Page 361 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

sound of a blow, and fluttering its wings as though trying
to keep up in the air, the bird halted, stopped still and
instant, and fell with a heavy splash on the slushy ground.
‘Can I have missed it?’ shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch,

who could not see for the smoke.
‘Here it is!’ said Levin, pointing to Laska, who with
one ear raised, wagging the end of her shaggy tail, came
slowly back as though she would prolong the pleasure, and
as it were smiling, brought the dead bird to her master.
‘Well, I’m glad you were successful,’ said Levin, who, at
the same time, had a sense of envy that he had not
succeeded in shooting the snipe.
‘It was a bad shot from the right barrel,’ responded
Stepan Arkadyevitch, loading his gun. ‘Sh...it’s flying!’
The shrill whistles rapidly following one another were
heard again. Two snipe, playing and chasing one another,
and only whistling, not crying, flew straight at the very
heads of the sportsmen. There was the report of four shots,
and like swallows the snipe turned swift somersaults in the
air and vanished from sight.
The stand-shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch
shot two more birds and Levin two, of which one was not
found. It began to get dark. Venus, bright and silvery,
shone with her soft light low down in the west behind the

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