War and Peace

early two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg
after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading
position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral
lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various
lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection
of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,
in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular.
He supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in
Petersburg.

His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and
dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered
it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the
bachelor circles in which he moved.

Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at
the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest
upon it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.
At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the
closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined
the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently
steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it
sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put
his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and
involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.

Joseph Alexéevich was not in Petersburg—he had of late stood aside
from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in
Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary
life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in
Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Iván Vasílevich D., whom he knew
in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the Masonic
aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they
aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up
twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a
dozen members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre
remembered the Masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote
all his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to
dwell arose in his soul.

He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he
put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges
or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical
science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of
God, the three primordial elements—sulphur, mercury, and salt—or
the meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of
Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones
chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexéevich himself,
but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical
aspect of Freemasonry.

In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,
seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight
and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.

In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw
nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized
the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their
purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master
of the principal lodge.

Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,
particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre’s
observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for
anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy
young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,
and of whom there were very many in the lodge.

Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,
at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely
on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but
suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated
from its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went
abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.

In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew
from correspondence with those abroad that Bezúkhov had obtained the
confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many
mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with
him much that might conduce to the advantage of the Masonic cause
in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to
ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was
preparing something for them and concealing it.

A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at
which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what
he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The
meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began
his address.

“Dear Brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
speech in his hand, “it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in
the seclusion of our lodge—we must act—act! We are drowsing, but we
must act.” Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.

“For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of
virtue,” he read, “we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and
folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity
of purpose and possessed of authority and power.

“To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice
and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,
receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we
are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is
to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow
everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.
Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy
evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no
violence.

“The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of
preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of
conviction—aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing
talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and attaching
them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the power
unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to
control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must found a
form of government holding universal sway, which should be diffused over
the whole world without destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside
which all other governments can continue in their customary course and
do everything except what impedes the great aim of our order, which
is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of
Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise and good and for their
own benefit to follow the example and instruction of the best and wisest
men.

“At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching
alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with
special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is
now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue
a charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the
passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is
therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions
within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.

“As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state,
each of them again training two others and all being closely united,
everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret
accomplished much for the welfare of mankind.”

This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in
the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs
of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand
Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with
more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a
meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others
supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by
the endless variety of men’s minds, which prevents a truth from ever
presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members
who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with
limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always
wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself
understood it.

* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for
monarchical institutions.

At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will
reproved Bezúkhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue
alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.
Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would
be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the
usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.