This excited Levin still more. The snipe were floating continually in the air over the reeds. Their whirring wings close to the earth, and their harsh cries high in the air, could be heard on all sides; the snipe that had risen first and flown up into the air, settled again before the sportsmen. Instead of two hawks there were now dozens of them hovering with shrill cries over the marsh.
After walking through the larger half of the marsh, Levin and Veslovsky reached the place where the peasants’ mowing-grass was divided into long strips reaching to the reeds, marked off in one place by the trampled grass, in another by a path mown through it. Half of these strips had already been mown.
Though there was not so much hope of finding birds in the uncut part as the cut part, Levin had promised Stepan Arkadyevitch to meet him, and so he walked on with his companion through the cut and uncut patches.
“Hi, sportsmen!” shouted one of a group of peasants, sitting on an unharnessed cart; “come and have some lunch with us! Have a drop of wine!”
Levin looked round.
“Come along, it’s all right!” shouted a good-humored-looking bearded peasant with a red face, showing his white teeth in a grin, and holding up a greenish bottle that flashed in the sunlight.
“ Qu’est-ce qu’ils disent? ” asked Veslovsky.
“They invite you to have some vodka. Most likely they’ve been dividing the meadow into lots. I should have some,” said Levin, not without some guile, hoping Veslovsky would be tempted by the vodka, and would go away to them.
“Why do they offer it?”