The Point of No Return — War and Peace

Anatole has lately moved to Dólokhov's. The abduction of Natalie Rostóva has been arranged for this very evening, the day Sónya, listening at the door, resolves to safeguard her. Natásha has promised to come out at the back porch at ten. Kurágin is to put her in a troyka, drive forty miles to Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest waits for a mock marriage, then take a relay to the Warsaw highroad and hasten abroad. Anatole has a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles taken from his sister, and another ten thousand borrowed with Dólokhov's help.

In the front room sit the witnesses: Khvóstikov, a retired petty official Dólokhov uses in gambling, who must have two thousand, and Makárin, a kindly weak retired hussar who would go through fire for nothing. Dólokhov, in a traveling cloak, counts money at a desk hung round with Persian rugs and weapons. Anatole walks to and fro, uniform unbuttoned, smiling, not listening. Dólokhov bangs the lid and tells him, not joking, to drop it: he found the priest, the passport, the money, but it is dangerous and stupid. When it comes out that Anatole is already married they will have him in the criminal court. Anatole repeats his dull-witted conclusion: if the Polish marriage is invalid he has nothing to answer for; if valid, abroad no one will know. He puts Dólokhov's hand on his heart: a goddess. When the money is gone, what then? He does not know. He glances at his watch. It is time.

Balagá arrives, the famous troyka driver who has for six years taken them from Tver to Moscow by daybreak, helped Dólokhov escape, run over pedestrians, and been protected by his gentlemen. With others he bargains; with them he drives himself and never demands pay, except a couple of times a year when he knows they have money and asks help for the fair. A fair-haired, snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-seven, red-necked, in a silk-lined cloth coat over sheepskin, he crosses himself and holds out a small black hand. Anatole puts hands on his shoulders: drive all three to death but get there in three hours. Balagá winks, asking what he shall drive when they are dead, then says they will go as fast as the horses can gallop. He refuses Madeira for manners, drinks, and recalls tumbling into the sleigh on a Christmas run from Tver when the near horse died. They are almost ready to start.