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Volume II, Part Two, Chapter VIII

Shortly after his admission into the brotherhood of Masons, Pierre, with a complete manual written by him about what he was supposed to do on his estates, left for Kiev province, where most of his peasants were located.

Arriving in Kiev, Pierre called all the managers to the main office and explained to them his intentions and desires. He told them that measures would be immediately taken to completely liberate the peasants from serfdom, that until then the peasants should not be burdened with work, that women and children should not be sent to work, that the peasants should be given assistance, that punishment should be exhortatory, not corporal, that hospitals, shelters and schools should be established in each name. Some managers (there were also semi-literate economists) listened in fear, assuming the meaning of the speech was that the young count was dissatisfied with their management and withholding money; others, after the first fear, found Pierrea's lisp and new words they had never heard of amusing; Still others simply found pleasure in listening to the master speak; the fourth, the smartest, including the chief manager, understood from this speech how to deal with the master in order to achieve their goals.

The Chief Executive expressed great sympathy for the intentions of Pierrea; but he noticed that in addition to these transformations it was necessary to generally deal with matters that were in a bad state.

Despite the enormous wealth of Count Bezukhov, since Pierre received it and received, as they said, 500 thousand an annual income, he felt much less rich than when he received his 10 thousand from the late count. In general terms, he had a vague sense of the next budget. About 80 thousand were paid to the Council for all estates; It cost about 30 thousand to maintain a house near Moscow, a Moscow house and princesses; about 15 thousand went into retirement, the same number went to charitable institutions; countess was sent 150 thousand for living expenses; interest was paid for debts of about 70 thousand; the construction of the begun church cost about 10 thousand during these two years; the rest, about 100 thousand, was spent - he himself did not know how, and almost every year he was forced to borrow. In addition, every year the chief manager wrote either about fires, or about crop failures, or about the need to rebuild factories and factories. And so, the first task that presented itself to Pierre was the one for which he least of all had the ability and inclination - doing business.

Pierre worked with the chief manager every day . But he felt that his studies were not making any progress. He felt that his activities took place independently of the case, that they did not touch the case and did not force him to move. On the one hand, the chief manager presented things in the worst possible light, showing Pierre the need to pay debts and undertake new work with the help of serfs, to which Pierre did not agree; on the other hand, Pierre demanded that the matter of release be started, to which the manager argued that it was necessary to first pay the debt to the Board of Trustees, and therefore the impossibility of quick execution.

The manager did not say that this was completely impossible; To achieve this goal, he proposed the sale of forests in the Kostroma province, the sale of grassroots lands and Crimean estates. But all these operations in the speeches of the manager were associated with such complexity of processes, lifting prohibitions, claims, permits, etc., that Pierre was lost and only told him: "Yes, yes, do that."

Pierre did not have that practical tenacity that would give him the opportunity to directly get down to business, and therefore he did not like him and only tried to pretend to the manager that he was busy with business. The manager tried to pretend to the count that he considered these activities very useful for the owner and shy for himself.

Acquaintances were found in the big city; strangers hastened to get acquainted and cordially welcomed the newly arrived rich man, the largest owner of the province. The temptations in relation to the main weakness of Pierrea, the one that he admitted during his reception to the lodge, were also so strong that Pierre could not refrain from them. Again, whole days, weeks, months of Pierre's life passed just as preoccupied and busy between evenings, dinners, breakfasts, balls, not giving him time to come to his senses, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life that Pierre hoped to lead, he lived the same old life, only in a different environment.

Of the three purposes of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not fulfill the one that prescribed every Mason to be a model of moral life, and of the seven virtues he completely lacked two: good morals and love of death. He consoled himself with the fact that for this he was fulfilling another purpose - the correction of the human race and had other virtues, love for one's neighbor and especially generosity.

In the spring of 1807 Pierre decided to go back to St. Petersburg. On the way back, he intended to go around all his estates and personally verify what was done from what was prescribed to them and in what situation the people were now, which God had entrusted to him, and which he sought to benefit.

The chief manager, who considered all the ideas of the young count to be almost madness, a disadvantage for himself, for him, for the peasants, made concessions. Continuing to make the task of liberation seem impossible, he ordered the construction of large school buildings, hospitals and shelters on all estates; For the master's arrival, he prepared meetings everywhere, not pompously and solemnly, which, he knew, Pierre would not like, but just the kind of religious and grateful, with images and bread and salt, just the kind that, as he understood the master, should have an effect on the count and deceive him.

Southern spring, the calm, quick journey in a Viennese carriage and the solitude of the road had a joyful effect on Pierre. There were estates that he had not yet visited - one more picturesque than the other; The people everywhere seemed prosperous and touchingly grateful for the benefits done to them. Everywhere there were meetings that, although they embarrassed Pierre, deep down in his soul evoked a joyful feeling. In one place, the men brought him bread and salt and an image of Peter and Paul, and asked permission in honor of his angel Peter and Paul, as a sign of love and gratitude for the good deeds he had done, to erect a new chapel in the church at their own expense. Elsewhere, women with infants met him, thanking him for saving him from hard work. At the third estate he was met by a priest with a cross, surrounded by children, whom, by the grace of the count, he taught literacy and religion. In all the estates Pierre saw with his own eyes, according to the same plan, the stone buildings of hospitals, schools, and almshouses that were to be opened soon. Everywhere Pierre saw reports from managers about corvée work, reduced compared to the previous one, and heard for this the touching thanksgivings of deputations of peasants in blue caftans.

Pierre just didn't know that where they brought him bread and salt and built the chapel of Peter and Paul, there was a trading village and a fair on Peter's Day, that the chapel had already been built a long time ago by the rich peasants of the village, those who came to him, and that nine-tenths of the peasants of this village were in the greatest ruin. He did not know that due to the fact that, on his orders, they stopped sending children-women with infants to corvée, these same children were doing the most difficult work in their half. He did not know that the priest who met him with the cross was burdening the peasants with his extortions, and that the disciples gathered to him with tears were given to him, and were bought off by their parents for a lot of money. He did not know that the stone buildings, according to the plan, were erected by their own workers and increased the corvee of the peasants, reduced only on paper. He did not know that where the manager indicated to him in the book that the quitrent was reduced by one third at his will, the corvée duty was added by half. And therefore Pierre was delighted with his journey through the estates, and completely returned to the philanthropic mood in which he left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his mentor-brother, as he called the great master.

"How easy, how little effort is needed to do so much good," thought Pierre, "and how little we care about it!"

He was happy with the gratitude shown to him, but he was ashamed when he accepted it. This gratitude reminded him how much he even more would have been able to do for these simple, kind people.

The chief manager, a very stupid and cunning man, completely understanding the smart and naive count, and playing with him like a toy, seeing the effect produced on Pierreand the prepared techniques, more decisively turned to him with arguments about the impossibility and, most importantly, the unnecessaryness of the liberation of the peasants, who were already completely happy.

Pierre secretly of his soul agreed with the manager that it was difficult to imagine happier people, and that God knows what awaited them in the wild; but Pierre, although reluctantly, insisted on what he considered fair. The manager promised to use all his strength to carry out the will of the count, clearly understanding that the count would never be able to trust him not only as to whether all measures had been taken to sell forests and estates, for redemption from the Council, but would also probably never ask or learn about how the built buildings stand empty and the peasants continue to give with work and money everything that they give from others, that is, everything that they can give.