#power team

i imagine sonya would approach him some time after the opera, because she has eyes, she's not dumb, and she knows she can't keep a whole anatole kuragin away from any girl he's set his eye on.

dolokhov possibly could, though, right? dolokhov and anatole are close, and the last thing she wants is to encourage any conversation with fyodor dolokhov, but this concerns natasha. she managed to get through a very stiff and awkward chat with dolokhov, for natasha, letting him know she'd appreciate it if he kept the kuragins and their scandals to himself, as he'd so successfully done this far.

of course, dolokhov barely has any self control, never mind the ability to keep the kuragins in place. we already know how all of this escalates.

they don't speak again, until after sonya & natasha. dolokhov certainly is surprised to hear sonya rostova has come looking for him, and sonya was never by any means scary, but in that exact moment hélène bursts in announcing her, he feels his blood go freezing cold because he knows very well he'll rightfully get dragged along when this entire plan inevitably crashes and burns, and oh, sweet mother of jesus sonya looks like she's fuming.

this visit of hers is what causes anatole and dolokhov’s argument in preparations because she's right, he knows she was right when she told him that this could cost anatole everything and, yeah, admittedly he barely cared about countess natalya and did hold a slight grudge against the rostovs that didn't allow him to sympathize with her or her family, but marya dmitrievna wasn't exactly a small influence in moscow's society and, damn it, she was right, and she knew damn well what she was doing, bringing anatole into this. so, this is where dolokhov's mental red light went off on this entire plan.

he couldn't fight anatole on it, he wasn't dense. the most power he had at this point was to advise him against it, as a friend, but as soon as he fought him on it anatole would completely rule his opinion out, he knew him well enough to know he wasn't going to listen to anyone who wasn't on his side. so he told sonya everything. the whole plan, from start to finish, and then he was only left to stand by anatole and spending every minute of it wishing sonya would use that information wisely.

you know how the rest of it goes.