Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 01.djvu/59

Rh the hound whimpered, and his voice was heard more frequently; a second, bass voice joined it, then a third, a fourth. These voices now grew silent, now interrupted each other. The sounds grew in volume and became less irregular, and finally ran together into one hollow, long-drawn tone. The grove was rich in echoes, and the hounds bayed incessantly.

When I heard that, I remained as if petrified in my place. Fixing my eyes on the clearing, I smiled meaninglessly; the perspiration coursed down my face in a stream, and, though its drops, running over my cheek, tickled me, I did not wipe them off. It seemed to me that there could be nothing more decisive than this moment. The strain of this intent feeling was too great to last long. The hounds now bayed at the very clearing, now kept on receding from me. There was no hare. I began to look around me. The same mood seemed to possess Zhirán; at first he tugged to get away and whimpered; then he lay down near me, placed his snout on my knees, and grew quiet.

Near the bared roots of that oak-tree, under which I was sitting, ants were swarming over the gray, dry earth, between the dry oak leaves, acorns, dried up, lichen-covered sticks, yellowish green moss and the thin blades of grass that peeped through here and there. They were hastening, one after the other, along the foot-paths which they had laid out: some of them went with burdens, others without burdens. I took a stick in my hand and barred their way. It was a sight to see how some of them, despising the danger, crawled under the obstacle, while others crept over it; and some, especially those that were with burdens, were completely lost, and did not know what to do: they stopped, looked for a way round, or turned back, or climbing over the stick reached my hand and, it seemed, were trying to get in the sleeve of my blouse. I was distracted from these interesting