“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.
Natásha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.
Pétya 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?” Pétya asked Natásha.
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 Pétya. “Vasílich told me. I consider...”
“I consider,” Natásha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to Pétya, “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.