Page 359 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Imagine! One can hear and see the grass growing!’
Levin said to himself, noticing a wet, slate-colored aspen
leaf moving beside a blade of young grass. He stood,
listened, and gazed sometimes down at the wet mossy

ground, sometimes at Laska listening all alert, sometimes at
the sea of bare tree tops that stretched on the slope below
him, sometimes at the darkening sky, covered with white
streaks of cloud.
A hawk flew high over a forest far away with slow
sweep of its wings; another flew with exactly the same
motion in the same direction and vanished. The birds
twittered more and more loudly and busily in the thicket.
An owl hooted not far off, and Laska, starting, stepped
cautiously a few steps forward, and putting her head on
one side, began to listen intently. Beyond the stream was
heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual cuckoo
call, and then gave a hoarse, hurried call and broke down.
‘Imagine! the cuckoo already!’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, coming out from behind a bush.
‘Yes, In hear it,’ answered Levin, reluctantly breaking
the stillness with his voice, which sounded disagreeable to
himself. ‘Now it’s coming!’
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s figure again went behind the
bush, and Levin saw nothing but the bright flash of a

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