‘What will you do when the money runs out?’
‘When the money runs out? Eh?’ Anatole parroted, genuinely taken aback by any thoughts for the future. ‘What shall we do when the money runs out? I don’t know . . . You do say some stupid things!’ He looked at his watch. ‘Time to get going!’ Anatole disappeared into the back room.
‘How much longer? Do get a move on!’ he shouted at the servants.
Dolokhov cleared away the money, called a servant and told him to fetch them something to eat and drink before the journey, and then went through to where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.
Anatole was lying on the study sofa, propped up on one elbow, smiling to himself and mouthing tender pleasantries.
‘Come in here and have a bite to eat. And a drink!’ Dolokhov called from the next room.
‘I don’t feel like it,’ answered Anatole, still wrapped up in his own smiles.
‘Come on. Balaga’s arrived.’
Anatole got to his feet and went through into the dining-room. Balaga was a well-known troika driver, who had known Dolokhov and Anatole for the last six years and had often driven them around in his sledges. More than once, when Anatole’s regiment had been stationed at Tver, he had picked him up in Tver of an evening, got to Moscow by dawn, and driven him back the next night. More than once he had driven Dolokhov out of trouble. More than once he had driven them round the town with gypsies and ‘the little ladies’, as he called them, on board. More than once he had run pedestrians and other vehicles off the Moscow roads in their service, always relying on his ‘gentlemen’, as he called them, to get him out of trouble. Many a horse of his had been ridden into the ground with them in the sledge. More than once they had thrashed him; more than once they had got him drunk on champagne and madeira, which was much to his taste, and he knew things about both of them that would have dispatched any ordinary man to Siberia ages ago. They often brought Balaga in on things when they were out on the town, getting him to drink and dance with the gypsies, and their money had passed through his hands in thousands. In their service he risked his life and his skin twenty times a year, and he wore out more horses than their over-generous payments could ever make up for. But he liked them, liked the furious pace of their driving – they could cover twenty miles in an hour and a half – liked driving coachmen off the road and running down pedestrians in Moscow, and hurtling along the Moscow streets. He liked to hear the wild shouts and drunken voices behind him, yelling, ‘Get a move on!’ when they were already going flat out, and he liked to lash the occasional passing peasant across the neck when he was already reeling back more dead than alive. ‘Real gentlemen!’ he thought.
Anatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga – he drove like a Jehu and he liked what they liked. With other customers Balaga drove a hard bargain, squeezing twenty-five roubles out of them for a two-hour drive, and he seldom went out himself, generally sending one of his young boys. But when it came to ‘his own gentlemen’ he always did the driving, and he never asked for payment.
Only two or three times a year, when he happened to know through their valets that there was money around, would he turn up in the morning, quite sober, bow down and ask them to help him out. The gentlemen always invited him to sit down.
‘I was wondering whether you might be able to oblige, Fyodor Ivanovich, sir,’ or, ‘Your Excellency,’ he would say, ‘I’m right out of horses, and I need to go the fair. If you could just lend me something, whatever you can manage . . .’
And whenever they were in funds Anatole and Dolokhov would give him a thousand or two.
Balaga was a fair-haired, short, snub-nosed peasant in his late twenties, with a red face and a particularly red, thick neck, bright little eyes and a short beard. He wore a fine blue silk-lined kaftan over a sheepskin jacket.
He turned to the icon corner, crossed himself, and went over to Dolokhov, extending a small black hand.
‘My respects to you, Fyodor Ivanovich!’ said he with one of his bows.
‘Good day to you, my friend. Ah, here’s the man himself!’
‘Good day, your Excellency!’ he said to Anatole as he came in, and once again he extended a hand.
‘I say, Balaga,’ said Anatole, placing a hand on each of his shoulders, ‘do you care for me or not? Eh? Now’s the time for stalwart service. What sort of horses have you brought? Eh?’
‘Did what your man said – brought your favourite beasts,’ said Balaga.
‘Right, listen, Balaga. Ride them to death if needs be, only get there in three hours. All right?’
‘If they’re all dead, ’ow are we going to get there?’ said Balaga with a wink.
‘Don’t get funny with me. I’ll smash your face in!’ cried Anatole suddenly, glaring at him.
‘Just my little joke,’ chuckled the driver. ‘Do anything for my gentlemen I would. We’ll get you there as fast as horses ever galloped.’
‘All right,’ said Anatole. ‘Come and sit down.’
‘Sit down here,’ said Dolokhov.
