Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up and went to lie down on the bed that had been made ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who, without looking at Pierre, with an air of surly fatigue was wearily taking off his outer wraps with the aid of his servant. The traveller, now clothed in a shabby nankin-covered sheepskin coat with felt highboots on his thin bony legs, sat down on the sofa, and leaning on its back his close-cropped head, which was very large and broad across the temples, he glanced at Bezuhov. The stern, shrewd, and pene-i trating expression in that glance impressed Pierre. He felt disposed to speak to the traveller, but by the time he had ready a question abouti
the road with which to address him, the traveller had closed his eyes, and folded his wrinkled old hands, on one finger of which there was a large iron ring with a seal representing the head of Adam. He sat without stirring, either resting or sunk, as it seemed to Pierre, in profound and calm meditation. The newcomer’s servant was also a yellow old man, covered with wrinkles. He had neither moustache nor beard, not because he was shaved, but obviously had never had any. The old servant was active in unpacking a travelling-case, in setting the tea- table, and in bringing in a boiling samovar. When everything was ready, the traveller opened his eyes, moved to the table, and pouring out a glass of tea for himself, poured out another for the beardless old man and gave it him. Pierre began to feel an uneasiness and a sense of the necessity, of the inevitability of entering into conversation with the traveller.
The servant brought back his empty glass turned upside down with an unfinished piece of nibbled sugar beside it, and asked if anything were wanted.
‘Nothing. Give me my book,’ said the traveller. The servant gave him a book, which seemed to Pierre to be of a devotional character, and the traveller became absorbed in its perusal. Pierre looked at him. All at once the stranger laid down the book, and putting a mark in it, shut it up. Then closing his eyes and leaning his arms on the back of the sofa, he fell back into his former attitude. Pierre stared at him, and had not time to look away when the old man opened his eyes and bent his resolute and stern glance upon Pierre. Pierre felt confused and tried to turn away from that glance, but the gleaming old eyes drew him irresistibly to them.
II
‘I have the pleasure of speaking to Count Bezuhov, if I am not mistaken,’ said the stranger, in a loud deliberate voice. Pierre looked in silence and inquiringly over his spectacles at the speaker. ‘I have heard of you,’ continued the stranger, ‘and I have heard, sir, of what has happened to you, of your misfortune.’ He underlined, as it were, the last word, as though to say: ‘Yes, misfortune, whatever you call it, I know that what happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.’
‘I am very sorry for it, sir.’ Pierre reddened, and hurriedly dropping his legs over the edge of the bed, he bent forward towards the old man, Ismiling timidly and unnaturally.
‘I have not mentioned this to you, sir, from curiosity, but from graver reasons.’ He paused, not letting Pierre escape from his gaze, and moved aside on the sofa, inviting him by this movement to sit beside him. Pierre disliked entering into conversation with this old man, but involuntarily submitting to him, he came up and sat down beside him.
‘You are unhappy, sir,’ he went on, ‘you are young, and I am old. I should like, as far as it is in my power, to help you.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Pierre, with an unnatural smile. ‘Very much obliged to you . . . where have you been travelling from?’ The stranger’s face was not cordial, it was even cold and severe, but in spite of that, both the speech and the face of his new acquaintance were irresistibly attractive to Pierre.
‘But if for any reason you dislike conversing with me,’ said the old man, ‘then you say so, sir.’ And suddenly he smiled a quite unexpected smile of fatherly kindliness.
‘Oh, no, not at all; on the contrary, I am very glad to make your acquaintance,’ said Pierre, and glancing once more at the stranger’s hands, he examined the ring more closely. He saw the head of Adam, the token of masonry.
‘Allow me to inquire,’ he said, ‘are you a mason?’
‘Yes, I belong to the brotherhood of the freemasons,’ said the stranger, looking now more searchingly into Pierre’s eyes. ‘And from myself and in their name I hold out to you a brotherly hand.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Pierre, smiling and hesitating between the confidence inspired in him by the personality of the freemason and the habit of ridiculing the articles of the masons’ creed; ‘I am afraid that I am very far from a comprehension—how shall I say—I am afraid that my way of thinking in regard to the whole theory of the universe is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another.’
