ight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over
there--and seize it by the throat in a death grip!" A thousand times
during that half-hour Rostov cast eager and restless glances over the
edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen
undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and "Uncle's" cap
just visible above the bush on his right.

"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what wouldn't it
be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always
unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and
clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I
want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the
left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of
note in the cries of the dogs.

Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across
the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a deep
breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The
height of happiness was reached--and so simply, without warning, or
noise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his eyes and remained
in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over
a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and
big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that
no one saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.
They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.
Old Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,
baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.

"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up,
jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay finished
scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering
tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.

"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf
approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole
physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never
seen before--human eyes fixed upon her--and turning her head a little
toward Rostov, she paused.

"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to say to
herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a
quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.

"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own