“Oooh！” wailed the servant-girl, pointing to the lodge. “That’s it, that same was our lodging. Sure, you’re burnt to death, our treasure, Katitchka, my precious little missy, ooh！” wailed Aniska, at the sight of the fire feeling the necessity of giving expression to her feelings too.
Pierre darted up to the lodge, but the heat was so great that he could not help describing a curve round it, and found himself close to a big house, which was as yet only on fire on one side, at the roof. A group of French soldiers were swarming round it. Pierre could not at first make out what these Frenchmen were about, dragging something out of the house. But seeing a French soldier in front of him beating a peasant with a blunt cutlass, and taking from him a fur-lined coat, Pierre became vaguely aware that pillaging was going on here—but he had no time to dwell on the idea.
The sound of the rumble and crash of falling walls and ceilings; the roar and hiss of the flames, and the excited shouts of the crowd; the sight of the hovering clouds of smoke—here folding over into black masses, there drawing out and lighted up by gleaming sparks; and the flames—here like a thick red sheaf, and there creeping like golden fish-scales over the walls; the sense of the heat and smoke and rapidity of movement, all produced on Pierre the usual stimulating effect of a conflagration. That effect was particularly strong on Pierre, because all at once, at the sight of the fire, he felt himself set free from the ideas weighing upon him. He felt young, gay, ready, and resolute. He ran round the lodge on the side of the house, and was about to run into that part which was still standing, when he heard several voices shouting immediately above his head, followed by the crash and bang of something heavy falling close by.
Pierre looked round, and saw at the windows of the house some French soldiers, who had just dropped out a drawer of a chest, filled with some metallic objects. Some more French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.
“Well, what does that fellow want？” one of the French soldiers shouted, referring to Pierre.
“A child in the house. Haven’t you seen a child？” said Pierre.
“What’s the fellow singing？ Get along, do！” shouted voices; and one of the soldiers, evidently afraid Pierre might take it into his head to snatch the silver and bronzes from them, pounced on him in a menacing fashion.
“A child？” shouted a Frenchman from above. “I did hear something crying in the garden. Perhaps it’s the fellow’s brat. Must be humane you know.”
“Where is it？” asked Pierre.
“This way！” the French soldier shouted to him from the window pointing to the garden behind the house. “Wait, I’ll come down.”
And in a minute the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow, with a patch on his cheek, in his shirt-sleeves, did in fact jump out of a window on the ground floor, and slapping Pierre on the shoulder, he ran with him to the garden. “Make haste, you fellows,” he shouted to his comrades, “it’s beginning to get hot.” Running behind the house to a sanded path, the Frenchman pulled Pierre by the arm, and pointed out to him a circular space. Under a garden seat lay a girl of three years old, in a pink frock.
“Here’s your brat. Ah, a little girl. So much the better,” said the Frenchman. “Good-bye. Must be humane, we are all mortal, you know”; and the Frenchman, with the patch on his cheek, ran back to his comrades.
Pierre, breathless with joy, ran up to the child, and would have taken her in his arms. But seeing a stranger, the little girl—a scrofulous-looking, unattractive child very like her mother—screamed and ran away. Pierre caught her, however, and lifted her up in his arms; she squealed in desperate fury, and tried to tear herself out of Pierre’s arms with her little hands, and to bite him with her dirty, dribbling mouth. Pierre had a sense of horror and disgust, such as he had felt at contact with some little beast. But he made an effort to overcome it, and not to drop the child, and ran with it back to the big house. By now, however, it was impossible to get back by the same way; the servant-girl, Aniska, was nowhere to be seen, and with a feeling of pity and loathing, Pierre held close to him, as tenderly as he could, the piteously howling, and sopping wet baby, and ran across the garden to seek some other way out.