d, opened a
gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden
wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its
sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from
the openings of the windows and from under the roof.

As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and
involuntarily stopped.

"Which is it? Which is your house?" he asked.

"Ooh!" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. "That's it, that was our
lodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little
missy! Ooh!" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she
too must give expression to her feelings.

Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he
involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house
that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around
which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize
what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing
before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying
to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was
going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.

The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the
whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and
the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds
and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense
sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along
the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced
on Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a
peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt
himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt
young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of
the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still
standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting
and then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close
beside him.

Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen
who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal
articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.

"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to Pierre.

"There's a child in