‘They’ve got some that have just arrived,’ answered the old man. ‘But wouldn’t you like to have a rest?’
‘No, have them harnessed.’
‘Surely he can’t be just driving on, leaving me here all on my own, without telling me everything and offering me some help?’ thought Pierre, getting to his feet with downcast head and beginning to pace up and down the room, casting occasional glances at the mason. ‘Yes, I didn’t see it, but I have been leading a despicably immoral life, but I didn’t like it and I didn’t want it,’ thought Pierre. ‘This man knows the truth, and if he wished to he could reveal it to me.’ Pierre wanted to say this to the mason but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. By now the traveller had stowed his things away with practised old hands and was buttoning up his sheepskin coat. When he had finished he turned to Bezukhov and said to him in a polite but casual manner, ‘Where are you heading for now, sir?’
‘Oh, er, Petersburg,’ answered Pierre in a childlike tone, full of indecision. ‘I must thank you. I agree with you completely. But please don’t assume I’ve been as bad as all that. With all my soul I have longed to be what you would want me to be, but I’ve never had anyone to turn to for help . . . No, I know I was mostly to blame. Please help me, teach me, and perhaps I can . . .’
Pierre couldn’t go on. He gulped and turned away.
The mason stood there in silence, apparently thinking things over.
‘Help comes from God alone,’ he said, ‘but any measure of help that our order has power to give you, it will give you, sir. Go now to Petersburg and give this to Count Willarski.’ Taking out his note-book, he jotted down a few words on a large sheet of paper folded into four. ‘One piece of advice. When you reach the capital, the first thing you must do is devote some time to solitude and self-examination, and do not return to your old way of life. And now I wish you God speed, my dear sir,’ he added, noticing that his servant had come in, ‘and every success . . .’
The traveller was Osip Alexeyevich Bazdeyev, as Pierre discovered from the station-master’s book. Bazdeyev had been a leading freemason and Martinist since the days of Novikov.3 For a long while after he had gone Pierre paced up and down the station room, neither lying down to sleep nor asking for horses. He was going over his depraved past, and thinking ecstatically of making a new start, imagining a blissful future, spotless and virtuous, which seemed so easy to achieve. He could see it now – he had been depraved simply because he had somehow forgotten how nice it is to be virtuous. His soul retained not a trace of its former doubts. He firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of all people, united in the aim of mutual support along the path of virtue, and he now saw freemasonry as such a brotherhood.
CHAPTER 3
When he got back to Petersburg, Pierre informed no one of his arrival, never went out and spent many long days reading a volume of Thomas à Kempis4 which had been sent to him by some unknown person. One thing and one thing only emerged from Pierre’s understanding as he read: he experienced a pleasure he had never known before – a belief in the possibility of attaining perfection and the feasibility of practical brotherly love between men, as revealed to him by Bazdeyev. A week after his arrival the young Pole, Count Willarski, whom Pierre knew slightly from Petersburg society, came into his room one evening with the same solemn, official manner that Dolokhov’s second had affected when he had called on him. Closing the door behind him, and checking that there was no one in the room but Pierre, he began to speak.
‘I come to you with a message and a proposal, Count,’ he said without sitting down. ‘Someone of very high standing in our brotherhood has been petitioning for you to be admitted to our fraternity before the usual term and suggested that I be your sponsor. I consider it my sacred duty to fulfil that person’s wishes. Is it your desire under my sponsorship to enter the brotherhood of the freemasons?’
Pierre was taken aback by the cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always seen before at balls smiling a pleasant smile in the company of the most brilliant women.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Pierre.
Willarski bowed his head.
‘One more question, Count,’ he said, ‘which I beg you, not as a future mason but as an honest man, to answer in all sincerity. Have you renounced your former beliefs? Do you believe in God?’
Pierre thought for a moment.
‘Er, yes I do . . . I believe in God,’ he said.
‘In that case . . .’ Willarski began, but Pierre interrupted him.
‘Yes, I do believe in God,’ he repeated.
‘In that case, we can go,’ said Willarski. ‘My carriage is at your disposal.’
Throughout the drive Willarski sat silent. When Pierre asked what he would have to do and how he should respond to questions, Willarski simply told him that brothers worthier than he would put him to the test, and all Pierre needed to do was tell the truth.
