library_books Bookstacks

Volume II, Part Two, Chapter I

Having arrived in Petersburg, Pierre informed no one of his arrival, went nowhere, and began to spend whole days reading Thomas à Kempis, a book which had been delivered to him by someone unknown. Reading this book, Pierre understood one and only one thing; he understood the hitherto unknown delight of believing in the possibility of achieving perfection and in the possibility of brotherly and active love between men, which had been revealed to him by Osip Alekseevich. A week after his arrival, the young Polish Count Villarsky, whom Pierre knew superficially in Petersburg society, came into his room one evening with the same official and solemn air with which Dolokhov's second had entered, and, having closed the door behind him and made sure that there was no one in the room besides Pierre, addressed him:

"I have come to you with a message and a proposal, Count," he said to him, without sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our brotherhood has interceded so that you might be admitted to the brotherhood before the appointed time, and has proposed that I be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred duty to fulfill the will of this person. Do you wish to enter the brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?"

The cold and stern tone of the man whom Pierre had almost always seen at balls with an amiable smile, in the society of the most brilliant women, struck Pierre.

"Yes, I wish it," said Pierre.

Villarsky bowed his head.

"One more question, Count," he said, "which I ask you to answer me with all sincerity, not as a future Mason, but as an honest man (galant homme): have you renounced your former convictions, do you believe in God?"

Pierre considered.

"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said.

"In that case..." Villarsky began, 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."

Villarsky was silent the whole way. To Pierre's questions as to what he must do and how he should answer, Villarsky only said that brothers more worthy than he would test him, and that Pierre had nothing more to do than to tell the truth.

Having driven in at the gates of a large house, where the lodge was located, and having passed up a dark staircase, they entered a small, lighted anteroom, where they took off their fur coats without the help of servants. From the anteroom they passed into another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the door. Villarsky, going to meet him, said something to him quietly in French, and went to a small cupboard, in which Pierre noticed garments he had never seen before. Taking a handkerchief from the cupboard, Villarsky put it over Pierre's eyes and tied it in a knot behind, painfully catching his hair in the knot. Then he drew him to himself, kissed him and, taking him by the hand, led him somewhere. Pierre felt pain from his hair being pulled tight in the knot, he winced with pain and smiled with shame at something. His huge figure with arms hanging down, with a wrinkled and smiling physiognomy, moved forward behind Villarsky with uncertain, timid steps.

Having led him some ten paces, Villarsky stopped.

"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear everything with courage, if you have firmly resolved to join our brotherhood." (Pierre answered affirmatively with a nod of his head.) "When you hear a knock on the door, you will untie your eyes," added Villarsky; "I wish you courage and success," and, shaking Pierre's hand, Villarsky went out.

Left alone, Pierre still continued to smile the same way. Once or twice he shrugged his shoulders, raised his hand to the handkerchief, as if wishing to take it off, and lowered it again. The five minutes he remained with his eyes blindfolded seemed to him an hour. His arms grew swollen, his legs gave way; it seemed to him that he was tired. He experienced the most complex and diverse feelings. He was afraid of what would happen to him, and even more afraid of showing fear. He was curious to know what would happen to him, what would be revealed to him; but most of all he was glad that the moment had arrived when he would finally embark on that path of renewal and an actively virtuous life which he had dreamed of since his meeting with Osip Alekseevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took off the blindfold and looked around him. It was pitch black in the room: only in one place was a lamp burning, in something white. Pierre went closer and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay one open book. The book was the Gospel; the white thing in which the lamp burned was a human skull with its cavities and teeth. Having read the first words of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God," Pierre went around the table and saw a large, open box filled with something. It was a coffin with bones. He was not in the least surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter a completely new life, completely different from his former one, he expected everything extraordinary, even more extraordinary than what he saw. The skull, the coffin, the Gospel — it seemed to him that he had expected all this, had expected even more. Trying to evoke in himself a feeling of tender emotion, he looked around him. "God, death, love, the brotherhood of men," he said to himself, associating vague but joyful ideas of something with these words. The door opened and someone entered.

By the faint light, to which Pierre had already managed to accustom his eyes, a short man entered. Evidently coming from the light into the darkness, this man stopped; then with cautious steps he moved to the table and placed his small hands, covered in leather gloves, upon it.

This short man was dressed in a white leather apron covering his chest and part of his legs, on his neck was put on something like a necklace, and from behind the necklace protruded a high white frill framing his oblong face, illuminated from below.

"For what have you come here?" asked the newcomer, turning in the direction of the rustling made by Pierre. "For what have you, who do not believe in the truths of the light and do not see the light, for what have you come here, what do you want from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?"

At the moment the door opened and the unknown man entered, Pierre experienced a feeling of fear and reverence similar to that which he had experienced in childhood at confession: he felt himself face to face with a man who was completely a stranger in the conditions of life, and close through the brotherhood of men. Pierre, with a breath-taking beating of his heart, moved toward the rhetor (such was the name in Freemasonry of the brother who prepares the seeker for entry into the brotherhood). Pierre, coming closer, recognized in the rhetor an acquaintance, Smolyaninov, but he found it offensive to think that the newcomer was an acquaintance: the newcomer was only a brother and a virtuous mentor. Pierre for a long time could not pronounce a word, so that the rhetor had to repeat his question.

"Yes, I... I... desire renewal," Pierre uttered with difficulty.

"Good," said Smolyaninov, and immediately continued: "Do you have an understanding of the means by which our holy order will help you to achieve your goal?..." said the rhetor calmly and quickly.

"I... hope... for guidance... for help... in renewal," said Pierre with a trembling voice and with a difficulty in speech proceeding both from excitement and from a lack of habit of speaking Russian about abstract subjects.

"What conception do you have of Freemasonry?"

"I understand that Freemasonry is fraternité [[brotherhood]] 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 understand..."

"Good," said the rhetor hurriedly, evidently entirely satisfied with this answer. "Have you sought the means of achieving your goal in religion?"

"No, I considered it unjust and did not follow it," said Pierre so quietly that the rhetor did not catch it and asked what he was saying. "I was an atheist," answered Pierre.

"You are seeking truth in order to follow its laws in life; consequently, you seek wisdom and virtue, is that not so?" said the rhetor after a moment's silence.

"Yes, yes," Pierre confirmed.

The rhetor coughed, folded his gloved hands on his chest, and began to speak:

"Now I must reveal to you the principal aim of our order," he said, "and if this aim coincides with yours, then you will usefully join our brotherhood. The first and most principal aim, and at the same time the foundation of our order on which it is established and which no human power can overthrow, is the preservation and transmission to posterity of a certain important mystery... which has come down to us from the most ancient times, and even from the first man, on which mystery the fate of the human race perhaps depends. But since this mystery is of such a nature that no one can know it and make use of it unless prepared by prolonged and diligent purification of himself, not everyone can hope quickly to discover it. Therefore, we have a second aim, which consists in preparing our members as much as possible, correcting their hearts, purifying and enlightening their minds by those means which have been revealed to us by tradition from the men who labored in the search for this mystery, and thereby making them capable of receiving it. By purifying and correcting our members, we strive, thirdly, to correct the whole human race as well, offering it in our members an example of piety and virtue, and thereby we strive with all our might to oppose the evil reigning in the world. Think about this, and I will come to you again," he said, and went out of the room.

"To oppose the evil reigning in the world..." repeated Pierre, and he imagined his future activity in this field. He imagined people just like he himself was two weeks ago, and he mentally addressed to them an edifying and instructive speech. He imagined vicious and unhappy people whom he helped in word and deed; he imagined oppressors from whom he saved their victims. Of the three aims named by the rhetor, this last one — the correction of the human race — was especially close to Pierre. The certain important mystery which the rhetor had mentioned, though it excited his curiosity, did not seem essential to him; and the second aim, the purification and correction of himself, occupied him little, because at this moment he felt with delight that he was already completely corrected of his former vices and ready for nothing but good.

An hour later the rhetor returned to impart to the seeker those seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple, which every Mason had to cultivate in himself. These virtues were: 1) discretion, the keeping of the order's secrets, 2) obedience to the higher ranks of the order, 3) morality, 4) love of mankind, 5) courage, 6) generosity, and 7) love of death.

"Seventhly, endeavor," said the rhetor, "by frequent reflection on death to bring yourself to the point where it does not seem to you a terrible enemy, but a friend... who frees the soul languishing in this miserable life in the labors of virtue, in order to introduce it to a place of reward and peace."

"Yes, it must be so," thought Pierre when, after these words, the rhetor again left him, abandoning him to solitary reflection. "It must be so, but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only now gradually being revealed to me." But the other five virtues, which Pierre remembered counting on his fingers, he felt in his soul: courage, and generosity, and morality, and love of mankind, and especially obedience, which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a happiness. (He was so glad now to rid himself of his own free will and subordinate his will to him and to those who knew the indubitable truth.) Pierre had forgotten the seventh virtue and could in no way remember it.

The third time the rhetor returned more quickly and asked Pierre if he was still firm in his intention, and whether he resolved to submit himself to everything that would be required of him.

"I am ready for anything," said Pierre.

"I must also inform you," said the rhetor, "that our order imparts its teaching not by words alone, but by other means which act upon the true seeker of wisdom and virtue perhaps more strongly than mere verbal explanations. This room, with its decoration which you see, should already have explained to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words; you will perhaps see in your further initiation a similar method of explanation. Our order imitates the ancient societies which revealed their teaching by hieroglyphs. A hieroglyph," said the rhetor, "is the name of some thing not subject to the senses, which contains within itself qualities similar to what is depicted."

Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but did not dare to speak. He listened in silence to the rhetor, feeling by everything that the trials would begin immediately.

"If you are firm, then I must proceed to introduce you," said the rhetor, coming closer to Pierre. "As a sign of generosity, I ask you to give me all your precious things."

"But I have nothing with me," said Pierre, supposing that he was being asked to surrender everything he owned.

"What is on you: watch, money, rings..."

Pierre hurriedly took out his purse, his watch, and for a long time could not take his wedding ring off his fat finger. When this was done, the Mason said:

"As a sign of obedience I ask you to undress." Pierre took off his tailcoat, his waistcoat, and his left boot according to the rhetor's instruction. The Mason opened the shirt on his left breast, and, bending down, pulled up the leg of his trousers on his left leg above the knee. Pierre hurriedly wanted to take off his right boot as well and roll up his trousers, so as to spare this unfamiliar man the trouble, but the Mason told him that this was not necessary — and handed him a slipper for his left foot. With a childish smile of embarrassment, doubt, and self-mockery, which against his will appeared on his face, Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and his legs apart before the brother rhetor, awaiting his new orders.

"And finally, as a sign of sincerity, I ask you to reveal to me your chief passion," he said.

"My passion! I had so many of them," said Pierre.

"That passion which more than any others made you waver on the path of virtue," said the Mason.

Pierre paused, searching.

"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Hot-temperedness? Malice? Women?" He went over his vices, weighing them in his mind and not knowing to which to give preference.

"Women," said Pierre in a quiet, barely audible voice. The Mason did not stir and did not speak for a long time after this answer. Finally he moved to Pierre, took the handkerchief lying on the table, and again blindfolded his eyes.

"For the last time I tell you: turn all your attention upon yourself, put chains on your senses, and seek bliss not in your passions, but in your heart. The source of bliss is not outside, but inside us..."

Pierre already felt within himself this refreshing source of bliss, now filling his soul with joy and tenderness.