It was in the summer of 1808 that Pierre returned to Petersburg. From an exchange of letters between our freemasons and others abroad it was known that Bezukhov had managed to gain the confidence of many people in high positions abroad, that many mysteries had been revealed to him, he had been raised to a higher grade and was bringing back with him much that was of great value to the cause of freemasonry in Russia. The Petersburg freemasons all drove round to see him, doing their best to ingratiate themselves, and all of them sensed that he was holding something back and getting something ready.
They convened a solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree, at which Pierre promised to convey what he had brought for the Petersburg brothers from the highest leaders of the order abroad. All the places were taken. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and launched into his speech.
‘Dear brothers,’ he began, blushing and stammering as he clutched his written address, ‘it is not enough to observe our mysteries in the seclusion of the lodge – we must act, er . . . we need to act . . . We are slumbering, and we need to act.’
Pierre took up a large note-book and began to read from it.
‘For the dissemination of pure truth and to ensure the triumph of virtue,’ he read, ‘we must get rid of prejudice, diffuse principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the education of young people, bind ourselves with indissoluble bonds to the wisest of men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstition, faithlessness and folly, and turn our devoted followers into men linked by a common cause and possessing power and authority.
‘For the attainment of this goal we must ensure that virtue prevails over vice, we must exert ourselves so that honest men can obtain everlasting reward even in this world. But in these great undertakings we are severely hindered by existing political institutions. What is to be done in this situation? Are we to encourage revolution, overthrow everything, turn violence against violence? . . . No, we are very far from that. Any reform based on violence is to be deprecated, because it does little towards correction of evil while men remain as they are, and because wisdom has no need of violence.
‘The whole plan of our order should be founded on the formation of strong character and virtue in men bound together in unity of conviction, a conviction that vice and folly should be suppressed in all places and by all means, while talent and virtue are fostered and deserving persons raised from the dust and united with our brotherhood. Only then shall our order achieve the power to tie the hands of the promoters of disorder without their feeling anything, and then control them without their being aware of it. In a word, our task is to create a form of supreme government which should spread across the world without affecting the responsibilities of citizenship, with all other governments continuing as before and doing anything they want as long as nothing hinders the great aim of our order, which is the triumph of virtue over vice. This has been the aim of Christianity itself. It has taught men to be wise and good, and to further their own advantage by following the precept and example of better and wiser men.
‘When all was plunged in darkness, exhortation was, of course, sufficient in itself – the novelty of Truth gave her a special power – but in this day and age we need far more powerful methods. Nowadays a man guided by his senses needs to find virtue sensually attractive. Passion cannot be eradicated; all we can do is try to direct it towards a noble aim, so that everyone can satisfy his passions within the limits of virtue, and our order should provide the means to that end. As soon as we have a decent number of worthy men in every country, each of them educating two others, and all of them acting in concert, then nothing will be impossible for our order, which has already done so much in secret for the good of mankind.’
The speech not only made an impact, it produced uproar in the lodge. The majority of the brothers considered that the address smacked of Illuminism3 and gave it a cold reception, much to Pierre’s surprise. The Grand Master began to raise objections. Pierre began to expound his own views with more and more passion. It was a long time since a meeting had turned out to be as stormy as this one. There were two factions, one ranged against Pierre, accusing him of Illuminism, the other on his side. For the first time in his life Pierre was struck by the endless variety of men’s minds, which guarantees that no truth is ever seen the same way by any two persons.
Even those members who seemed to be on his side interpreted him each in his own way, with provisos and amendments which he found unacceptable since his most urgent need was to transmit ideas to other people exactly as he saw them in his own mind.
