Page 1265 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

gazed back at the sportsmen, as it were, with perplexity or
reproach in her eyes. Shots followed shots in rapid
succession. The smoke of the powder hung about the
sportsmen, while in the great roomy net of the game bag

there were only three light little snipe. And of these one
had been killed by Veslovsky alone, and one by both of
them together. Meanwhile from the other side of the
marsh came the sound of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s shots, not
frequent, but, as Levin fancied, well-directed, for almost
after each they heard ‘Krak, Krak, apporte!’
This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating
continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings
close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air,
could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first
and flown up into the air, settled again before the
sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens
of them hovering with shrill cries over the marsh.
After walking through the larger half of the marsh,
Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants’
mowing-grass was divided into long strips reaching to the
reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass, in
another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips
had already been mown.

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