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Chapter 6 - The fox hunt
The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return very soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees. Nikolai standing1 in a fallow field could see all his whips.
Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed before Nikolai heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals3; other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine toward the ryefield and away from Nikolai.
He saw the whips in their red caps galloping5 along the edge of the ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself at any moment on the ryefield opposite.
The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and Nikolai saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard across the field. The borzois bore down on it. . . . Now they drew close to the fox which began to dodge6 between the field in sharper and sharper curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped7 up to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.
“What’s this?” thought Nikolai. “Where’s that huntsman from? He is not ‘Uncle’s’ man.”
The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping8 it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled9 and with high saddles, stood near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.
Nikolai sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together. Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.
Nikolai dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up, stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black, but he probably was not even aware of it.
“What has happened?” asked Nikolai.
“A likely thing, killing12 a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed! . . . He snatches at the fox! I gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste of this? . . . ” said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger13 and probably imagining himself still speaking to his foe14.
Nikolai, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy’s, Ilagin’s, hunting party was.
The victorious15 huntsman rode off to join the field, and there, surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.
The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased.
Nikolai, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of moderation in judgment16, hated him cordially from reports of his arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He rode in angry agitation17 toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully11 prepared to take the most resolute18 and desperate steps to punish his enemy.
Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout19 gentleman in a beaver20 cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse, accompanied by two hunt servants.
Instead of an enemy, Nikolai found in Ilagin a stately and courteous21 gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count’s acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nikolai, Ilagin raised his beaver cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else’s borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited him to draw his covert22.
Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her beauty, of which he had heard much.
To expiate23 his huntsman’s offense24, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and which, he said, swarmed25 with hares. Nikolai agreed, and the hunt, now doubled, moved on.
The way to Iligin’s upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell into line. The masters rode together. “Uncle,” Rostov, and Ilagin kept stealthily glancing at one another’s dogs, trying not to be observed by their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.
Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred, red-spotted bitch on Ilagin’s leash26, slender but with muscles like steel, a delicate muzzle27, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness of Ilagin’s borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own Milka.
In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year’s harvest, Nikolai pointed28 to the red-spotted bitch.
“A fine little bitch, that!” said he in a careless tone. “Is she swift?”
“That one? Yes, she’s a good dog, gets what she’s after,” answered Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. “So in your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?” he went on, continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to return the young count’s compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. “That black-spotted one of yours is fine — well shaped!” said he.
“Yes, she’s fast enough,” replied Nikolai, and thought: “If only a full-grown hare would cross the field now I’d show you what sort of borzoi she is,” and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble to anyone who found a hare.
“I don’t understand,” continued Ilagin, “how some sportsmen can be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy riding in company such as this . . . what could be better?” (he again raised his cap to Natasha) “but as for counting skins and what one takes, I don’t care about that.”
“Of course not!”
“Or being upset because someone else’s borzoi and not mine catches something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so, Count? For I consider that . . . ”
“A-tu!” came the long-drawn29 cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who had halted. He stood on a knoll30 in the stubble, holding his whip aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, “A-tu!” (This call and the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)
“Ah, he has found one, I think,” said Ilagin carelessly. “Yes, we must ride up. . . . Shall we both course it?” answered Nikolai, seeing in Erza and “Uncle’s” red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of pitting against his own borzois. “And suppose they outdo my Milka at once!” he thought as he rode with “Uncle” and Ilagin toward the hare.
“A full-grown one?” asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had sighted the hare — and not without agitation he looked round and whistled to Erza.
“And you, Michael Nikanorovich?” he said, addressing “Uncle.”
“How can I join in? Why, you’ve given a village for each of your borzois! That’s it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours against one another, you two, and I’ll look on!”
“Rugay, hey, hey!” he shouted. “Rugayushka!” he added, involuntarily by this diminutive32 expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and her brother were trying to conceal33, and was herself excited by it.
The huntsman stood halfway34 up the knoll holding up his whip and the gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately35.
“How is it pointing?” asked Nikolai, riding a hundred paces toward the whip who had sighted the hare.
But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting36 the frost coming next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that were not on leash darted37 after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt, 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 tranquil38 Ilagin, Nikolai, Natasha, 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 pricked39 his ears listening to the shouting and trampling40 that resounded41 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 Ilagin’s red-spotted Erza 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 Erza rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.
“Milashka, dear!” rose Nikolai’ triumphant42 cry. It looked as if Milka would immediately pounce43 on the hare, but she overtook him and flew past. The hare had squatted44. Again the beautiful Erza 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 hind2 leg.
“Erza, darling! Ilagin wailed45 in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her prey46, the hare moved and darted along the balk47 between the winter rye and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast48, 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.
“Rugay, Rugayushka! 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 twitched49. He spoke50 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 justifying51 himself. “There are your thousand-ruble ones. . . . That’s it, come on! . . . ”
“Rugay, 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 Nikolai, 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 Ilagin’s groom.
“Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it,” Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop4 and his excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath, screamed joyously52, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone’s ear tingling53. By that shriek54 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 neatly55 and smartly across his horse’s back as if by that gesture he meant to rebuke56 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 regain57 their former affectation of indifference58. For a long time they continued to look at red Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind “Uncle’s” horse with the serene59 air of a conqueror60.
“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 seem to Nikolai to be saying.
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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4
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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5
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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6
dodge
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| v.闪开，躲开，避开；n.妙计，诡计 | |
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7
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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8
strapping
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| adj. 魁伟的, 身材高大健壮的 n. 皮绳或皮带的材料, 裹伤胶带, 皮鞭 动词strap的现在分词形式 | |
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9
bridled
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| 给…套龙头( bridle的过去式和过去分词 )； 控制； 昂首表示轻蔑（或怨忿等）； 动怒，生气 | |
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10
groom
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| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
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11
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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12
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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13
dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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14
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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16
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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17
agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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18
resolute
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| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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19
stout
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| adj.强壮的，粗大的，结实的，勇猛的，矮胖的 | |
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20
beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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21
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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22
covert
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| adj.隐藏的；暗地里的 | |
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23
expiate
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| v.抵补，赎罪 | |
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24
offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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25
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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26
leash
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| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
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27
muzzle
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| n.鼻口部；口套；枪(炮)口；vt.使缄默 | |
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28
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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29
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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30
knoll
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| n.小山，小丘 | |
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31
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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32
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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33
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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34
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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35
sedately
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| adv.镇静地，安详地 | |
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36
scenting
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| vt.闻到（scent的现在分词形式） | |
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37
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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38
tranquil
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| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
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39
pricked
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| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
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40
trampling
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| 踩( trample的现在分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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41
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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42
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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43
pounce
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| n.猛扑；v.猛扑，突然袭击，欣然同意 | |
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44
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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45
wailed
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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47
balk
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| n.大方木料；v.妨碍；不愿前进或从事某事 | |
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48
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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49
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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50
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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51
justifying
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| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
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52
joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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53
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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54
shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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55
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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56
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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57
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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58
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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59
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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60
conqueror
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| n.征服者，胜利者 | |
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61
deigned
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| v.屈尊，俯就( deign的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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