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"For stand-shooting, now is the very time . . ." Ryabov articulated, as though with an effort, stammering. After standing still for a little they walk out of the village, without saying a word to each other, and look towards the dark streak of the forest. The whole sky above the forest is studded with moving black spots, the rooks flying home to roost.
The place fixed on for the stand-shooting was not far above a stream in a little aspen copse. On reaching the copse, Levin got out of the trap and led Oblonsky to a corner of a mossy, swampy glade, already quite free from snow.
There was the report of four shots, and like swallows the snipe turned swift somersaults in the air and vanished from sight. The stand-shooting was capital. Stepan Arkadyevitch shot two more birds and Levin two, of which one was not found. It began to get dark.
The lowest house-serf was conscious of being superior to this vagabond and perhaps this was precisely why they treated him with friendliness; the peasants at first amused themselves by chasing him and driving him like a hare over the open country, but afterwards they left him in God's hands, and when once they recognised him as 'queer, they no longer tormented him, and even gave him bread and entered into talk with him.... This was the man I took as my huntsman, and with him I went stand-shooting to a great birch-wood on the banks of the Ista.
That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting. And so I had gone out stand- shooting with Yermolai; but excuse me, reader: I must first introduce you to Yermolai. Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair, and thick sarcastic lips.
Please forgive me, if I've been nasty," said Levin. Now that he had opened his heart, he became as he had been in the morning. "You're not angry with me, Stiva? Please don't be angry," he said, and smiling, he took his hand. "Of course not; not a bit, and no reason to be. I'm glad we've spoken openly. And do you know, stand-shooting in the morning is unusually good why not go?
"I've come to see you in the first place," he said, embracing and kissing him, "to have some stand-shooting second, and to sell the forest at Ergushovo third." "Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get along in a sledge?" "In a cart it would have been worse still, Konstantin Dmitrievitch," answered the driver, who knew him.
One evening I went with the huntsman Yermolai 'stand-shooting. ... But perhaps all my readers may not know what 'stand-shooting' is. I will tell you. A quarter of an hour before sunset in spring-time you go out into the woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out a spot for yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a look round, examine your caps, and glance at your companion.
The snow, lying white here and there on the dark brown plough-land, is lightly flecked with gold by the sun. "This time last year I went stand-shooting in Zhivki," says Slyunka, after a long silence. "I brought back three snipe." Again there follows a silence. Both stand a long time and look towards the forest, and then lazily move and walk along the muddy road from the village.
"We ought to be standing in Zhivki now," whispers Slyunka, looking with awe at Ryabov; "there's good stand-shooting there." Ryabov too looks with awe at Slyunka, with unblinking eyes and open mouth. "A lovely time," Slyunka says in a trembling whisper. "The Lord is sending a fine spring . . . and I should think the snipe are here by now. . . . Why not?
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