- At Prince Bolkonsky’s estate, Andrei sees that Marya has visitors – the dirt-poor ultra-religious traveling “people of God” who would go on pilgrimages and survive on charity.
- Andrei takes Pierre to see them, basically because he wants Pierre to get a kick out of how crazy they are.
- Marya is embarrassed when they come in – clearly she knows how Andrei feels about the God-people. The God-people aren’t at all embarrassed, though, and start immediately telling a story about an icon of the Virgin Mary that they saw weeping tears of oil.
- Pierre is like, but it’s clearly fake.
- Pelageyushka, the woman of God, is upset that he would say such a thing and tells him about a general who went blind because he doubted the miracle. Pierre and Andrei keep cracking jokes about it. The woman gets more and more upset and is finally about to leave.
- Pierre then feels terrible, apologizes, and gets Pelageyushka to stay and tell them more of the story.