War and Peace
who had been moving slowly, shouted, “Stop!” calling in the hounds,
while the borzoi whips, with a cry of “A-tu!” galloped across the
field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilágin, Nicholas,
Natásha, and “Uncle” flew, reckless of where and how they went,
seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even
for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and
swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his
ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from all
sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the
borzois gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and
realized his danger, laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had
been lying in the stubble, but in front of him was the autumn sowing
where the ground was soft. The two borzois of the huntsman who had
sighted him, having been the nearest, were the first to see and pursue
him, but they had not gone far before Ilágin’s red-spotted Erzá
passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare with terrible
swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled
over like a ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more
swiftly. From behind Erzá rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted
Mílka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.
“Miláshka, dear!” rose Nicholas’ triumphant cry. It looked as if
Mílka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and
flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erzá reached him,
but when close to the hare’s scut paused as if measuring the distance,
so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.
“Erzá, darling!” Ilágin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erzá
did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have
seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the
winter rye and the stubble. Again Erzá and Mílka were abreast, running
like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but
it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not
overtake him so quickly.
“Rugáy, Rugáyushka! That’s it, come on!” came a third voice just
then, and “Uncle’s” red borzoi, straining and curving its back,
caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless
of the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off
the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously,
sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was
how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois
surrounded him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd
of dogs. Only the delighted “Uncle” dismounted, and cut off a pad,
shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round
with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without
himself knowing whom to or what about. “That’s it, come on! That’s
a dog!... There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as
the one-ruble borzois. That’s it, come on!” said he, panting and
looking wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they
were all his enemies and had insulted him, and only now had he at
last succeeded in justifying himself. “There are your thousand-ruble
ones.... That’s it, come on!...”
“Rugáy, here’s a pad for you!” he said, throwing down the
hare’s muddy pad. “You’ve deserved it, that’s it, come on!”
“She’d tired herself out, she’d run it down three times by
herself,” said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless
of whether he were heard or not.
“But what is there in running across it like that?” said Ilágin’s
groom.
“Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take
it,” Ilágin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop
and his excitement. At the same moment Natásha, without drawing
breath, screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set
everyone’s ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others
expressed by all talking at once, and it was so strange that she must
herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have
been amazed at it at any other time. “Uncle” himself twisted up the
hare, threw it neatly and smartly across his horse’s back as if by
that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not
wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The others all
followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much later were they able
to regain their former affectation of indifference. For a long time they
continued to look at red Rugáy who, his arched back spattered with
mud and clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind
“Uncle’s” horse with the serene air of a conqueror.
“Well, I am like any other dog as long as it’s not a question of
coursing. But when it is, then look out!” his appearance seemed to
Nicholas to be saying.
When, much later, “Uncle” rode up to Nicholas and began talking
to him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, “Uncle”
deigned to speak to him.
CHAPTER VII
Toward evening Ilágin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were
so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” offer that the hunting
party should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna.
“And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That’s it,
come on!” said “Uncle.” “You see it’s damp weather, and you
could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap.”
“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe for
a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s”
house.
Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front
porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as
well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at
the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a
lady, and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a
degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and
unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some
prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what
was said about her.
“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt
dangles.... See, she’s got a little hunting horn!”
“Goodness gracious! See her knife?...”
“Isn’t she a Tartar!”
“How is it you didn’t go head over heels?” asked the boldest of
all, addressing Natásha directly.
“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which
stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his
retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take
themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to
receive the guests and the visitors.
The serfs all dispersed. “Uncle” lifted Natásha off her horse and
taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The
house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it
did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but
neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of
fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.
“Uncle” led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with
a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round
birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where
there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of
the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The
study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” asked his visitors
to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.
Rugáy, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the
sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study
was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be
seen. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha,
Nicholas, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.
Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nicholas
were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful.
They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in
the house, Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly
superiority over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither
refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before
they had a pretext ready to account for it.
After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and
small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she
had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrádnoe, was just the
right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.
“Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the
brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that
they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the
merriment.
“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw
anyone like her!” said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem
and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that
had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as
fresh as ever!”
Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently
from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking
woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered
carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in
her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with
a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional
stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw
back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod
very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her
plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors
d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had
finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her
face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her
expression said to Rostóv. How could one help understanding? Not only
Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the meaning of his puckered brow
and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when
Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine,
different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with
buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples,
nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought
a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves
made with sugar.
All this was the fruit of Anísya Fëdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered
and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack
of Anísya Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness,
whiteness, and pleasant smiles.
“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered
Natásha first one thing and then another.
Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such
buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such
a chicken anywhere. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room.
After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked
of past and future hunts, of Rugáy and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha
sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried
several times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he
only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so
lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared
the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as