War and Peace

“ have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, 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 any 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 Bezúkhov, 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 Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre saw from the
postmaster’s book. Bazdéev had been one of the best-known Freemasons
and Martinists, even in Novíkov’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.