Page 1282 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 12

Waking up at earliest dawn, Levin tried to wake his
companions. Vassenka, lying on his stomach, with one leg
in a stocking thrust out, was sleeping so soundly that he
could elicit no response. Oblonsky, half asleep, declined to
get up so early. Even Laska, who was asleep, curled up in
the hay, got up unwillingly, and lazily stretched out and
straightened her hind legs one after the other. Getting on
his boots and stockings, taking his gun, and carefully
opening the creaking door of the barn, Levin went out
into the road. The coachmen were sleeping in their
carriages, the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily
eating oats, dipping its nose into the manger. It was still
gray out-of-doors.
‘Why are you up so early, my dear?’ the old woman,
their hostess, said, coming out of the hut and addressing
him affectionately as an old friend.
‘Going shooting, granny. Do I go this way to the
marsh?’
‘Straight out at the back; by our threshing floor, my
dear, and hemp patches; there’s a little footpath.’ Stepping
carefully with her sunburnt, bare feet, the old woman

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