athizers, recounted his exploits.

The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were
at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and
had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs
were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased.

Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence
of moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his
arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He
rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully
prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his
enemy.

Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in
a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,
accompanied by two hunt servants.

Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous
gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's
acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver
cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man
punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's
borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited
him to draw his covert.

Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had
followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly
greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still
higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young
countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her
beauty, of which he had heard much.

To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to
an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and
which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now
doubled, moved on.

The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell
into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov, and Ilagin kept
stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by
their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.

Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred,
red-spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like
steel, a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the
swiftness of Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful b