ored aspen leaf raised by the blade of a young herb starting from the sod.
He stood, listening and looking, now at the damp moss-covered ground, now at the watchful Laska, now at the bare tree-tops of the forest, which swept like a sea to the foot of the hill, and now at the darkening sky, where floated little white bits of cloud. A hawk flew aloft, slowly flapping his broad wings above the distant forest; another took the same direction and disappeared. In the thicket the birds were chirping louder and more gayly than ever. Not far away, an owl lifted his voice, and Laska pricked up her ears again, took two or three cautious steps, and bent her head to listen. On the other side of the stream a cuckoo sang. Twice it uttered its customary cry, and then its voice grew hoarse, it flew away, and was heard no more.
"Why, the cuckoo has come!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out from behind his thicket.
"Yes, I hear," said Levin, disgusted that the silence of the forest was broken, by the sound even of his own voice. "You won't have to wait long now."
Stepan Arkadyevitch returned to his place behind his thicket, and Levin saw only the flash of a match and the red glow of his cigarette and a light bluish smoke.
Tchik! tchik! Stepan Arkadyevitch cocked his gun.
"What was that making that noise?" he asked of his companion, attracting his attention to a protracted humming as if a colt was neighing with a very slender voice.
"Don't you know what that is? That is the buck rabbit. Don't speak any more. Listen, there is a bird!" cried Levin, cocking his gun.
A slender distant whistle was heard, with that rhythmic regularity which the huntsman knows so well ; then a moment or two later it was repeated nearer, and suddenly changed into a hoarse little cry.
Levin turned his eyes to the right, to the left, and finally saw, just above his head, against the fading blue of the sky, above the gently waving aspens, a bird flying. It flew straight toward him; its cry, like the noise
