When Levin, after loading his gun, moved on, the sun had fully risen, though unseen behind the storm-clouds.  The moon had lost all of its luster, and was like a white cloud in the sky.  Not a single star could be seen.  The sedge, silvery with dew before, now shone like gold.  The stagnant pools were all like amber.  The blue of the grass had changed to yellow-green.  The marsh birds twittered and swarmed about the brook and upon the bushes that glittered with dew and cast long shadows.  A hawk woke up and settled on a haycock, turning its head from side to side and looking discontentedly at the marsh.  Crows were flying about the field, and a bare-legged boy was driving the horses to an old man, who had got up from under his long coat and was combing his hair.  The smoke from the gun was white as milk over the green of the grass.

One of the boys ran up to Levin.

“Uncle, there were ducks here yesterday!” he shouted to him, and he walked a little way off behind him.

And Levin was doubly pleased, in sight of the boy, who expressed his approval, at killing three snipe, one after another, straight off.

Chapter 13

The sportsman’s saying, that if the first beast or the first bird is not missed, the day will be lucky, turned out correct.

At ten o’clock Levin, weary, hungry, and happy after a tramp of twenty miles, returned to his night’s lodging with nineteen head of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would not go into the game bag.  His companions had long been awake, and had had time to get hungry and have breakfast.

“Wait a bit, wait a bit, I know there are nineteen,” said Levin, counting a second time over the grouse and snipe, that looked so much less important now, bent and dry and bloodstained, with heads crooked aside, than they did when they were flying.

The number was verified, and Stepan Arkadyevitch’s envy pleased Levin.  He was pleased too on returning to find the man sent by Kitty with a note was already there.

“I am perfectly well and happy.  If you were uneasy about me, you can feel easier than ever.  I’ve a new bodyguard, Marya Vlasyevna,”—­this was the midwife, a new and important personage in Levin’s domestic life.  “She has come to have a look at me.  She found me perfectly well, and we have kept her till you are back.  All are happy and well, and please, don’t be in a hurry to come back, but, if the sport is good, stay another day.”

These two pleasures, his lucky shooting and the letter from his wife, were so great that two slightly disagreeable incidents passed lightly over Levin.  One was that the chestnut trace horse, who had been unmistakably overworked on the previous day, was off his feed and out of sorts.  The coachman said he was “Overdriven yesterday, Konstantin Dmitrievitch.  Yes, indeed! driven ten miles with no sense!”