
lope and the borzoi’s slower pace made it plain that Karáy had
miscalculated. Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the
wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But,
coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost
straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish
young borzoi, one Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed
impetuously at the wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But
the wolf jumped up more quickly than anyone could have expected and,
gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing
yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding from a gash in its
side.
“Karáy? Old fellow!...” wailed Nicholas.
Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf’s path, the
old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five
paces of it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on
Karáy, tucked her tail yet further between her legs, and increased
her speed. But here Nicholas only saw that something happened to
Karáy—the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together
down into a gully just in front of them.
That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully
with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and
outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears
laid back (Karáy was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest
moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to
dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from
among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the
gully. She clicked her teeth (Karáy no longer had her by the throat),
leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having
disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went
forward. Karáy, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded,
climbed with difficulty out of the gully.
“Oh my God! Why?” Nicholas cried in despair.
“Uncle’s” huntsman was galloping from the other side across the
wolf’s path and his borzois once more stopped the animal’s advance.
She was again hemmed in.
Nicholas and his attendant, with “Uncle” and his huntsman, were all
riding round the wolf, crying “ulyulyu!” shouting and preparing to
dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward
again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she
would be safe.
Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,
had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karáy seize the wolf, and checked
his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the