War and Peace Volume 3, Part 3, Chapter 33 Summary

  • On September 3, Pierre wakes up all gung-ho and ready to go out there and kill him some Napoleon.
  • When he goes outside he is shocked to see how big the fire has become overnight.
  • He walks along to the gate, trying to keep himself psyched up for the assassination, but feeling his determination slowly melting away.
  • Still, he keeps walking toward the fire until he sees a woman on the ground weeping horribly.
  • It turns out her youngest child got left behind as they fled the fire. She begs Pierre to help her. Her other children are nearby, and her husband seems resigned to the idea that the little girl is dead.
  • Their maid leads Pierre through the nearby streets to show him where their house is.
  • The heat is almost unbearable, and Pierre realizes that no one can go into the house anymore. He runs into some French soldiers who are looting nearby houses and asks them if they’ve seen a child anywhere. One of them is like, oh yeah, we heard some noise in the garden.
  • Pierre goes to the garden and finds...a 3-year-old girl in a pink dress under a bench. Phew.
  • She struggles as he tries to get her out of there, but he holds on to her and runs back to her family.