War And Peace: Book 5 - CHAPTER III

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

ON REACHING PETERSBURG, Pierre let no one know of his arrival, went out to

see nobody, and spent whole days in reading Thomas à Kempis, a book which had

been sent him, he did not know from whom. One thing, and one thing only, Pierre

thoroughly understood in reading that book; he understood what he had hitherto

known nothing of, all the bliss of believing in the possibility of attaining

perfection, and in the possibility of brotherly and active love between men,

revealed to him by Osip Alexyevitch. A week after his arrival, the young Polish

count, Villarsky, whom Pierre knew very slightly in Petersburg society, came one

evening into his room with the same official and ceremonious air with which

Dolohov's second had called on him. Closing the door behind him, and assuring

himself that there was nobody in the room but Pierre, he addressed him:

“I have come to you with a message and a suggestion, count,” he said to him,

not sitting down. “A personage of very high standing in our brotherhood has been

interceding for you to be admitted into our brotherhood before the usual term,

and has asked me to be your sponsor. I regard it as a sacred duty to carry out

that person's wishes. Do you wish under my sponsorship to enter the brotherhood

of freemasons?”

Pierre was impressed by the cold and austere tone of this man, whom he had

almost always seen before at balls wearing an agreeable smile, in the society of

the most brilliant women.

“Yes, I do wish it,” said Pierre.

Villarsky bent his head.

“One more question, count,” he said, “to which I beg you, not as a future

mason, but as an honest man (galant homme) to answer me in all sincerity:

have you renounced your former convictions? do you believe in God?”

Pierre thought a moment.

“Yes … yes, I do believe in God,” he said.

“In that case…” Villarsky was beginning, but Pierre interrupted him.

“Yes, I believe in God,” he said once more.

“In that case, we can go,” said Villarsky. “My carriage is at your

disposal.”

Throughout the drive Villarsky was silent. In answer to Pierre's inquiries,

what he would have to do, and how he would have to answer, Villarsky simply said

that brothers, more worthy than he, would prove him, and that Pierre need do

nothing but tell the truth.

They drove in at the gates of a large house, where the lodge had its

quarters, and, passing up a dark staircase, entered a small, lighted ante-room,

where they took off their overcoats without the assistance of servants. From the

ante-room they walked into another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the

door. Villarsky, going in to meet him, said something to him in French in a low

voice, and went up to a small cupboard, where Pierre noticed garments unlike any

he had seen before. Taking a handkerchief from the cupboard, Villarsky put it

over Pierre's eyes and tied it in a knot behind, catching his hair painfully in

the knot. Then he drew him towards himself, kissed him, and taking him by the

hand led him away somewhere. Pierre had been hurt by his hair being pulled in

the knot: he puckered up his face from the pain, and smiled with vague shame.

His huge figure with his arms hanging at his sides, and his face puckered up and

smiling, moved after Villarsky with timid and uncertain steps.

After leading him for about ten steps, Villarsky stopped.

“Whatever happens to you,” said he, “you must endure all with good courage if

you are firmly resolved to enter our brotherhood.” (Pierre answered

affirmatively by an inclination of his head.) “When you hear a knock at the

door, you may uncover your eyes,” added Villarsky; “I wish you good courage and

success,” and, pressing Pierre's hand, Villarsky went away.

When he was left alone, Pierre still went on smiling in the same way. Twice

he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the handkerchief, as though he

would have liked to take it off, but he let it drop again. The five minutes he

had spent with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his

legs tottered, he felt as though he were tired out. He was aware of the most

complex and conflicting feelings. He was afraid of what would be done to him,

and still more afraid of showing fear. He felt inquisitive to know what was

coming, what would be revealed to him; but above everything, he felt joy that

the moment had come when he would at last enter upon that path of regeneration

and of an actively virtuous life, of which he had been dreaming ever since his

meeting with Osip Alexyevitch.

There came loud knocks at the door. Pierre took off the bandage and looked

about him. It was black darkness in the room; only in one spot there was a

little lamp burning before something white. Pierre went nearer and saw that the

little lamp stood on a black table, on which there lay an open book. The book

was the gospel: the white thing in which the lamp was burning was a human skull

with its eyeholes 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 caught sight of a large open box filled with something. It was a

coffin full of bones. He was not in the least surprised by what he saw. Hoping

to enter upon a completely new life, utterly unlike the old life, he was ready

for anything extraordinary, more extraordinary indeed than what he was seeing.

The skull, the coffin, the gospel—it seemed to him that he had been expecting

all that; had been expecting more, indeed. He tried to stir up a devotional

feeling in himself; he looked about him. “God, death, love, the brotherhood of

man,” he kept saying to himself, associating with those words vague but joyful

conceptions of some sort. The door opened and some one came in. In the faint

light, in which Pierre could, however, see a little by this time, a short man

approached. Apparently dazed by coming out of the light into the darkness, the

man stopped, then with cautious steps moved again towards the table, and laid on

it both his small hands covered with leather gloves.

This short man was wearing a white leather apron, that covered his chest and

part of his legs; upon his neck could be seen something like a necklace, and a

high white ruffle stood up from under the necklace, framing his long face, on

which the light fell from below.

“For what are you come hither?” asked the newcomer, turning towards Pierre at

a faint rustle made by the latter. “For what are you, an unbeliever in the truth

of the light, who have not seen the light, for what are you come here? What do

you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?”

At the moment when the door opened and the unknown person came in, Pierre had

a sensation of awe and reverence, such as he had felt in childhood at

confession; he felt himself alone with a man who was in the circumstances of

life a complete stranger, and yet through the brotherhood of men so near. With a

beating heart that made him gasp for breath, Pierre turned to the rhetor,

as in the phraseology of freemasonry the man is called who prepares the

seeker for entering the brotherhood. Going closer, Pierre recognised in

the rhetor a man he knew, Smolyaninov, but it was mortifying to him to think

that the newcomer was a familiar figure; he was to him only a brother and a

guide in the path of virtue. For a long while Pierre could not utter a word, so

that the rhetor was obliged to repeat his question.

“Yes; I…I… wish to begin anew,” Pierre articulated with difficulty.

“Very good,” said Smolyaninov, and went on at once.

“Have you any idea of the means by which our holy order will assist you in

attaining your aim?…” said the rhetor calmly and rapidly.

“I…hope for…guidance…for help…in renewing…” said Pierre, with a tremble in

his voice and a difficulty in utterance due both to emotion and to being

unaccustomed to speak of abstract subjects in Russian.

“What idea have you of freemasonry?”

“I assume that freemasonry is the fraternité and equality of men with

virtuous aims,” said Pierre, feeling ashamed as he spoke of the incongruity of

his words with the solemnity of the moment. “I assume …”

“Very good,” said the rhetor hastily, apparently quite satisfied with the

reply. “Have you sought the means of attaining your aim in religion?”

“No; I regarded it as untrue and have not followed it,” said Pierre, so

softly that the rhetor did not catch it, and asked him what he was saying. “I

was an atheist,” answered Pierre.

“You seek the truth in order to follow its laws in life; consequently, you

seek wisdom and virtue, do you not?” said the rhetor, after a moment's

pause.

“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

The rhetor cleared his throat, folded his gloved hands across his chest, and

began speaking.

“Now I must reveal to you the chief aim of our order,” he said, “and if that

aim coincides with yours, you may with profit enter our brotherhood. The first

and greatest aim and united basis of our order, on which it is established and

which no human force can destroy, is the preservation and handing down to

posterity of a certain important mystery … that has come down to us from the

most ancient times, even from the first man—a mystery upon which, perhaps, the

fate of the human race depends. But since this mystery is of such a kind that no

one can know it and profit by it if he has not been prepared by a prolonged and

diligent self-purification, not every one can hope to attain it quickly. Hence

we have a second aim, which consists in preparing our members, as far as

possible reforming their hearts, purifying and enlightening their intelligence

by those means which have been revealed to us by tradition from men who have

striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them fit for the reception

of it. Purifying and regenerating our members, we endeavor, thirdly, to improve

the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and virtue,

and thereby we strive with all our strength to combat the evil that is paramount

in the world. Ponder on these things, and I will come again to you,” he said,

and went out of the room.

“To combat the evil that is paramount in the world …” Pierre repeated, and a

mental image of his future activity in that direction rose before him. He seemed

to see men such as he had been himself a fortnight ago, and he was mentally

addressing an edifying exhortation to them. He pictured to himself persons

vicious and unhappy, whom he would help in word and in deed; he pictured

oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three aims enumerated by the

rhetor the last— the reformation of the human race—appealed particularly to

Pierre. The great mystery of which the rhetor had made mention, though it

excited his curiosity, did not strike his imagination as a reality; while the

second aim, the purification and regeneration of himself, had little interest

for him, because at that moment he was full of a blissful sense of being

completely cured of all his former vices, and being ready for nothing but

goodness.

Half an hour later the rhetor returned to enumerate to the seeker the seven

virtues corresponding to the seven steps of the temple of Solomon, in which

every freemason must train himself. Those virtues were: (1) discretion, the

keeping of the secrets of the order; (2) obedience to the higher authorities of

the order; (3) morality; (4) love for mankind; (5) courage; (6) liberality; and

(7) love of death.

“Seventhly, strive,” said the rhetor, “by frequent meditation upon death to

bring yourself to feel it not an enemy to be dreaded, but a friend … which

delivers the soul grown weary in the labours of virtue from this distressful

life and leads it to its place of recompense and peace.”

“Yes, that's as it should be,” thought Pierre, when the rhetor after these

words left him again to solitary reflection; “that's as it ought to be, but I'm

still so weak as to love this life, the meaning of which is only now by degrees

being revealed to me.” But the other five virtues which Pierre recalled,

reckoning them on his fingers, he felt already in his soul; courage and

liberality, morality and love for mankind, and above all obedience, which seemed

to him not to be a virtue, indeed, but a happiness. (It was such a joy to him

now to be escaping from the guidance of his own caprice, and to be submitting

his will to those who knew the absolute truth.) The seventh virtue Pierre had

forgotten, and he could not recall it.

The third time the rhetor came back sooner, and asked Pierre whether he were

still resolute in his intention, and whether he were prepared to submit to

everything that would be demanded of him.

“I am ready for anything,” said Pierre.

“I must inform you further,” said the rhetor, “that our order promulgates its

doctrine not by word only, but by certain means which have perhaps on the true

seeker after wisdom and virtue a more potent effect than merely verbal

explanations. This temple, with what you see therein, should shed more light on

your heart, if it is sincere, than any words can do. You will see, maybe, a like

method of enlightenment in the further rites of your admittance. Our order

follows the usage of ancient societies which revealed their doctrine in

hieroglyphs. A hieroglyph,” said the rhetor, “is the name given to a symbol of

some object, imperceptible to the senses and possessing qualities similar to

those of the symbol.”

Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but he did not venture to say

so. He listened to the rhetor in silence, feeling from everything he said that

his ordeal was soon to begin.

“If you are resolved, I must proceed to your initiation,” said the rhetor,

coming closer to Pierre. “In token of liberality I beg you to give me everything

precious you have.”

“But I have nothing with me,” said Pierre, supposing he was being asked to

give up all his possessions.

“What you have with you: watch, money, rings…”

Pierre made haste to get out his purse and his watch, and was a long time

trying to get his betrothal ring off his fat finger. When this had been done,

the freemason said:

“In token of obedience I beg you to undress.” Pierre took off his coat and

waistcoat and left boot at the rhetor's instructions. The mason opened his shirt

over the left side of his chest and pulled up his breeches on the left leg above

the knee. Pierre would hurriedly have taken off the right boot and tucked up the

trouser-leg, to save this stranger the trouble of doing so, but the mason told

him this was not necessary and gave him a slipper to put on his left foot. With

a childish smile of embarrassment, of doubt, and of self-mockery, which would

come into his face in spite of himself, Pierre stood with his legs wide apart

and his hands hanging at his sides, facing the rhetor and awaiting his next

commands.

“And finally, in token of candour, I beg you to disclose to me your chief

temptation,” he said.

“My temptation! I had so many,” said Pierre.

“The temptation which does more than all the rest to make you stumble on the

path of virtue,” said the freemason.

Pierre paused, seeking a reply.

“Wine? gluttony? frivolity? laziness? hasty temper? anger? women?” he went

through his vices, mentally balancing them, and not knowing to which to give the

pre-eminence.

“Women,” said Pierre in a low, hardly audible voice. The freemason did not

speak nor stir for a long while after that reply. At last he moved up to Pierre,

took the handkerchief that lay on the table, and again tied it over his

eyes.

“For the last time I say to you: turn all your attention upon yourself, put a

bridle on your feelings, and seek blessedness not in your passions, but in your

own heart. The secret of blessing is not without but within us.…”

Pierre had for a long while been conscious of this refreshing fount of

blessing within him that now flooded his heart with joy and emotion.

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