Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/772

 CHAPTER VIII

next morning the ladies were not yet up when the hunting-traps were waiting at the door, and Laska, who since dawn had realized that hunting was in prospect, and having frisked and barked till she was tired, was sitting up on the katki next the coachman, looking with excitement and disapprobation at the door at which the huntsmen were so provokingly dilatory in making their appearance.

The first to appear was Vasenka Veslovsky, in a green blouse, with a cartridge-belt of fragrant Russia leather, shod in high new boots, which reached half-way up his thighs, his Scotch cap, with ribbons, on his head, and having an English gun of rather recent style, but without strap or bandoleer.

Laska sprang toward him and welcomed him, and asked in her way if the others were coming; but, receiving no answer, she returned to her post, and waited with bent head and one ear pricked up. At last the door opened noisily, and let out Krak, the pointer, circling round and leaping into the air, and after him came his master, Stepan Arkadyevitch, with gun in hand and cigar in mouth.

"Down, Krak, down!" exclaimed Oblonsky, caressingly, to the dog, which leaped up to his breast and caught his paws on his game-pouch. Stepan Arkadyevitch wore pigskin sandals, leggings, torn trousers, and a short overcoat. On his head was the ruin of what had once been a hat; but his gun was of the most modern pattern, and his game-bag as well as his cartridge-box, though worn, were of the finest quality.

Vasenka Veslovsky had never before realized the fact that the height of elegance for a huntsman is to be in rags, but to have the equipment of the very finest quality. He understood this now, as he gazed at Stepan Arkadyevitch, whose elegant, well-nurtured, and aristocratic