ise, you
see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me
have one, I will pay the man well, and..."

The count frowned and coughed.

"Ask the countess, I don't give orders."

"If it's inconvenient, please don't," said Berg. "Only I so wanted it,
for dear Vera's sake."

"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..."
cried the old count. "My head's in a whirl!"

And he left the room. The countess began to cry.

"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg.

Natasha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to
reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.

Petya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants
who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the
yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing
into one of them helped by an orderly.

"Do you know what it's about?" Petya asked Natasha.

She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about.
She did not answer.

"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded," said
Petya. "Vasilich told me. I consider..."

"I consider," Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to
Petya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know what.
Are we despicable Germans?"

Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and
letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed
headlong up the stairs.

Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful
attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down
the room, when Natasha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a
tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.

"It's horrid! It's abominable!" she screamed. "You can't possibly have
ordered it!"

Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count
stood still at the window and listened.

"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she cried.
"They will be left!..."

"What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?"

"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No, Mamma
darling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what
does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the
yard... Mamma!... It's impossible!"

The count stood by the window and listened without turni