“Why, teasing again, again? Go to the devil! Eh.…” said Anatole, frowning. “Really, I’m in no humour for your stupid jokes.” And he went out of the room.
Dolohov smiled a contemptuous and supercilious smile when Anatole had gone.
“Wait a bit,” he called after Anatole. “I’m not joking. I’m in earnest. Come here, come here!”
Anatole came back into the room, and trying to concentrate his attention, looked at Dolohov, obviously obeying him unwillingly.
“Listen to me. I’m speaking to you for the last time. What should I want to joke with you for? Have I ever thwarted you? Who was it arranged it all for you? Who found your priest? Who took your passport? Who got you your money? It has all been my doing.”
“Well, and thank you for it. Do you suppose I’m not grateful?” Anatole sighed and embraced Dolohov.
“I have helped you; but still I ought to tell you the truth: it’s a dangerous business, and if you come to think of it, it’s stupid. Come, you carry her off, well and good. Do you suppose they’ll let it rest? It will come out that you are married. Why, they will have you up on a criminal charge, you know …”
“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” said Anatole, frowning again. “Why, didn’t I explain to you? Eh?” and Anatole, with that peculiar partiality (common in persons of dull brain), for any conclusion to which they have been led by their own mental processes, repeated the argument he had repeated a hundred times over to Dolohov already. “Why, I explained it, I settled that. If this marriage is invalid,” he said, crooking his finger, “then it follows I’m not answerable for it. Well, and if it is valid, it won’t matter. No one will ever know of it abroad, so, you see, it’s all right, isn’t it? And don’t talk to me; don’t talk to me; don’t talk to me!”
“Really, you drop it. You’ll get yourself into a mess …”
“You go to the devil!” said Anatole, and clutching at his hair he went off into the next room, but at once returning he sat with his legs up on an arm-chair close to Dolohov and facing him. “Devil only knows what’s the matter with me! Eh? See how it beats.” He took Dolohov’s hand and put it on his heart. “Ah, what a foot, my dear boy, what a glance! A goddess!” he said in French. “Eh?”
Dolohov, with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome impudent eyes, looked at him, obviously disposed to get a little more amusement out of him.
“Well, your money will be gone, what then?”
“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, with genuine perplexity at the thought of the future. “What then? I don’t know what then … Come, why talk nonsense?” He looked at his watch. “It’s time!”
Anatole went into the back room.
“Well, will you soon have done? You’re dawdling there,” he shouted at the servants.
Dolohov put away the money; and calling a servant to give him orders about getting something to eat and drink before the journey, he went into the room where Hvostikov and Makarin were sitting.
Anatole lay down on the sofa in the study, and, propped on his elbows, smiled pensively and murmured something fervently to himself.
“Come and have something to eat. Here, have a drink!” Dolohov shouted to him from the other room.
“I don’t want to,” answered Anatole, still smiling.
“Come, Balaga is here.”
Anatole got up, and went into the dining-room. Balaga was a well-known driver, who had known Dolohov and Anatole for the last six years, and driven them in his three-horse sledges. More than once, when Anatole’s regiment had been stationed at Tver, he had driven him out of Tver in the evening, reached Moscow by dawn, and driven him back the next night. More than once he had driven Dolohov safe away when he was being pursued. Many a time he had driven them about the town with gypsies and “gay ladies,” as he called them. More than one horse had he ruined in driving them. More than once he had driven over people and upset vehicles in Moscow, and always his “gentlemen,” as he called them, had got him out of trouble. Many a time had they beaten him, many a time made him drunk with champagne and madeira, a wine he loved, and more than one exploit he knew of each of them, which would long ago have sent any ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balaga in to their carousals, made him drink and dance with the gypsies, and many a thousand roubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service, twenty times a year, he risked his life and his skin, and wore out more horses than they repaid him for in money. But he liked them, liked their furious driving, eighteen versts an hour, liked upsetting coachmen, and running down people on foot in Moscow, and always flew full gallop along the Moscow streets. He liked to hear behind him the wild shout of drunken voices, “Get on; get on!” when it was impossible to drive faster; liked to give a lash on the neck to a passing peasant who was already hastening out of his way more dead than alive. “Real gentlemen!” he thought.
Anatole and Dolohov liked Balaga, too, for his spirited driving, and because he liked the same things that they liked. With other people Balaga drove hard bargains; he would take as much as twenty-five roubles for a two hours’ drive, and rarely drove himself, generally sending one of his young men. But with his own gentlemen, as he called them, he always drove himself, and never asked for anything for the job.
Only after learning through their valets when money was plentiful, he would turn up once every few months in the morning; and sober, and bowing low, would ask them to help him out of his difficulties. The gentlemen always made him sit down.
“Please, help me out of a scrape, Fyodor Ivanovitch, or your excellency,” he would say. “I’m quite run out of horses; lend me what you can to go to the fair.”
And whenever they were flush of money Anatole and Dolohov would give him a thousand or two.
Balaga was a flaxen-headed, squat, snub-nosed peasant of seven and twenty, with a red face and a particularly red, thick neck, little sparkling eyes, and a little beard. He wore a fine blue silk-lined full coat, put on over a fur pelisse.
He crossed himself, facing the opposite corner, and went up to Dolohov, holding out his black, little hand.
“Respects to Fyodor Ivanovitch!” said he, bowing
“Good-day to you, brother. Well, here he comes!”
“Good-morning, your excellency!” he said to Anatole as he came in and to him, too, he held out his hand.
“I say, Balaga,” said Anatole, laying his hands on his shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now’s the time to do me good service.… What sort of horses have you come with? Eh?”
“As the messenger bade me; your favourite beasts,” said Balaga.
“Come, Balaga, do you hear? You may kill all three of them; only get there in three hours. Eh?”
“If I kill them, how are we to get there?” said Balaga, winking.
“None of your jokes now. I’ll smash your face in!” cried Anatole suddenly, rolling his eyes.
“Jokes!” said the driver, laughing. “Do I grudge anything for my gentlemen? As fast as ever the horses can gallop we shall get there.”
“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”
“Come, sit down,” said Dolohov.
“Oh, I’ll stand, Fyodor Ivanovitch.”
“Sit down; nonsense! have a drink,” said Anatole, and he poured him out a big glass of madeira. The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. Refusing it at first for manners’ sake, he tossed it off, and wiped his mouth with a red silk handkerchief that lay in his cap.
“Well, and when are we to start, your excellency?”
“Oh…” Anatole looked at his watch. “We must set off at once. Now mind, Balaga. Eh? You’ll get there in time?”
“To be sure, if we’ve luck in getting off. Why shouldn’t we do it in the time?” said Balaga. “We got you to Tver, and got there in seven hours. You remember, I bet, your excellency!”
“Do you know, I once drove from Tver at Christmas time,” said Anatole, with a smile at the recollection, addressing Makarin, who was gazing admiringly at him. “Would you believe it, Makarka, one could hardly breathe we flew so fast. We drove into a train of wagons and rode right over two of them! Eh?”
“They were horses, too,” Balaga went on. “I’d put two young horses in the traces with the bay in the shafts”—he turned to Dolohov—“and, would you believe me, Fyodor Ivanovitch, sixty versts those beasts galloped. There was no holding them, for my hands were numb; it was a frost. I flung down the reins. “You hold them yourself, your excellency,” said I, and I rolled up inside the sledge. No need of driving them. Why, we couldn’t hold them in when we got there. In three hours the devils brought us. Only the left one died of it.”
Chapter 17
ANATOLE went out of the room, and a few minutes later he came back wearing a fur pelisse, girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap, jauntily stuck on one side, and very becoming to his handsome face. Looking at himself in the looking-glass, and then standing before Dolohov in the same attitude he had taken before the looking-glass, he took a glass of wine.
“Well, Fedya, farewell; thanks for everything, and farewell,” said Anatole. “Come, comrades, friends …”—he grew pensive—“of my youth … farewell,” he turned to Makarin and the others.
Although they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wanted to make a touching and solemn ceremony of this address to his comrades. He spoke in a loud, deliberate voice, squaring his chest and swinging one leg.
“All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, lads, friends of my youth, we have had jolly sprees together. Eh? Now, when shall we meet again? I’m going abroad! We’ve had a good time, and farewell, lads. Here’s to our health! Hurrah! …” he said, tossing off his glass, and flinging it on the floor.
“To your health!” said Balaga. He, too, emptied his glass and wiped his lips with his handkerchief.
Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.
“Ah, prince, how it grieves my heart to part from you,” he said.
“Start! start!” shouted Anatole.
Balaga was going out of the room.
“No; stay,” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we must sit down. Like this.” They shut the door and all sat down.
“Well, now, quick, march, lads!” said Anatole, getting up.
The valet, Joseph, gave Anatole his knapsack and sword, and they all went out into the vestibule.
“But where’s a fur cloak?” said Dolohov. “Hey, Ignatka! Run in to Matryona Matveyevna, and ask her for the sable cloak. I’ve heard what elopements are like,” said Dolohov, winking. “She’ll come skipping out more dead than alive just in the things she had on indoors; the slightest delay and then there are tears, and dear papa and dear mamma, and she’s frozen in a minute and for going back again—you wrap her up in a cloak at once and carry her to the sledge.”
The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined pelisse.
“Fool, I told you the sable. Hey, Matryoshka, the sable,” he shouted, so that his voice rang out through the rooms.
A handsome, thin, and pale gypsy woman, with shining black eyes and curly black hair, with a bluish shade in it, ran out, wearing a red shawl and holding a sable cloak on her arm.
“Here, I don’t grudge it; take it,” she said, in visible fear of her lord and regretful at losing the cloak.
Dolohov, making her no answer, took the cloak, flung it about Matryosha, and wrapped her up in it.
“That’s the way,” said Dolohov. “And then this is the way,” he said and he turned the collar up round her head, leaving it only a little open before the face. “And then this is the way, do you see?” and he moved Anatole’s head forward to meet the open space left by the collar, from which Matryosha’s flashing smile peeped out.
“Well, good-bye, Matryosha,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, all my fun here is over! Give my love to Styoshka. There, good-bye! Good-bye, Matryosha; wish me happiness.”
“God grant you great happiness, prince,” said Matryosha, with her gypsy accent.
At the steps stood two three-horse sledges; two stalwart young drivers were holding them. Balaga took his seat in the foremost, and holding his elbows high, began deliberately arranging the reins in his hands. Anatole and Dolohov got in with him. Makarin, Hvostikov, and the valet got into the other sledge.
“Ready, eh?” queried Balaga. “Off!” he shouted, twisting the reins round his hands, and the sledge flew at break-neck pace along the Nikitsky Boulevard.
“Tprroo! Hi! … Tproo!!” Balaga and the young driver on the box were continually shouting.
In Arbatsky Square the sledge came into collision with a carriage; there was a crash and shouts, and the sledge flew off along Arbaty. Turning twice along Podnovinsky, Balaga began to pull up, and turning back, stopped the horses at the Old Equerrys’ crossing.
A smart young driver jumped down to hold the horses by the bridle; Anatole and Dolohov walked along the pavement. On reaching the gates, Dolohov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maid-servant ran out.
“Come into the courtyard, or you’ll be seen; she is coming in a minute,” she said.
Dolohov stayed at the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the courtyard, turned a corner, and ran up the steps.
He was met by Gavrilo, Marya Dmitryevna’s huge groom.
“Walk this way to the mistress,” said the groom in his bass, blocking up the doorway.
“What mistress? And who are you?” Anatole asked in a breathless whisper.
“Walk in; my orders are to show you in.”
“Kuragin! back!” shouted Dolohov. “Treachery, back!”
Dolohov, at the little back gate where he had stopped, was struggling with the porter, who was trying to shut the gate after Anatole as he ran in. With a desperate effort Dolohov shoved away the porter, and clutching at Anatole, pulled him through the gate, and ran back with him to the sledge.
Chapter 18
MARYA DMITRYEVNA coming upon Sonya weeping in the corridor had forced her to confess everything. Snatching up Natasha’s letter and reading it, Marya Dmitryevna went in to Natasha, with the letter in her hand.
“Vile girl, shameless hussy!” she said to her. “I won’t hear a word!” Pushing aside Natasha, who gazed at her with amazed but tearless eyes, she locked her into the room, and giving orders to her gate porter to admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to allow them to pass out again, and giving her grooms orders to show those persons up to her, she seated herself in the drawing-room awaiting the abductors.
When Gavrilo came to announce to Marya Dmitryevna that the persons who had come had run away, she got up frowning, and clasping her hands behind her, walked a long while up and down through her rooms, pondering what she was to do. At midnight she walked towards Natasha’s room, feeling the key in her pocket. Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor, “Marya Dmitryevna, do, for God’s sake, let me go in to her!” she said.
Marya Dmitryevna, making her no reply, opened the door and went in. “Hateful, disgusting, in my house, the nasty hussy, only I’m sorry for her father!” Marya Dmitryevna was thinking, trying to allay her wrath. “Hard as it may be, I will forbid any one to speak of it, and will conceal it from the count.” Marya Dmitryevna walked with resolute steps into the room.
