They drove in through the gates of a large house where the lodge had its quarters, and after climbing a dark staircase they came into a small, well-lit ante-room and took off their overcoats without the help of any servants. From there they walked through into another room. A man in strange attire appeared at the door. Advancing to meet him, Willarski whispered something to him in French and then went over to a small cupboard, where Pierre noticed articles of clothing like nothing he had ever seen before. Taking a scarf from the cupboard, Willarski placed it over Pierre’s eyes and tied it in a knot behind, catching his hair painfully in the knot. Then he pulled him close, kissed him, took him by the arm and led him away. Pierre’s hair still hurt, caught up in the knot; he was wincing from the pain and also grinning with a kind of embarrassment. He cut a huge figure with his arms dangling down at his sides as he tottered along uncertainly behind Willarski, his face all grin and grimace.
After leading him a dozen steps forward, Willarski stopped.
‘Whatever happens to you,’ he said, ‘you must endure all things manfully if you are firmly resolved to enter our brotherhood.’ (Pierre nodded his assent.) ‘When you hear a knock at the door, you will take off the blindfold,’ added Willarski. ‘I wish you courage and success.’ With that Willarski squeezed Pierre’s arm and walked away.
Left alone, Pierre carried on grinning as before. Once or twice he shrugged and lifted a hand towards the scarf, as if wanting to take it off, but then put it down again. He spent five minutes with his eyes blindfolded but they seemed like an hour. His arms felt numb, his legs were wobbling and he seemed to be very tired. He was a prey to mixed feelings of the most complex kind. He was afraid of what was going to happen to him, but even more afraid of showing his fear. He wondered what was coming next, what would be revealed to him, but most of all he felt delighted that at long last the moment had come for him to step out along the path of regeneration towards a life of practical goodness – all those things he had been dreaming about since his meeting with Bazdeyev.
There were several loud knocks at the door. Pierre removed the blindfold and looked around. The room was in pitch-black darkness except for one place where a little lamp was burning in a white container. Pierre went over and saw that the little lamp stood on a black table where there was an open book. It was the Gospel and the white container was a human skull with its gaping eye-sockets and teeth. After reading the opening words of the Gospel, ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God . . .’ Pierre walked round the table and there before him was a large open box with some things in it. It was a coffin full of bones. He wasn’t in the least taken aback by what he saw. Hoping to enter on a completely new life, totally different from the old one, he was prepared for anything extraordinary, more extraordinary than what he was now seeing. The skull, the coffin, the Gospel – he seemed to have been expecting all of this and more. In an attempt to work up some emotion he looked all round. ‘God . . . death . . . love . . . the brotherhood of man . . .’ he kept saying to himself, and with these words came an associated wave of vague but joyful thoughts. The door opened and someone came in.
In the faint light, which Pierre had by now become accustomed to, a small person entered the room. Blinded for a moment by coming from light into darkness, this person stopped, then picked his way cautiously towards the table, on which he then placed both of his small, leather-gloved hands.
This short person was wearing a white leather apron that covered his chest and upper legs. Around his neck he wore a kind of necklace, with a tall white ruffle standing out from it, framing his equine face, lighted from below.
‘For what purpose have you come to this place?’ The newcomer’s words were directed at Pierre, who had stirred with a slight rustling noise. ‘For what purpose have you, who believe not in the truth of the light and who cannot see the light, for what have you come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?’
