wolf

The wolf is the decisive quarry in the Rostov hunting episode, but it is not merely an object for sport. An old animal with a gray back and a large reddish belly, it crosses the open field with measured confidence, survives repeated attacks by trained borzois, and finally has to be subdued by the combined efforts of dogs and huntsmen. Its capture produces Nicholas Rostov's greatest moment of hunting happiness while also exposing the violence, discipline, and human-centered assumptions underlying the chase.

Seasonal Setting and the Hunt

The wolf appears within an autumn landscape carefully prepared for pursuit. Morning frosts have hardened ground soaked by earlier rains; winter rye, stubble, wooded ravines, and changing foliage mark the transition toward winter. The hares have begun to change their summer coats, fox cubs are scattering, and young wolves have grown large. Because the wolf cubs remain in an undisturbed litter near an oak grove, the huntsmen decide to rest the exhausted hounds for three days before setting out on September 16. The animal is therefore introduced not as an accidental intruder but as the intended center of an organized expedition.

The hunt is experienced through sound as much as sight. From the woods come the hounds' cries, the huntsman's horn, and Daniel's shifting voice, now a deep bass and now piercingly shrill. The pack divides into two groups, and the changing distance of their voices allows Nicholas Rostov to infer the movement of the unseen animals before he sees them. The wolf exists first as a presence reconstructed through pursuit: the object toward which human attention, canine instinct, horses, calls, and conjecture all converge.

The Wolf's Appearance and Movement

Nicholas waits in expectation, imagining thousands of possible routes by which the animal might approach. His hope becomes almost prayerful, because he wants one particular triumph: to take an old wolf with Karay, the aged borzoi whose success would give the moment special meaning. When the animal finally appears, the revelation is quiet rather than spectacular. The wolf runs across the deserted field, jumps heavily over a gully, and moves without hurry, evidently confident that no one has seen her.

Her composure changes only when she encounters Nicholas's fixed gaze. She pauses, turns her head slightly, and then chooses to continue forward in a long, easy, resolute lope. The narration gives her movement a recognizable deliberateness: she does not behave like a passive target but assesses danger and proceeds according to her own immediate judgment. Even after the chase begins, her speed and direction remain difficult for the dogs to master. The animal's body becomes the measure against which the hunters' plans, horses, and trained instincts repeatedly fail.

Resistance and Capture

The first attack does not secure the wolf. Milka approaches but stiffens instead of striking; Lyubim seizes the animal by the hindquarters and immediately recoils in terror. The wolf crouches, bares her teeth, and continues forward while the borzois follow without closing the distance. Karay, Nicholas's last hope, attempts to intercept her but initially miscalculates because her lope is quicker than his aging pace.

A young yellowish borzoi from another leash then rushes at the wolf from the front and nearly overturns her. The wolf recovers faster than expected, attacks the dog, and leaves it bleeding from a deep gash in its side. The delay finally brings Karay within reach. The two animals roll together into a gully, where Karay pins the wolf by the throat. Yet even this apparently decisive victory fails: she thrusts up her head, frees herself when Karay loses his hold, climbs out with her forepaws, and escapes the mass of dogs.

The wolf is stopped again only through the intervention of Daniel, who arrives with a naked dagger and throws himself onto her among the dogs. Rather than allowing Nicholas to stab her, Daniel tells him not to and proposes to gag her. He places his foot on the wolf's neck, inserts a stick between her jaws, fastens it with a leash, binds her legs, and rolls her over until she is secured. The hunters carry her away alive on a nervous, snorting horse, accompanied by the dogs' yelps. The hounds have killed two cubs and the borzois three, so the captured mother is part of a wider destruction of the litter.

The Captured Animal and Human Spectacle

At the meeting place, the wolf becomes a spectacle for the assembled hunters, dogs, and householders. Her broad-browed head hangs down, the stick remains between her jaws, and her large glassy eyes look out at the crowd surrounding her. When touched, she jerks her bound legs and looks wildly yet simply at everyone. The description preserves both her helplessness and her continuing physical presence: the ropes have immobilized her, but they have not made her inert or erased her awareness.

The old Count Rostov touches the wolf and calls her formidable. Daniel answers respectfully, then responds to the count's reproachful remark with a shy, childlike smile. The exchange reveals the hierarchy organizing the hunt, yet the wolf's body briefly unsettles that hierarchy. The count's admiration depends on the force that has been defeated, while Daniel's practical mastery depends on knowing that the animal must be gagged, bound, and physically overpowered rather than simply admired from a distance.

Narrative and Ethical Significance

For Nicholas, the wolf's appearance and capture concentrate the emotional logic of the chase. His happiness reaches its height when Karay pins the animal in the gully; the instant matters because it seems to fulfill his wish for a single perfect success. When the wolf escapes, his exultation turns into despair, and the eventual capture restores the hunt's communal triumph only after injury, exhaustion, and the deaths of the cubs and another dog.

The episode therefore makes the wolf both quarry and counterforce. Human beings possess numbers, horses, weapons, trained dogs, calls, and coordinated pursuit, but the animal repeatedly defeats isolated attempts to control her. Her endurance gives the hunt its excitement, while the final image of a living wolf bound on a horse exposes the cost concealed by the language of sport. Nature is not simply scenic background: the changing season, the animal's instincts, and the physical terrain determine the course of the action. The wolf's resistance supplies the narrative energy, and her capture marks not the disappearance of agency but its forced reduction by organized human violence.