There is a great scene when the Rostovs celebrate Christmas and go out with the mummers. They talk about how they race the horses across the fields and down the roads. Later Dolokhov and Anatole talk about their driver Balaga and how he likes to drive the horses as fast as he can and sometimes drives them to death. I was wondering how fast he drove them. On page 583 Tolstoy describes their “mad rides at twelve miles an hour.” Is that all the faster they are going?
