Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/795

 ing Laska, shied, and, lifting his tail, whinnied. The two other horses were also startled, and dashed through the water and galloped out of the swamp. As they pulled their hoofs out of the soft, sticky mud, they made a noise like smacking. Laska paused, looking with amused eyes at the horses, and seemed to ask her master what she should do. Levin caressed her and gave a whistle as a signal that she might begin her work. Laska, joyous and full of importance, darted on over the soil of the marsh, which quaked under her weight.

As soon as she got fairly into the bog, Laska instantly distinguished amid all the well-known odors of roots and swamp-grass and the mud and the droppings of the horses, the scent of the bird perceptible through the whole place—the penetrating bird odor which more than anything else excited her. Wherever there was moss or sage bushes this odor was peculiarly strong, but it was impossible to make out in which direction it increased or diminished in strength. In order to get her bearings, the dog had to bear to the lee of the wind. Unconscious of any effort in moving her legs, Laska in an eager gallop, yet so restrained that she was able to stop at a bound, if anything of consequence presented itself, dashed toward the right away from the breeze which was now beginning to blow freshly from the east. Snuffing the air with her widespread nostrils, she suddenly became conscious that she was no longer following a trail, but was on the game itself—not one bird alone, but many. Laska slackened her speed. The birds were there, but she could not as yet determine exactly where. In order to find the exact spot, she began another circle, when suddenly the voice of her master called her back.

"Here, Laska," he cried, directing her toward the other side. She paused as if to ask him if she had not better keep on as she had begun. But he repeated his command in a stern voice, sending her to a tussock-covered place overflowed with water, where there could not possibly be anything.