, charred ones
repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were
opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services
in many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed
Church property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their
baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms.
The higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of
goods left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much
property had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of
the injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin;
others insisted that as the French had gathered things from different
houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to
keep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them,
made out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that
had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin
wrote proclamations.

CHAPTER XV

At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of
his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchin and
on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave
for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory,
everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city.
Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and
everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly
well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his
guard for fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to
him--whether important or quite trifling--such as: Where would he live?
Was he going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he
mind taking a parcel for someone?--he replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I
think so," and so on.

He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of
Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant
memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social
obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had
aroused in himself.

On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys that
Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of
Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred to
him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Pri