Kabanata Kabanata 161 · 第161章

Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov’s. The plan for Natalie

Rostóva’s abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by

Dólokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening

at Natásha’s door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been

put into execution. Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the

back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka

he would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of

Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a

marriage ceremony over them. At Kámenka a relay of horses was to wait

which would take them to the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would

hasten abroad with post horses.

Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles

he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with

Dólokhov’s help.

Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvóstikov, a retired petty

official whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and

Makárin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded

affection for Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front

room.

In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with

Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dólokhov in a traveling cloak

and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles

of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from

the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room

behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his

things. Dólokhov was counting the money and noting something down.

“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.”

“Give it to him, then,” said Anatole.

“Makárka” (their name for Makárin) “will go through fire and

water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,” said

Dólokhov, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?”

“Yes, of course,” returned Anatole, evidently not listening to

Dólokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not

leave his face.

Dólokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an

ironic smile:

“Do you know? You’d really better drop it all. There’s still

time!”

“Fool,” retorted Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only

knew... it’s the devil knows what!”

“No, really, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I am speaking

seriously. It’s no joke, this plot you’ve hatched.”

“What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?” said Anatole, making a

grimace. “Really it’s no time for your stupid jokes,” and he left

the room.

Dólokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had

gone out.

“You wait a bit,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I’m

talking sense. Come here, come here!”

Anatole returned and looked at Dólokhov, trying to give him his

attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.

“Now listen to me. I’m telling you this for the last time. Why

should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for

you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I

did it all.”

“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?” And

Anatole sighed and embraced Dólokhov.

“I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a

dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well,

you’ll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It

will come out that you’re already married. Why, they’ll have you in

the criminal court....”

“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” Anatole ejaculated and again made a

grimace. “Didn’t I explain to you? What?” And Anatole, with the

partiality dull-witted people have for any conclusion they have reached

by their own reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to

Dólokhov a hundred times. “Didn’t I explain to you that I have come

to this conclusion: if this marriage is invalid,” he went on, crooking

one finger, “then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no

matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn’t that so? And

don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t.”

“Seriously, you’d better drop it! You’ll only get yourself into a

mess!”

“Go to the devil!” cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the

room, but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of

Dólokhov with his feet turned under him. “It’s the very devil!

What? Feel how it beats!” He took Dólokhov’s hand and put it on his

heart. “What a foot, my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!” he

added in French. “What?”

Dólokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes

looked at him—evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.

“Well and when the money’s gone, what then?”

“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought

of the future. “What then?... Then, I don’t know.... But why talk

nonsense!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time!”

Anatole went into the back room.

“Now then! Nearly ready? You’re dawdling!” he shouted to the

servants.

Dólokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring

something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into

the room where Khvóstikov and Makárin were sitting.

Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling

pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.

“Come and eat something. Have a drink!” Dólokhov shouted to him

from the other room.

“I don’t want to,” answered Anatole continuing to smile.

“Come! Balagá is here.”

Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balagá was a famous troyka

driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole some six years and had given

them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole’s

regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the

evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again

the next night. More than once he had enabled Dólokhov to escape when

pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies

and “ladykins” as he called the cocottes. More than once in their

service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets

of Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by “my

gentlemen” as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in

their service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once

they had made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and

he knew more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have

sent an ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balagá into their

orgies and made him drink and dance at the gypsies’, and more than one

thousand rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their

service he risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in

their service had lost more horses than the money he had from them would

buy. But he liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour,

liked upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at

full gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild,

tipsy shouts behind him: “Get on! Get on!” when it was impossible

to go any faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some

peasant who, more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way.

“Real gentlemen!” he considered them.

Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balagá too for his masterly driving and

because he liked the things they liked. With others Balagá bargained,

charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours’ drive, and rarely

drove himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with “his

gentlemen” he always drove himself and never demanded anything for

his work. Only a couple of times a year—when he knew from their valets

that they had money in hand—he would turn up of a morning quite sober

and with a deep bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always

made him sit down.

“Do help me out, Theodore Iványch, sir,” or “your excellency,”

he would say. “I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to

go to the fair.”

And Anatole and Dólokhov, when they had money, would give him a

thousand or a couple of thousand rubles.

Balagá was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about

twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering

little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined

cloth coat over a sheepskin.

On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front

corner of the room, and went up to Dólokhov, holding out a small, black

hand.

“Theodore Iványch!” he said, bowing.

“How d’you do, friend? Well, here he is!”

“Good day, your excellency!” he said, again holding out his hand to

Anatole who had just come in.

“I say, Balagá,” said Anatole, putting his hands on the man’s

shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service....

What horses have you come with? Eh?”

“As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,” replied Balagá.

“Well, listen, Balagá! Drive all three to death but get me there in

three hours. Eh?”

“When they are dead, what shall I drive?” said Balagá with a wink.

“Mind, I’ll smash your face in! Don’t make jokes!” cried

Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.

“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d grudge my

gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast

we’ll go!”

“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”

“Yes, sit down!” said Dólokhov.

“I’ll stand, Theodore Iványch.”

“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large

glass of Madeira for him.

The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing

it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk

handkerchief he took out of his cap.

“And when are we to start, your excellency?”

“Well...” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once.

Mind, Balagá! You’ll get there in time? Eh?”

“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be

there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in

seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”

“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole,

smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makárin who gazed

rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it,

Makárka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across

a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?”

“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the tale. “That time I’d

harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went

on, turning to Dólokhov. “Will you believe it, Theodore Iványch,

those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew

numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—‘Catch hold

yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom

of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on,

there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took

us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.”