Page 1263 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty’s
words at parting: ‘Mind you don’t shoot one another.’
The dogs came nearer and nearer, passed each other, each
pursuing its own scent. The expectation of snipe was so

intense that to Levin the squelching sound of his own
heel, as he drew it up out of the mire, seemed to be the
call of a snipe, and he clutched and pressed the lock of his
gun.
‘Bang! bang!’ sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had
fired at a flock of ducks which was hovering over the
marsh and flying at that moment towards the sportsmen,
far out of range. Before Levin had time to look round,
there was the whir of one snipe, another, a third, and
some eight more rose one after another.
Stepan Arkadyevitch hit one at the very moment when
it was beginning its zigzag movements, and the snipe fell
in a heap into the mud. Oblonsky aimed deliberately at
another, still flying low in the reeds, and together with the
report of the shot, that snipe too fell, and it could be seen
fluttering out where the sedge had been cut, its unhurt
wing showing white beneath.
Levin was not so lucky: he aimed at his first bird too
low, and missed; he aimed at it again, just as it was rising,

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