u see, where the pools are?
That's the best place. There I once shot seventeen snipe.
We'll separate with the dogs and go in different directions, and
then meet over there at the mill."

"Well, which shall go to left and which to right?" asked Stepan
Arkadyevitch. "It's wider to the right; you two go that way and
I'll take the left," he said with apparent carelessness.

"Capital! we'll make the bigger bag! Yes, come along, come
along!" Vassenka exclaimed.

Levin could do nothing but agree, and they divided.

As soon as they entered the marsh, the two dogs began hunting
about together and made towards the green, slime-covered pool.
Levin knew Laska's method, wary and indefinite; he knew the place
too and expected a whole covey of snipe.

"Veslovsky, beside me, walk beside me!" he said in a faint voice
to his companion splashing in the water behind him. Levin could
not help feeling an interest in the direction his gun was
pointed, after that casual shot near the Kolpensky marsh.

"Oh, I won't get in your way, don't trouble about me."

But Levin could not help troubling, and recalled Kitty's words at
parting: "Mind you don't shoot one another." The dogs came
nearer and nearer, passed each other, each pursuing its own
scent. The expectation of snipe was so intense that to Levin the
squelching sound of his own heel, as he drew it up out of the
mire, seemed to be the call of a snipe, and he clutched and
pressed the lock of his gun.

"Bang! bang!" sounded almost in his ear. Vassenka had fired at a
flock of ducks which was hovering over the marsh and flying at
that moment towards the sportsmen, far out of range. Before
Levin had time to look round, there was the whir of one snipe,
another, a third, and some eight more rose one after another.

Stepan Arkadyevitch hit one at the very moment when it was
beginning its zigzag movements, and the snipe fell in a heap into
the mud. Oblonsky aimed deliberately at another, still flying
low in the reeds, and together with the report of the shot, that
snipe too fell, and it could be seen fluttering out where the
sedge had been cut, its unhurt wing showing white beneath.

Levin was not so lucky: he aimed at his first bird too low, and
missed; he aimed at it again, just as it was rising, but at that
instant another snipe flew up at his very feet, distracting him
so that he missed again.

While they were loading their guns, another snipe rose, and
Veslovsky, who had h