While father and son were having their explanation, the mother
and daughter were having one not less important. Natasha came running to
her mother, quite excited.
"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made
me..."
"Made what?"
"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!" she
exclaimed.
The countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed.
To whom? To this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing
with dolls and who was still having lessons.
"Don't, Natasha! What
nonsense!" she said, hoping it was a joke.
"Nonsense, indeed! I am
telling you the fact," said Natasha indignantly. "I come to ask you what to
do, and you call it 'nonsense!'"
The countess shrugged her
shoulders.
"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal,
tell him he is a fool, that's all!"
"No, he's not a fool!" replied
Natasha indignantly and seriously.
"Well then, what do you want? You're
all in love nowadays. Well, if you are in love, marry him!" said the
countess, with a laugh of annoyance. "Good luck to you!"
"No, Mamma,
I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love with him."
"Well
then, tell him so."
"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my
fault?"
"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?"
said the countess smiling.
"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what
to say. It's all very well for you," said Natasha, with a responsive smile.
"You should have seen how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but
it came out accidently."
"Well, all the same, you must refuse
him."
"No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice."
"Well
then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married," answered the
countess sharply and sarcastically.
"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him.
I don't know how I'm to say it."
"And there's nothing for you to say. I
shall speak to him myself," said the countess, indignant that they should
have dared to treat this little Natasha as grown up.
"No, not on any
account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at the door," and Natasha
ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall, where Denisov was sitting on
the same chair by the clavichord with his face in his hands.
He jumped
up at the sound of her light step.
"Nataly," he said, moving with rapid
steps toward her, "decide my fate. It is in your hands."
"Vasili
Dmitrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice... but it won't
do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you."
Denisov bent
over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not understand. She kissed
his rough curly black head. At this instant, they heard the quick rustle of
the countess' dress. She came up to them.
"Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you
for the honor," she said, with an embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe
to Denisov--"but my daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son's
friend, you would have addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would
not have obliged me to give this refusal."
"Countess..." said Denisov,
with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He tried to say more, but
faltered.
Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She
began to sob aloud.
"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denisov went on in
an unsteady voice, "but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your
family that I would give my life twice over..." He looked at the countess,
and seeing her severe face said: "Well, good-by, Countess," and kissing her
hand, he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking
at Natasha.
Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay
another day in Moscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell
entertainment at the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection of
how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his
journey.
After Denisov's departure, Rostov spent another fortnight in
Moscow, without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father
could not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls'
room.
Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if
she wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made
her love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy
of her.
He filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having
at last sent Dolokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received
his receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any
of his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in
Poland.
BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07
CHAPTER I
After
his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the Torzhok post
station, either there were no horses or the postmaster would not supply them.
Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing, he lay down on the leather
sofa in front of a round table, put his big feet in their overboots on the
table, and began to reflect.
"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in?
And a bed got ready, and tea?" asked his valet.
Pierre gave no answer,
for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had begun to think of the last
station and was still pondering on the same question--one so important that
he took no notice of what went on around him. Not only was he indifferent as
to whether he got to Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured
accommodation at this station, but compared to the thoughts that now occupied
him it was a matter of indifference whether he remained there for a few hours
or for the rest of his life.
The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and
a peasant woman selling Torzhok embroidery came into the room offering their
services. Without changing his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over
his spectacles unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go on
living without having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been
engrossed by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokolniki
after the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But
now, in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force.
No matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same
questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It
was as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together
were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on
turning uselessly in the same place.
The postmaster came in and began
obsequiously to beg his excellency to wait only two hours, when, come what
might, he would let his excellency have the courier horses. It was plain that
he was lying and only wanted to get more money from the traveler.
"Is
this good or bad?" Pierre asked himself. "It is good for me, bad for another
traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs money for food;
the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing for letting a private
traveler have the courier horses. But the officer thrashed him because he had
to get on as quickly as possible. And I," continued Pierre, "shot Dolokhov
because I considered myself injured, and Louis XVI was executed because they
considered him a criminal, and a year later they executed those who executed
him--also for some reason. What is bad? What is good? What should one love
and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what
is death? What power governs all?"
There was no answer to any of these
questions, except one, and that not a logical answer and not at all a reply
to them. The answer was: "You'll die and all will end. You'll die and know
all, or cease asking." But dying was also dreadful.
The Torzhok
peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her wares, especially a
pair of goatskin slippers. "I have hundreds of rubles I don't know what to do
with, and she stands in her tattered cloak looking timidly at me," he
thought. "And what does she want the money for? As if that money could add a
hair's breadth to happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make
her or me less a prey to evil and death?--death which ends all and must come
today or tomorrow-- at any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity."
And again he twisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it
turned uselessly in the same place.
His servant handed him a half-cut
novel, in the form of letters, by Madame de Souza. He began reading about the
sufferings and virtuous struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. "And why
did she resist her seducer when she loved him?" he thought. "God could not
have put into her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife--as she
once was--did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been
found out, nothing discovered," Pierre again said to himself. "All we can
know is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human
wisdom."
Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless,
and repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances
Pierre found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.
"I make bold to ask
your excellency to move a little for this gentleman," said the postmaster,
entering the room followed by another traveler, also detained for lack of
horses.
The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old
man, with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an
indefinite grayish color.
Pierre took his feet off the table, stood
up, and lay down on a bed that had been got ready for him, glancing now and
then at the newcomer, who, with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking
off his wraps with the aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a
pair of felt boots on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn,
nankeen-covered, sheepskin coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned
back his big head with its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked
at Bezukhov. The stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look
struck Pierre. He felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he
had made up his mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had
closed his eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one
of them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing
a death's head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or,
as it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His
servant was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or
mustache, evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never
grown. This active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen
and preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything
was ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled
a tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to
whom he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the
need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with
this stranger.
The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside
down, * with an unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more
would be wanted.
* To indicate he did not want more
tea.
"No. Give me the book," said the stranger.
The servant handed
him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work, and the traveler became
absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at once the stranger closed the
book, putting in a marker, and again, leaning with his arms on the back of
the sofa, sat in his former position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him
and had not time to turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his
steady and severe gaze straight on Pierre's face.
Pierre felt confused
and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old eyes attracted him
irresistibly.
CHAPTER II
"I have the pleasure of
addressing Count Bezukhov, if I am not mistaken," said the stranger in a
deliberate and loud voice.
Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him
over his spectacles.
"I have heard of you, my dear sir," continued the
stranger, "and of your misfortune." He seemed to emphasize the last word, as
if to say--"Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what
happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune."--"I regret it very much, my dear
sir."
Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed,
bent forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.
"I have
not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for greater
reasons."
He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the
sofa by way of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt
reluctant to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to
him involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.
"You are unhappy,
my dear sir," the stranger continued. "You are young and I am old. I should
like to help you as far as lies in my power."
"Oh, yes!" said Pierre,
with a forced smile. "I am very grateful to you. Where are you traveling
from?"
The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe,
but in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance
were irresistibly attractive to Pierre.
"But if for reason you don't
feel inclined to talk to me," said the old man, "say so, my dear sir." And he
suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and tenderly paternal way.
"Oh no,
not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your acquaintance," said
Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands, he looked more closely
at the ring, with its skull--a masonic sign.
"Allow me to ask," he said,
"are you a Mason?"
"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons,"
said the stranger, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. "And in
their name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you."
"I am
afraid," said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence the
personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of ridiculing
the masonic beliefs--"I am afraid I am very far from understanding--how am I
to put it?--I am afraid my way of looking at the world is so opposed to yours
that we shall not understand one another."
"I know your outlook," said
the Mason, "and the view of life you mention, and which you think is the
result of your own mental efforts, is the one held by the majority of people,
and is the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me,
my dear sir, but if I had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your
view of life is a regrettable delusion."
"Just as I may suppose you to
be deluded," said Pierre, with a faint smile.
"I should never dare to
say that I know the truth," said the Mason, whose words struck Pierre more
and more by their precision and firmness. "No one can attain to truth by
himself. Only by laying stone on stone with the cooperation of all, by the
millions of generations from our forefather Adam to our own times, is that
temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling place of the Great God," he
added, and closed his eyes.
"I ought to tell you that I do not believe...
do not believe in God," said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling
it essential to speak the whole truth.
The Mason looked intently at
Pierre and smiled as a rich man with millions in hand might smile at a poor
fellow who told him that he, poor man, had not the five rubles that would
make him happy.
"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir," said the Mason.
"You cannot know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are
unhappy."
"Yes, yes, I am unhappy," assented Pierre. "But what am I to
do?"
"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do
not know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in
thee, and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!"
pronounced the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.
He paused and
sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.
"If He were not," he said
quietly, "you and I would not be speaking of Him, my dear sir. Of what, of
whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou denied?" he suddenly asked with
exulting austerity and authority in his voice. "Who invented Him, if He did
not exist? Whence came thy conception of the existence of such an
incomprehensible Being? didst thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the
idea of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being
all-powerful, eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?..."
He
stopped and remained silent for a long time.
Pierre could not and did not
wish to break this silence.
"He exists, but to understand Him is hard,"
the Mason began again, looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and
turning the leaves of his book with his old hands which from excitement he
could not keep still. "If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I
could bring him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But
how can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity,
and all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may
not see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness
and sinfulness?" He paused again. "Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou
art wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words," he went
on, with a somber and scornful smile. "And thou art more foolish
and unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of
a skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand
its use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him
is hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor
to attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but
in our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and
His greatness...."
Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into
the Mason's face with shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but
believing with his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the
wise reasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a
child believes, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or
the tremor of the speaker's voice--which sometimes almost broke--or
those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm
firmness and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being
(and which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection
and hopelessness)--at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to
believe and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort,
regeneration, and return to life.
"He is not to be apprehended by
reason, but by life," said the Mason.
"I do not understand," said Pierre,
feeling with dismay doubts reawakening. He was afraid of any want of
clearness, any weakness, in the Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able
to believe in him. "I don't understand," he said, "how it is that the mind of
man cannot attain the knowledge of which you speak."
The Mason smiled
with his gentle fatherly smile.
"The highest wisdom and truth are like
the purest liquid we may wish to imbibe," he said. "Can I receive that pure
liquid into an impure vessel and judge of its purity? Only by the inner
purification of myself can I retain in some degree of purity the liquid I
receive."
"Yes, yes, that is so," said Pierre joyfully.
"The
highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly sciences
of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which intellectual
knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom has but
one science--the science of the whole--the science explaining the whole
creation and man's place in it. To receive that science it is necessary to
purify and renew one's inner self, and so before one can know, it is
necessary to believe and to perfect one's self. And to attain this end, we
have the light called conscience that God has implanted in our
souls."
"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
"Look then at thy inner self
with the eyes of the spirit, and ask thyself whether thou art content with
thyself. What hast thou attained relying on reason only? What art thou? You
are young, you are rich, you are clever, you are well educated. And what have
you done with all these good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with
your life?"
"No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, wincing.
"Thou
hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art purified, thou
wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How have you spent it? In
riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving everything from society and giving
nothing in return. You have become the possessor of wealth. How have you used
it? What have you done for your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens
of thousands of slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You
have profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you
have done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to
your neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married,
my dear sir--took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a
young woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the
way of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit
and misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not
know God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear
sir!"
After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse,
again leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes.
Pierre looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and
moved his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, "Yes, a vile,
idle, vicious life!" but dared not break the silence.
The Mason
cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called
his servant.
"How about the horses?" he asked, without looking at
Pierre.
"The exchange horses have just come," answered the servant. "Will
you not rest here?"
"No, tell them to harness."
"Can he really
be going away leaving me alone without having told me all, and without
promising to help me?" thought Pierre, rising with downcast head; and he
began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at the Mason. "Yes, I never
thought of it, but I have led a contemptible and profligate life, though I
did not like it and did not want to," thought Pierre. "But this man knows the
truth and, if he wished to, could disclose it to me."
Pierre wished to
say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The traveler, having packed his
things with his practiced hands, began fastening his coat. When he had
finished, he turned to Bezukhov, and said in a tone of indifferent
politeness:
"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?"
"I?... I'm
going to Petersburg," answered Pierre, in a childlike, hesitating voice. "I
thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do not suppose me to be so
bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you would have me be, but I have
never had help from anyone.... But it is I, above all, who am to blame for
everything. Help me, teach me, and perhaps I may..."
Pierre could not
go on. He gulped and turned away.
The Mason remained silent for a long
time, evidently considering.
"Help comes from God alone," he said, "but
such measure of help as our Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir.
You are going to Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski" (he took out his
notebook and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four).
"Allow me to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of
all devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume
your former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir,"
he added, seeing that his servant had entered... "and success."
The
traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the postmaster's
book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and Martinists, even
in Novikov's time. For a long while after he had gone, Pierre did not go to
bed or order horses but paced up and down the room, pondering over his
vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning anew pictured to
himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future that seemed to him so
easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious only because he had somehow
forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts
remained in his soul. He firmly believed in the possibility of the
brotherhood of men united in the aim of supporting one another in the path of
virtue, and that is how Freemasonry presented itself to
him.
CHAPTER III
On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not
let anyone know of his arrival, he went nowhere and spent whole days in
reading Thomas a Kempis, whose book had been sent him by someone unknown. One
thing he continually realized as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown
to him, of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the
possibility of active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexeevich had
revealed to him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski,
whom Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room
one evening in the official and ceremonious manner in which
Dolokhov's second had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him
and satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room,
addressed Pierre.
"I have come to you with a message and an offer,
Count," he said without sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our
Brotherhood has made application for you to be received into our Order before
the usual term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a
sacred duty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to enter
the Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?"
The cold, austere
tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met at balls, amiably
smiling in the society of the most brilliant women, surprised
Pierre.
"Yes, I do wish it," said he.
Willarski bowed his
head.
"One more question, Count," he said, "which I beg you to answer in
all sincerity--not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have
you renounced your former convictions--do you believe in God?"
Pierre
considered.
"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said.
"In that
case..." began Willarski, 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 service."
Willarski was silent throughout the
drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to what he must do and how he should answer,
Willarski only replied that brothers more worthy than he would test him and
that Pierre had only to tell the truth.
Having entered the courtyard
of a large house where the Lodge had its headquarters, and having ascended a
dark staircase, they entered a small well-lit anteroom where they took off
their cloaks without the aid of a servant. From there they passed into
another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the door. Willarski,
stepping toward him, said something to him in French in an undertone and then
went up to a small wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had
never seen before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski
bound Pierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some
hairs painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him,
and taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot
hurt Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced
smile. His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered,
though smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid
steps.
Having led him about ten paces, Willarski
stopped.
"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear it all
manfully if you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre
nodded affirmatively.) "When you hear a knock at the door, you will
uncover your eyes," added Willarski. "I wish you courage and success,"
and, pressing Pierre's hand, he went out.
Left alone, Pierre went on
smiling in the same way. Once or twice he shrugged his shoulders and raised
his hand to the kerchief, as if wishing to take it off, but let it drop
again. The five minutes spent with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour.
His arms felt numb, his legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was
tired out. He experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt
afraid of what would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear.
He felt curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed
to him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when
he would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the
actively virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met
Joseph Alexeevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the
bandage off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black
darkness, only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went
nearer and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open
book. The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was
a human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first
words of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God," Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled
with something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at
all surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life
quite unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even
more unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the
Gospel--it seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying
to stimulate his emotions he looked around. "God, death, love,
the brotherhood of man," he kept saying to himself, associating these
words with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came
in.
By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he
saw a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into
the darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward
the table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.
This short
man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and part of his
legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high white ruffle,
outlining his rather long face which was lit up from below.
"For what
have you come hither?" asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre's direction at a
slight rustle made by the latter. "Why have you, who do not believe in the
truth of the light and who have not seen the light, come here? What do you
seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?"
At the moment the door
opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a sense of awe and veneration
such as he had experienced in his boyhood at confession; he felt himself in
the presence of one socially a complete stranger, yet nearer to him through
the brotherhood of man. With bated breath and beating heart he moved toward
the Rhetor (by which name the brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into
the Brotherhood was known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man
he knew, Smolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was
an acquaintance--he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous
instructor. For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had
to repeat his question.
"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration," Pierre
uttered with difficulty.
"Very well," said Smolyaninov, and went on at
once: "Have you any idea of the means by which our holy Order will help you
to reach your aim?" said he quietly and quickly.
"I... hope... for
guidance... help... in regeneration," said Pierre, with a trembling voice and
some difficulty in utterance due to his excitement and to being unaccustomed
to speak of abstract matters in Russian.
"What is your conception of
Freemasonry?"
"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality
of men who have virtuous aims," said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the
inadequacy of his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. "I
imagine..."
"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with
this answer. "Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in
religion?"
"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it," said
Pierre, so softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he
was saying. "I have been an atheist," answered Pierre.
"You are
seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life, therefore you
seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?" said the Rhetor, after a moment's
pause.
"Yes, yes," assented Pierre.
The Rhetor cleared his throat,
crossed his gloved hands on his breast, and began to speak.
"Now I
must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said, "and if this aim
coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with profit. The first
and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which it rests and which no
human power can destroy, is the preservation and handing on to posterity of a
certain important mystery... which has come down to us from the remotest
ages, even from the first man--a mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind
depends. But since this mystery is of such a nature that nobody can know or
use it unless he be prepared by long and diligent self-purification, not
everyone can hope to attain it quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that
of preparing our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to
purify and enlighten their minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from
those who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them
capable of receiving it.
"By purifying and regenerating our members we
try, thirdly, to improve the whole human race, offering it in our members an
example of piety and virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the
evil which sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you
again."
"To combat the evil which sways the world..." Pierre repeated,
and a mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his
mind. He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and
he addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to
himself vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and
deed, imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three
objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving
mankind, especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by
the Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him
essential, and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself,
did not much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that
he was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for
all that was good.
Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform
the seeker of the seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of
Solomon's temple, which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These
virtues were: 1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2.
Obedience to those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of
mankind. 5. Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.
"In the
seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the Rhetor said, "to
bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but as a friend that frees
the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from this distressful life, and
leads it to its place of recompense and peace."
"Yes, that must be
so," thought Pierre, when after these words the Rhetor went away, leaving him
to solitary meditation. "It must be so, but I am still so weak that I love my
life, the meaning of which is only now gradually opening before me." But five
of the other virtues which Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he
felt already in his soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and
especially obedience--which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He
now felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his
will to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the
seventh virtue was and could not recall it.
The third time the Rhetor
came back more quickly and asked Pierre whether he was still firm in his
intention and determined to submit to all that would be required of
him.
"I am ready for everything," said Pierre.
"I must also inform
you," said the Rhetor, "that our Order delivers its teaching not in words
only but also by other means, which may perhaps have a stronger effect on the
sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue than mere words. This chamber with
what you see therein should already have suggested to your heart, if it is
sincere, more than words could do. You will perhaps also see in your further
initiation a like method of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient
societies that explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph," said
the Rhetor, "is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses
but which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol."
Pierre
knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He listened to the
Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his ordeal was about to
begin.
"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation," said the
Rhetor coming closer to Pierre. "In token of generosity I ask you to give
me all your valuables."
"But I have nothing here," replied Pierre,
supposing that he was asked to give up all he possessed.
"What you
have with you: watch, money, rings...."
Pierre quickly took out his purse
and watch, but could not manage for some time to get the wedding ring off his
fat finger. When that had been done, the Rhetor said:
"In token of
obedience, I ask you to undress."
Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat,
and left boot according to the Rhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the
shirt back from Pierre's left breast, and stooping down pulled up the left
leg of his trousers to above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his
right boot also and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this
stranger the trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave
him a slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of
embarrassment, doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against
his will, Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before
his brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.
"And now, in
token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief passion," said the
latter.
"My passion! I have had so many," replied Pierre.
"That
passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path of
virtue," said the Mason.
Pierre paused, seeking a reply.
"Wine?
Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?" He went over his
vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give the
pre-eminence.
"Women," he said in a low, scarcely audible
voice.
The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after
this answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that
lay on the table, again bound his eyes.
"For the last time I say to
you--turn all your attention upon yourself, put a bridle on your senses, and
seek blessedness, not in passion but in your own heart. The source of
blessedness is not without us but within...."
Pierre had already long
been feeling in himself that refreshing source of blessedness which now
flooded his heart with glad emotion.
CHAPTER IV
Soon
after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not the Rhetor
but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his voice. To fresh
questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre replied: "Yes, yes, I
agree," and with a beaming, childlike smile, his fat chest uncovered,
stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and one booted foot, he
advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare chest. He was conducted
from that room along passages that turned backwards and forwards and was at
last brought to the doors of the Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by
the masonic knock with mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice
(Pierre was still blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and
where he was born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still
blindfolded, and as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of
his pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of
the universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils
and dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken
of now as the "Seeker," now as the "Sufferer," and now as the
"Postulant," to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and
swords. As he was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and
uncertainty among his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in
whispers and one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain
carpet. After that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and
told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other
hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to
the laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some
spirit lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would
now see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by
the faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw
several men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's and
holding swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a
man whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre
moved forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce
it. But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded
again. |
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