On the dried-up, dusty grass on one side of the path lay heaps of household belongings piled up： feather-beds, a samovar, holy images, and boxes. On the ground, near the boxes, sat a thin woman, no longer young, with long, projecting front teeth, dressed in a black cloak and cap. This woman was weeping violently, swaying to and fro, and muttering something. Two little girls, from ten to twelve years old, dressed in dirty, short frocks and cloaks, were gazing at their mother, with an expression of stupefaction on their pale, frightened faces. A little boy of seven, in a coat and a huge cap, obviously not his own, was crying in an old nurse’s arms. A bare-legged, dirty servant-girl was sitting on a chest; she had let down her flaxen hair, and was pulling out the singed hairs, sniffing at them. The husband, a short, stooping man, in a uniform, with little, wheel-shaped whiskers, and smooth locks of hair, peeping out from under his cap, which was stuck erect on his head, was moving the chests from under one another with an immovable face, dragging garments of some sort from under them.
The woman almost flung herself at Pierre’s feet as soon as she saw him.
“Merciful heavens, good Christian folk, save me, help me, kind sir！ … somebody, help me,” she articulated through her sobs. “My little girl！ … My daughter！ … My youngest girl left behind！ … She’s burnt！ Oo … er！ What a fate I have nursed thee for … Ooo！”
“Hush, Marya Nikolaevna,” the husband said in a low voice to his wife, evidently only to justify himself before an outsider.
“Sister must have taken her, nothing else can have happened to her！” he added.
“Monster, miscreant！” the woman screeched furiously, her tears suddenly ceasing. “There is no heart in you, you have no feeling for your own child. Any other man would have rescued her from the fire. But he is a monster, not a man, not a father. You are a noble man,” the woman turned to Pierre sobbing and talking rapidly. “The row was on fire—they rushed in to tell us. The girl screamed： Fire！ We rushed to get our things out. Just as we were, we escaped. … This is all we could snatch up … the blessed images, we look at the children, and the bed that was my dowry, and all the rest is lost. Katitchka’s missing. Oooo！ O Lord！ …” and again she broke into sobs. “My darling babe！ burnt！ burnt！”
“But where, where was she left？” said Pierre.
From the expression of his interested face, the woman saw that this man might help her.
“Good, kind sir！” she screamed, clutching at his legs. “Benefactor, set my heart at rest anyway … Aniska, go, you slut, show the way,” she bawled to the servant-girl, opening her mouth wide in her anger, and displaying her long teeth more than ever.
“Show the way, show me, I … I … I’ll do something,” Pierre gasped hurriedly.
The dirty servant-girl came out from behind the box, put up her hair, and sighing, walked on in front along the path with her coarse, bare feet.
Pierre felt as though he had suddenly come back to life after a heavy swoon. He drew his head up, his eyes began to shine with the light of life, and with rapid steps he followed the girl, overtook her, and went into Povarsky Street. The whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame shot up here and there out of these clouds. A great crowd had gathered in front of the fire. In the middle of the street stood a French general, saying something to those about him. Pierre, accompanied by the servant-girl, was approaching the place where the French general stood; but the French soldiers stopped him.
“Can’t pass,” a voice shouted to him.
“This way, master,” bawled the girl. “We’ll cut across Nikoliny by the lane.”
Pierre turned back, breaking into a run now and then to keep pace with her. The girl ran across the street, turned into a lane on the left, and passing three houses, turned in at a gate on the right.
“It’s just here,” she said, and running across a yard, she opened a little gate in a paling-fence, and stopping short, pointed out to Pierre a small wooden lodge, which was blazing away brightly. One side of it had fallen in, the other was on fire, and flames peeped out at the window-holes and under the roof.
As Pierre went in at the little gate, he felt the rush of heat, and involuntarily stopped short.
“Which, which is your house？” he asked.