War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

  'You have my deepest sympathy, sir.'

  Pierre reddened and hurriedly put his legs down from the bed, leaning forward towards the old man with a shy and awkward smile.

  'I mention this, sir, not from mere curiosity, but for more serious reasons.' He paused, still fixing Pierre with his eyes, and moved aside on the sofa - an invitation for Pierre to come and sit next to him. Pierre felt reluctant to enter into conversation with this old man, but he complied automatically, came over and sat down beside him.

  'You are unhappy, sir,' he went on. 'You are young and I am old. I should like to help you, as far as I am able.'

  'Oh yes,' said Pierre with another awkward smile. 'I'm most grateful to you . . . Have you come far?' The stranger's face showed no warmth; it was rather frigid and forbidding, but for all that the words and features of this new acquaintance fascinated Pierre beyond resistance.

  'But if for any reason you find conversation with me uncongenial,' said the old man, 'please say so, my dear sir.' And his face suddenly lit up with an unexpected smile of fatherly indulgence.

  'No, no, quite the reverse. I'm very pleased to meet you,' said Pierre, glancing down again at the stranger's hands and looking more closely at the ring. There was the death's head, the symbol of freemasonry.2

  'May I ask you something?' he said. 'Are you a mason?'

  'Yes, I do belong to the brotherhood of freemasons,' said the stranger, plumbing the depths of Pierre's eyes more and more deeply. 'In my own name and in theirs I extend a brotherly hand to you.'

  'I'm afraid,' said Pierre with a smile, vacillating between confidence inspired by the personality of this mason and his usual habit of laughing at masonic beliefs, 'I'm afraid I'm a long way from understanding - how can I put it? - I'm afraid that my way of thinking about the whole of creation is so opposed to yours that we are not going to understand each other.'

  'I am aware of your way of thinking,' said the mason, 'but the way of thinking that you speak of, and which you see as emerging from your own thought processes, is the way of thinking of most men, and invariably the fruit of pride, indolence and ignorance. Forgive me for saying it, my dear sir, but if I had not been aware of it, I should not have spoken to you. Your way of thinking is a sad delusion.'

  'Yes, but I may equally claim that you are deluded,' said Pierre with a trace of a smile.

  'I would never dare to claim that I know the truth,' said the mason, whose manner of speaking, with its firmness and preciseness, impressed Pierre more and more. 'No one person can attain truth. It is only stone by stone, with everyone's involvement, over millions of generations from our forefather Adam down to our own day, that a temple arises to be a dwelling-place worthy of Almighty God,' said the freemason, and he closed his eyes.

  'I ought to tell you that I don't believe, don't . . . believe in God.' said Pierre ruefully, feeling himself obliged to make every effort to tell the whole truth.

  The mason looked closely at Pierre and smiled the smile of a rich man with millions in his hands beaming at some poor wretch who might have said to him that all he needed as a poor man was five roubles to make him happy.

  'But you do not know Him, sir,' said the freemason. 'You cannot know Him. You know Him not, and that is why you are unhappy.'

  'Yes, I am unhappy,' Pierre agreed, 'but what can I do about it?'

  'You know Him not, sir, and that's why you are very unhappy. You know Him not, but He is here, He is within me, He is in my words, He is in thee, and even in those blasphemous words that thou hast uttered,' said the mason, his sharp voice quavering.

  He paused and sighed in an obvious effort to collect himself.

  'If He did not exist,' he said softly, 'we should not be speaking of Him, sir. Of what, of whom have we been speaking? Whom hast thou denied?' he blurted out, with impassioned solemnity and authority in his voice. 'Who has invented Him, if He does not exist? How was there born in thee any conception that such an ineffable Being could exist? How did it happen that thou and all the world together have postulated the existence of such an inconceivable Being, a Being omnipotent, eternal and infinite in all His qualities? . . .' He stopped and said nothing more for some time.

  Pierre could not and would not interrupt this silence.

  'He exists, but He is not easy to comprehend,' the mason went on, looking straight ahead, not at Pierre, his old man's hands fidgeting with inner emotion as he turned the pages of his book. 'If it were the existence of a man that thou hadst doubted, I could have brought the man before thee, taken him by the hand and shown him to thee. But how can I, a mere mortal, display the omnipotence, the eternity, the blessedness of Him to one who is blind, or to one who closes his eyes so as not to see, not to understand Him, and not to see or understand his own vileness and sinfulness.'

  Again he paused. 'Who art thou? What art thou? Thou seest thyself as a wise man because thou wast able to pronounce such words of blasphemy,' he said with a dark, sardonic smile, 'whereas thou art more foolish and artless than a small child who plays with the parts of an ingeniously constructed watch and dares to say that because he does not know what the watch is for, he will not believe in the creator who made it. He is not easy to know. Down the ages, from our forefather Adam to our day we have been working towards this knowledge, and are still infinitely distant from the attainment of our goal, but in our lack of understanding we see only our own weakness and His greatness . . .'

  Pierre's heart thrilled to these words as he gazed with shining eyes into the mason's face. He listened without interrupting or asking any questions, and with all his soul he believed what this stranger was saying to him. Whether he was believing rational arguments coming from the mason, or trusting more like a child in the persuasive intonation, the sense of authority, the sincerity of the words spoken, the quavering voice that sometimes seemed on the verge of breaking down, or the gleaming aged eyes grown old in that conviction, or the tranquillity, the certainty and true sense of vocation radiating from the old man's whole being and striking Pierre very forcibly, given the state of his own debasement and despair - whatever was happening to him, he longed to believe with all his soul, and he did believe and he felt a joyful sense of calm, renewal and return to life.

  'He is attained not through reason, but through living,' said the mason.

  'I don't understand,' said Pierre, dismayed at the doubts surging up inside him. Put off by the vagueness and weakness of the freemason's arguments, he felt the dread of unbelief. 'I don't understand,' he said, 'why human reason cannot attain the knowledge you speak of.'

  The freemason smiled his gentle, fatherly smile.

  'The highest wisdom and truth is like unto the purest liquid which we try to absorb into ourselves,' he said. 'Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel and judge of its purity? Only through the inner purification of myself can I bring the liquid received within me to some degree of purity.'

  'Yes, yes. That's it!' said Pierre joyfully.

  'The highest wisdom is founded not on reason alone, not on the worldly sciences - physics, history, chemistry and the like - into which intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom knows only a single science - the science of the whole, the science that explains the whole of creation and the place of mankind within it. In order to assimilate this science it is necessary to purify and renew the inner self, and so, before we can know, we must have faith and be made perfect. And for the attainment of these aims we have had implanted into our souls the light of God, which is called conscience.'

  'Yes, yes,' Pierre assented.

  'Look with a spiritual eye into thine inner being, and ask thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou achieved relying on intellect alone? What art thou? My dear sir, you are a young man, you are wealthy and well educated. What have you done with the blessings vouchsafed you? Are you satisfied with yourself and your life?'

  'No, I loathe my life,' said Pierre with a frown.

  'Thou loathest it
. Then change it. Purify thyself, and as thou art purified, so shalt thou come to know wisdom. Look at your life, sir. How have you been spending it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, taking everything from society and giving nothing back. You have received wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for your neighbour? Have you given a thought to your slaves, tens of thousands of them? Have you succoured them physically and morally? No. You have profited from their labour to lead a dissipated life. This is what you have done. Have you chosen a career in the service where you might be of use to your neighbour? No. You have spent your life in idleness. And then you married, sir, taking responsibility for guiding a young woman through life, and what did you do? You did not help her, my dear sir, to discover the path of truth, you thrust her down into the abyss of deception and misery. Someone offended you and you shot him, and you now tell me that you know not God and you loathe your life. There is nothing strange in this, my dear sir.'

  This said, the mason leant back again on the sofa and closed his eyes, as though exhausted by too much talking. Pierre gazed at that austere, unflinching, ancient, almost death-like face, and moved his lips without making a sound. What he wanted to say was, 'Yes, mine is a foul, idle, profligate life,' but he dared not break the silence. The mason sounded like an old man as he cleared his throat gruffly and called his servant.

  'Any horses?' he asked, ignoring Pierre.

  'They've got some that have just arrived,' answered the old man. 'But wouldn't you like to have a rest?'

  'No, have them harnessed.'

  'Surely he can't be just driving on, leaving me here all on my own, without telling me everything and offering me some help?' thought Pierre, getting to his feet with downcast head and beginning to pace up and down the room, casting occasional glances at the mason. 'Yes, I didn't see it, but I have been leading a despicably immoral life, but I didn't like it and I didn't want it,' thought Pierre. 'This man knows the truth, and if he wished to he could reveal it to me.' Pierre wanted to say this to the mason but he couldn't bring himself to do so. By now the traveller had stowed his things away with practised old hands and was buttoning up his sheepskin coat. When he had finished he turned to Bezukhov and said to him in a polite but casual manner, 'Where are you heading for now, sir?'

  'Oh, er, Petersburg,' answered Pierre in a childlike tone, full of indecision. 'I must thank you. I agree with you completely. But please don't assume I've been as bad as all that. With all my soul I have longed to be what you would want me to be, but I've never had anyone to turn to for help . . . No, I know I was mostly to blame. Please help me, teach me, and perhaps I can . . .'

  Pierre couldn't go on. He gulped and turned away.

  The mason stood there in silence, apparently thinking things over.

  'Help comes from God alone,' he said, 'but any measure of help that our order has power to give you, it will give you, sir. Go now to Petersburg and give this to Count Willarski.' Taking out his note-book, he jotted down a few words on a large sheet of paper folded into four. 'One piece of advice. When you reach the capital, the first thing you must do is devote some time to solitude and self-examination, and do not return to your old way of life. And now I wish you God speed, my dear sir,' he added, noticing that his servant had come in, 'and every success . . .'

  The traveller was Osip Alexeyevich Bazdeyev, as Pierre discovered from the station-master's book. Bazdeyev had been a leading freemason and Martinist since the days of Novikov.3 For a long while after he had gone Pierre paced up and down the station room, neither lying down to sleep nor asking for horses. He was going over his depraved past, and thinking ecstatically of making a new start, imagining a blissful future, spotless and virtuous, which seemed so easy to achieve. He could see it now - he had been depraved simply because he had somehow forgotten how nice it is to be virtuous. His soul retained not a trace of its former doubts. He firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of all people, united in the aim of mutual support along the path of virtue, and he now saw freemasonry as such a brotherhood.

  CHAPTER 3

  When he got back to Petersburg, Pierre informed no one of his arrival, never went out and spent many long days reading a volume of Thomas a Kempis4 which had been sent to him by some unknown person. One thing and one thing only emerged from Pierre's understanding as he read: he experienced a pleasure he had never known before - a belief in the possibility of attaining perfection and the feasibility of practical brotherly love between men, as revealed to him by Bazdeyev. A week after his arrival the young Pole, Count Willarski, whom Pierre knew slightly from Petersburg society, came into his room one evening with the same solemn, official manner that Dolokhov's second had affected when he had called on him. Closing the door behind him, and checking that there was no one in the room but Pierre, he began to speak.

  'I come to you with a message and a proposal, Count,' he said without sitting down. 'Someone of very high standing in our brotherhood has been petitioning for you to be admitted to our fraternity before the usual term and suggested that I be your sponsor. I consider it my sacred duty to fulfil that person's wishes. Is it your desire under my sponsorship to enter the brotherhood of the freemasons?'

  Pierre was taken aback by the cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always seen before at balls smiling a pleasant smile in the company of the most brilliant women.

  'Yes, it is,' said Pierre.

  Willarski bowed his head.

  'One more question, Count,' he said, 'which I beg you, not as a future mason but as an honest man, to answer in all sincerity. Have you renounced your former beliefs? Do you believe in God?'

  Pierre thought for a moment.

  'Er, yes I do . . . I believe in God,' he said.

  'In that case . . .' Willarski began, but Pierre interrupted him.

  'Yes, I do believe in God,' he repeated.

  'In that case, we can go,' said Willarski. 'My carriage is at your disposal.'

  Throughout the drive Willarski sat silent. When Pierre asked what he would have to do and how he should respond to questions, Willarski simply told him that brothers worthier than he would put him to the test, and all Pierre needed to do was tell the truth.

  They drove in through the gates of a large house where the lodge had its quarters, and after climbing a dark staircase they came into a small, well-lit ante-room and took off their overcoats without the help of any servants. From there they walked through into another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the door. Advancing to meet him, Willarski whispered something to him in French and then went over to a small cupboard, where Pierre noticed articles of clothing like nothing he had ever seen before. Taking a scarf from the cupboard, Willarski placed it over Pierre's eyes and tied it in a knot behind, catching his hair painfully in the knot. Then he pulled him close, kissed him, took him by the arm and led him away. Pierre's hair still hurt, caught up in the knot; he was wincing from the pain and also grinning with a kind of embarrassment. He cut a huge figure with his arms dangling down at his sides as he tottered along uncertainly behind Willarski, his face all grin and grimace.

  After leading him a dozen steps forward, Willarski stopped.

  'Whatever happens to you,' he said, 'you must endure all things manfully if you are firmly resolved to enter our brotherhood.' (Pierre nodded his assent.) 'When you hear a knock at the door, you will take off the blindfold,' added Willarski. 'I wish you courage and success.' With that Willarski squeezed Pierre's arm and walked away.

  Left alone, Pierre carried on grinning as before. Once or twice he shrugged and lifted a hand towards the scarf, as if wanting to take it off, but then put it down again. He spent five minutes with his eyes blindfolded but they seemed like an hour. His arms felt numb, his legs were wobbling and he seemed to be very tired. He was a prey to mixed feelings of the most complex kind. He was afraid of what was going to happen to him, but even more afraid of showing his fear. He wondered what was coming next, what would be revealed to him, but most of all he f
elt delighted that at long last the moment had come for him to step out along the path of regeneration towards a life of practical goodness - all those things he had been dreaming about since his meeting with Bazdeyev.

  There were several loud knocks at the door. Pierre removed the blindfold and looked around. The room was in pitch-black darkness except for one place where a little lamp was burning in a white container. Pierre went over and saw that the little lamp stood on a black table where there was an open book. It was the Gospel and the white container was a human skull with its gaping eye-sockets and teeth. After reading the opening words of the Gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God . . .' Pierre walked round the table and there before him was a large open box with some things in it. It was a coffin full of bones. He wasn't in the least taken aback by what he saw. Hoping to enter on a completely new life, totally different from the old one, he was prepared for anything extraordinary, more extraordinary than what he was now seeing. The skull, the coffin, the Gospel - he seemed to have been expecting all of this and more. In an attempt to work up some emotion he looked all round. 'God . . . death . . . love . . . the brotherhood of man . . .' he kept saying to himself, and with these words came an associated wave of vague but joyful thoughts. The door opened and someone came in.

  In the faint light, which Pierre had by now become accustomed to, a small person entered the room. Blinded for a moment by coming from light into darkness, this person stopped, then picked his way cautiously towards the table, on which he then placed both of his small, leather-gloved hands.

  This short person was wearing a white leather apron that covered his chest and upper legs. Around his neck he wore a kind of necklace, with a tall white ruffle standing out from it, framing his equine face, lighted from below.