War And Peace: Book 5 - CHAPTER II

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

“I HAVE THE PLEASURE of speaking to Count Bezuhov, if I am not mistaken,”

said the stranger, in a loud deliberate voice. Pierre looked in silence

and inquiringly over his spectacles at the speaker. “I have heard of

you,” continued the stranger, “and I have heard, sir, of what has happened

to you, of your misfortune.” He underlined, as it were, the last word,

as though to say: “Yes, misfortune, whatever you call it, I know that

what happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.”

“I am very sorry for it, sir.” Pierre reddened, and hurriedly dropping his

legs over the edge of the bed, he bent forward towards the old man, smiling

timidly and unnaturally.

“I have not mentioned this to you, sir, from curiosity, but from graver

reasons.” He paused, not letting Pierre escape from his gaze, and moved aside on

the sofa, inviting him by this movement to sit beside him. Pierre disliked

entering into conversation with this old man, but involuntarily submitting to

him, he came and sat down beside him.

“You are unhappy, sir,” he went on, “you are young, and I am old. I should

like, as far as it is in my power, to help you.”

“Oh, yes,” said Pierre, with an unnatural smile. “Very much obliged to you …

where have you been travelling from?” The stranger's face was not cordial, it

was even cold and severe, but in spite of that, both the speech and the face of

his new acquaintance were irresistibly attractive to Pierre.

“But if for any reason you dislike conversing with me,” said the old man,

“then you say so, sir.” And suddenly he smiled a quite unexpected smile of

fatherly kindliness.

“Oh, no, not at all; on the contrary, I am very glad to make your

acquaintance,” said Pierre, and glancing once more at the stranger's hands, he

examined the ring more closely. He saw the head of Adam, the token of

masonry.

“Allow me to inquire,” he said, “are you a mason?”

“Yes, I belong to the brotherhood of the freemasons,” said the stranger,

looking now more searchingly into Pierre's eyes. “And from myself and in their

name I hold out to you a brotherly hand.”

“I am afraid,” said Pierre, smiling and hesitating between the confidence

inspired in him by the personality of the freemason and the habit of ridiculing

the articles of the masons' creed; “I am afraid that I am very far from a

comprehension—how shall I say—I am afraid that my way of thinking in regard to

the whole theory of the universe is so opposed to yours that we shall not

understand one another.”

“I am aware of your way of thinking,” said the freemason, “and that way of

thinking of which you speak, which seems to you the result of your own thought,

is the way of thinking of the majority of men, and is the invariable fruit of

pride, indolence, and ignorance. Excuse my saying, sir, that if I had not been

aware of it, I should not have addressed you. Your way of thinking is a

melancholy error.”

“Just as I may take for granted that you are in error,” said Pierre, faintly

smiling.

“I would never be so bold as to say I know the truth,” said the mason, the

definiteness and decision of whose manner of speaking impressed Pierre more and

more. “No one alone can attain truth; only stone upon stone, with the

co-operation of all, by the millions of generations from our first father Adam

down to our day is that temple being reared that should be a fitting

dwelling-place of the Great God,” said the freemason, and he shut his

eyes.

“I ought to tell you that I don't believe, don't … believe in God,” said

Pierre regretfully and with effort, feeling it essential to speak the whole

truth.

The freemason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man, holding

millions in his hands, might smile to a poor wretch, who should say to him that

he, the poor man, has not five roubles that would secure his happiness.

“Yes, you do not know Him, sir,” said the freemason. “You cannot know Him.

You know not Him, that is why you are unhappy.”

“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” Pierre assented; “but what am I to do?”

“You know not Him, sir, and that's why you are very unhappy. You know not

Him, but He is here, He is within me, He is in my words, He is in thee, and even

in these scoffing words that thou hast just uttered,” said the mason in a stern,

vibrating voice.

He paused and sighed, evidently trying to be calm.

“If He were not,” he said softly, “we should not be speaking of Him, sir. Of

what, of whom were we speaking? Whom dost thou deny?” he said all at once, with

enthusiastic austerity and authority in his voice. “Who invented Him, if He be

not? How came there within thee the conception that there is such an

incomprehensible Being? How comes it that thou and all the world have assumed

the existence of such an inconceivable Being, a Being all powerful, eternal and

infinite in all His qualities? …” He stopped and made a long pause.

Pierre could not and would not interrupt this silence.

“He exists, but to comprehend Him is hard,” the mason began again, not

looking into Pierre's face, but straight before him, while his old hands, which

could not keep still for inward emotion, turned the leaves of the book. “If it

had been a man of whose existence thou hadst doubts, I could have brought thee

the man, taken him by the hand, and shown him thee. But how am I, an

insignificant mortal, to show all the power, all the eternity, all the

blessedness of Him to one who is blind, or to one who shuts his eyes that he may

not see, may not understand Him, and may not see, and not understand all his own

vileness and viciousness.” He paused. “Who art thou? What art thou? Thou

dreamest that thou art wise because thou couldst utter those scoffing words,” he

said, with a gloomy and scornful irony, “while thou art more foolish and artless

than a little babe, who, playing with the parts of a cunningly fashioned watch,

should rashly say that because he understands not the use of that watch, he does

not believe in the maker who fashioned it. To know Him is a hard matter. For

ages, from our first father Adam to our day, have we been striving for this

knowledge, and are infinitely far from the attainment of our aim; but in our

lack of understanding we see only our own weakness and His greatness …”

Pierre gazed with shining eyes into the freemason's face, listening with a

thrill at his heart to his words; he did not interrupt him, nor ask questions,

but with all his soul he believed what this strange man was telling him. Whether

he believed on the rational grounds put before him by the freemason, or

believed, as children do, through the intonations, the conviction, and the

earnestness, of the mason's words, the quiver in his voice that sometimes almost

broke his utterance, or the gleaming old eyes that had grown old in that

conviction, or the calm, the resolution, and the certainty of his destination,

which were conspicuous in the whole personality of the old man, and struck

Pierre with particular force, beside his own abjectness and hopelessness,—any

way, with his whole soul he longed to believe, and believed and felt a joyful

sense of soothing, of renewal, and of return to life.

“It is not attained by the reason, but by life,” said the mason.

“I don't understand,” said Pierre, feeling with dismay that doubt was

stirring within him. He dreaded obscurity and feebleness in the freemason's

arguments, he dreaded being unable to believe in him. “I don't understand,” he

said, “in what way human reason cannot attain that knowledge of which you

speak.”

The freemason smiled his mild, fatherly smile.

“The highest wisdom and truth is like the purest dew, which we try to hold

within us,” said he. “Can I hold in an impure vessel that pure dew and judge of

its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I bring that dew

contained within me to some degree of purity.”

“Yes, yes; that's so,” Pierre said joyfully.

“The highest wisdom is founded not on reason only, not on those worldly

sciences, of physics, history, chemistry, etc., into which knowledge of the

intellect is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom knows but

one science—the science of the whole, the science that explains the whole

creation and the place of man in it. To instil this science into one's soul, it

is needful to purify and renew one's inner man, and so, before one can know, one

must believe and be made perfect. And for the attainment of these aims there has

been put into our souls the light of God, called the conscience.”

“Yes, yes,” Pierre assented.

“Look with the spiritual eye into thy inner man, and ask of thyself whether

thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained with the guidance of the

intellect alone? What art thou? You are young, you are wealthy, you are

cultured, sir. What have you made of all the blessings vouchsafed you? Are you

satisfied with yourself and your life?”

“No, I hate my life,” said Pierre, frowning.

“Thou hatest it; then change it, purify thyself, and as thou art purified,

thou wilt 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 in return. You have received wealth. How have you used it?

What have you done for your neighbour? Have you given a thought to the tens of

thousands of your slaves, have you succoured them physically and morally? No.

You have profited by their toil to lead a dissipated life. That's what you have

done. Have you chosen a post in the service where you might be of use to your

neighbour? No. You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, sir, took

upon yourself the responsibility of guiding a young woman in life, and what have

you done? You have not helped her, sir, to find the path of truth, but have cast

her into an abyss of deception and misery. A man injured you, and you have

killed him, and you say you do not know God, and that you hate your life. There

is no wisdom in all that, sir.”

After these words the freemason leaned his elbow again on the back of the

sofa and closed his eyes, as though weary of prolonged talking. Pierre gazed at

that stern, immovable, old, almost death-like face, and moved his lips without

uttering a sound. He wanted to say, “Yes, a vile, idle, vicious life,” and he

dared not break the silence. The freemason cleared his throat huskily, as old

men do, and called his servant.

“How about horses?” he asked, without looking at Pierre.

“They have brought round some that were given up,” answered the old man. “You

won't rest?”

“No, tell them to harness them.”

“Can he really be going away and leaving me all alone, without telling me

everything and promising me help?” thought Pierre, getting up with downcast

head, beginning to walk up and down the room, casting a glance from time to time

at the freemason. “Yes, I had not thought of it, but I have led a contemptible,

dissolute life, but I did not like it, and I didn't want to,” thought Pierre,

“and this man knows the truth, and if he liked he could reveal it to me.” Pierre

wanted to say this to the freemason and dared not. After packing his things with

his practised old hands, the traveller buttoned up his sheepskin. On finishing

these preparations, he turned to Bezuhov, and in a polite, indifferent tone,

said to him:

“Where are you going now, sir?”

“I? … I'm going to Petersburg,” answered Pierre in a tone of childish

indecision. “I thank you. I agree with you in everything. But do not suppose

that I have been so bad. With all my soul I have desired to be what you would

wish me to be; but I have never met with help from any one.… Though I was myself

most to blame for everything. Help me, instruct me, and perhaps I shall be able

…”

Pierre could not say more; his voice broke and he turned away.

The freemason was silent, obviously pondering something.

“Help comes only from God,” he said, “but such measure of aid as it is in the

power of our order to give you, it will give you, sir. You go to Petersburg, and

give this to Count Villarsky” (he took out his notebook and wrote a few words on

a large sheet of paper folded into four). “One piece of advice let me give you.

When you reach the capital, devote your time at first there to solitude and to

self-examination, and do not return to your old manner of life. Therewith I wish

you a good journey, sir,” he added, noticing that his servant had entered the

room, “and all success …”

The stranger was Osip Alexyevitch Bazdyev, as Pierre found out from the

overseer's book. Bazdyev had been one of the most well-known freemasons and

Martinists even in Novikov's day. For a long while after he had gone, Pierre

walked about the station room, neither lying down to sleep nor asking for

horses. He reviewed his vicious past, and with an ecstatic sense of beginning

anew, pictured to himself a blissful, irreproachably virtuous future, which

seemed to him easy of attainment. It seemed to him that he had been vicious,

simply because he had accidentally forgotten how good it was to be virtuous.

There was left in his soul not a trace of his former doubts. He firmly believed

in the possibility of the brotherhood of man, united in the aim of supporting

one another in the path of virtue. And freemasonry he pictured to himself as

such a brotherhood.