Levin shoots badly all day

They reach the marsh too soon and too hot. Levin divides it — the sedge, the hummocks, the alder grove, the bay where he once shot seventeen — and Oblonsky, with affected indifference, takes the left and leaves the pair of them the broader right. At the first flight Veslovsky fires at ducks far out of range, and eight snipe get up while Levin's back is turned; Oblonsky takes two, Levin misses twice, and having missed his first shots he shoots badly for the rest of the day. Veslovsky puffs merrily along, killing nothing and not in the least abashed. Laska's search grows indolent and she looks round in reproach. From across the marsh come Oblonsky's steady reports and cries of 'Krak! Fetch it!' Levin gets rid of Veslovsky by sending him to drink vodka with the peasants at the cart, refuses the offer of pie himself, and goes on missing until he throws his gun and hat on the ground, empties his boot, drinks rusty water, and misses again. He comes out with five birds. Oblonsky has fourteen.

The hunt is written as a humiliation with weather: wet boots, powder grime, a bitter mouth, barrels too hot to touch. Tolstoy gives the dog the verdict — Laska stops believing he has hit anything and only pretends to search. Levin refuses the peasants' vodka and pie for the sake of a point he then fails to make, which is the shape of his whole day.