War and Peace (67 page)

This short man was wearing a white leather apron, that covered his chest and part of his legs; upon his neck could be seen something like a
necklace, and a high white ruffle stood up from under the necklace, framing his long face, on which the light fell from below.

“For what are you come hither?” asked the newcomer, turning towards Pierre at a faint rustle made by the latter. “For what are you, an unbeliever in the truth of the light, who have not seen the light, for what are you come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?”

At the moment when the door opened and the unknown person came in, Pierre had a sensation of awe and reverence, such as he had felt in childhood at confession; he felt himself alone with a man who was in the circumstances of life a complete stranger, and yet through the brotherhood of men so near. With a beating heart that made him gasp for breath, Pierre turned to the
rhetor
, as in the phraseology of freemasonry the man is called who prepares the
seeker
for entering the brotherhood. Going closer, Pierre recognised in the rhetor a man he knew, Smolyaninov, but it was mortifying to him to think that the newcomer was a familiar figure; he was to him only a brother and a guide in the path of virtue. For a long while Pierre could not utter a word, so that the rhetor was obliged to repeat his question.

“Yes; I … I … wish to begin anew,” Pierre articulated with difficulty.

“Very good,” said Smolyaninov, and went on at once.

“Have you any idea of the means by which our holy order will assist you in attaining your aim?…” said the rhetor calmly and rapidly.

“I … hope for … guidance … for help … in renewing …” said Pierre, with a tremble in his voice and a difficulty in utterance due both to emotion and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract subjects in Russian.

“What idea have you of freemasonry?”

“I assume that freemasonry is the
fraternité
and equality of men with virtuous aims,” said Pierre, feeling ashamed as he spoke of the incongruity of his words with the solemnity of the moment. “I assume …”

“Very good,” said the rhetor hastily, apparently quite satisfied with the reply. “Have you sought the means of attaining your aim in religion?”

“No; I regarded it as untrue and have not followed it,” said Pierre, so softly that the rhetor did not catch it, and asked him what he was saying. “I was an atheist,” answered Pierre.

“You seek the truth in order to follow its laws in life; consequently, you seek wisdom and virtue, do you not?” said the rhetor, after a moment’s pause.

“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

The rhetor cleared his throat, folded his gloved hands across his chest, and began speaking.

“Now I must reveal to you the chief aim of our order,” he said, “and if that aim coincides with yours, you may with profit enter our brotherhood. The first and greatest aim and united basis of our order, on which it is established and which no human force can destroy, is the preservation and handing down to posterity of a certain important mystery … that has come down to us from the most ancient times, even from the first man—a mystery upon which, perhaps, the fate of the human race depends. But since this mystery is of such a kind that no one can know it and profit by it if he has not been prepared by a prolonged and diligent self-purification, not every one can hope to attain it quickly. Hence we have a second aim, which consists in preparing our members, as far as possible reforming their hearts, purifying and enlightening their intelligence by those means which have been revealed to us by tradition from men who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them fit for the reception of it. Purifying and regenerating our members, we endeavor, thirdly, to improve the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and virtue, and thereby we strive with all our strength to combat the evil that is paramount in the world. Ponder on these things, and I will come again to you,” he said, and went out of the room.

“To combat the evil that is paramount in the world …” Pierre repeated, and a mental image of his future activity in that direction rose before him. He seemed to see men such as he had been himself a fortnight ago, and he was mentally addressing an edifying exhortation to them. He pictured to himself persons vicious and unhappy, whom he would help in word and in deed; he pictured oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three aims enumerated by the rhetor the last—the reformation of the human race—appealed particularly to Pierre. The great mystery of which the rhetor had made mention, though it excited his curiosity, did not strike his imagination as a reality; while the second aim, the purification and regeneration of himself, had little interest for him, because at that moment he was full of a blissful sense of being completely cured of all his former vices, and being ready for nothing but goodness.

Half an hour later the rhetor returned to enumerate to the seeker the seven virtues corresponding to the seven steps of the temple of
Solomon, in which every freemason must train himself. Those virtues were: (1) discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the order; (2) obedience to the higher authorities of the order; (3) morality; (4) love for mankind; (5) courage; (6) liberality; and (7) love of death.

“Seventhly, strive,” said the rhetor, “by frequent meditation upon death to bring yourself to feel it not an enemy to be dreaded, but a friend … which delivers the soul grown weary in the labours of virtue from this distressful life and leads it to its place of recompense and peace.”

“Yes, that’s as it should be,” thought Pierre, when the rhetor after these words left him again to solitary reflection; “that’s as it ought to be, but I’m still so weak as to love this life, the meaning of which is only now by degrees being revealed to me.” But the other five virtues which Pierre recalled, reckoning them on his fingers, he felt already in his soul; courage and liberality, morality and love for mankind, and above all obedience, which seemed to him not to be a virtue, indeed, but a happiness. (It was such a joy to him now to be escaping from the guidance of his own caprice, and to be submitting his will to those who knew the absolute truth.) The seventh virtue Pierre had forgotten, and he could not recall it.

The third time the rhetor came back sooner, and asked Pierre whether he were still resolute in his intention, and whether he were prepared to submit to everything that would be demanded of him.

“I am ready for anything,” said Pierre.

“I must inform you further,” said the rhetor, “that our order promulgates its doctrine not by word only, but by certain means which have perhaps on the true seeker after wisdom and virtue a more potent effect than merely verbal explanations. This temple, with what you see therein, should shed more light on your heart, if it is sincere, than any words can do. You will see, maybe, a like method of enlightenment in the further rites of your admittance. Our order follows the usage of ancient societies which revealed their doctrine in hieroglyphs. A hieroglyph,” said the rhetor, “is the name given to a symbol of some object, imperceptible to the senses and possessing qualities similar to those of the symbol.”

Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but he did not venture to say so. He listened to the rhetor in silence, feeling from everything he said that his ordeal was soon to begin.

“If you are resolved, I must proceed to your initiation,” said the rhetor, coming closer to Pierre. “In token of liberality I beg you to give me everything precious you have.”

“But I have nothing with me,” said Pierre, supposing he was being asked to give up all his possessions.

“What you have with you: watch, money, rings …”

Pierre made haste to get out his purse and his watch, and was a long time trying to get his betrothal ring off his fat finger. When this had been done, the freemason said:

“In token of obedience I beg you to undress.” Pierre took off his coat and waistcoat and left boot at the rhetor’s instructions. The mason opened his shirt over the left side of his chest and pulled up his breeches on the left leg above the knee. Pierre would hurriedly have taken off the right boot and tucked up the trouser-leg, to save this stranger the trouble of doing so, but the mason told him this was not necessary and gave him a slipper to put on his left foot. With a childish smile of embarrassment, of doubt, and of self-mockery, which would come into his face in spite of himself, Pierre stood with his legs wide apart and his hands hanging at his sides, facing the rhetor and awaiting his next commands.

“And finally, in token of candour, I beg you to disclose to me your chief temptation,” he said.

“My temptation! I
had
so many,” said Pierre.

“The temptation which does more than all the rest to make you stumble on the path of virtue,” said the freemason.

Pierre paused, seeking a reply.

“Wine? gluttony? frivolity? laziness? hasty temper? anger? women?” he went through his vices, mentally balancing them, and not knowing to which to give the pre-eminence.

“Women,” said Pierre in a low, hardly audible voice. The freemason did not speak nor stir for a long while after that reply. At last he moved up to Pierre, took the handkerchief that lay on the table, and again tied it over his eyes.

“For the last time I say to you: turn all your attention upon yourself, put a bridle on your feelings, and seek blessedness not in your passions, but in your own heart. The secret of blessing is not without but within us.…”

Pierre had for a long while been conscious of this refreshing fount of blessing within him that now flooded his heart with joy and emotion.

Shortly after this, there walked into the dark temple to fetch Pierre not the rhetor, but his sponsor Villarsky, whom he recognised by his voice. In reply to fresh inquiries as to the firmness of his resolve, Pierre answered:

“Yes, yes, I agree,” and with a beaming, childlike smile he walked forward, stepping timidly and unevenly with one booted and one slippered foot, while Villarsky held a sword pointed at his fat, uncovered chest. He was led out of the room along corridors, turning backwards and forwards, till at last he was brought to the doors of the lodge. Villarsky coughed; he was answered by masonic taps with hammers; the door opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre’s eyes were again bandaged) put questions to him, who he was, where and when he was born, and so on. Then he was again led away somewhere with his eyes still bandaged, and as he walked they spoke to him in allegories of the toils of his pilgrimage, and of holy love, of the Eternal Creator of the world, of the courage with which he was to endure toils and dangers. During this time Pierre noticed that he was called sometimes the
seeker
, sometimes the
sufferer
, and sometimes the
postulant
, and that they made various tapping sounds with hammers and with swords. While he was being led up to some object, he noticed that there was hesitation and uncertainty among his conductors. He heard a whispered dispute among the people round him, and one of them insisting that he should be made to cross a certain carpet. After this they took his right hand, laid it on something, while they bade him with the left hold a compass to his left breast, while they made him repeat after some one who read the words aloud, the oath of fidelity to the laws of the order. Then the candles were extinguished and spirit was lighted, as Pierre knew from the smell of it, and he was told that he would see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes, and in the faint light of the burning spirit Pierre saw, as though it were in a dream, several persons who stood facing him in aprons like the rhetor’s, and held swords pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man in a white shirt stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved with his chest forward towards the swords, meaning them to stab him. But the swords were drawn back, and the bandage was at once replaced on his eyes.

“Now you have seen the lesser light,” said a voice. Then again they lighted the candles, told him that he had now to see the full light, and
again removed the bandage, and more than ten voices said all at once: “
Sic transit gloria mundi
.”

Pierre gradually began to regain his self-possession, and to look about at the room and the people in it. Round a long table covered with black were sitting some dozen men, all in the same strange garment that he had seen before. Several of them Pierre knew in Petersburg society. In the president’s chair sat a young man, with a peculiar cross on his neck, whom he did not know. On his right hand sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had seen two years before at Anna Pavlovna’s. There were among them a dignitary of very high standing and a Swiss tutor, who had once been in the Kuragin family. All preserved a solemn silence, listening to the president, who held a hammer in his hand. In the wall was carved a blazing star; on one side of the table was a small rug with various figures worked upon it; on the other was something like an altar with the gospel and a skull on it. Round the table stood seven big ecclesiastical-looking candlesticks. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar, set his feet at right angles and bade him lie down, saying that he would be casting himself down at the gates of the temple.

“He ought first to receive the spade,” said one of the brothers in a whisper.

“Oh! hush, please,” said another.

Pierre did not obey, but with uneasy short-sighted eyes looked about him, and suddenly doubt came over him. “Where am I? What am I doing? Aren’t they laughing at me? Shan’t I be ashamed to remember this?” But this doubt only lasted a moment. Pierre looked round at the serious faces of the people round him, thought of all he had just been through, and felt that there was no stopping half-way. He was terrified at his own hesitation, and trying to arouse in himself his former devotional feeling, he cast himself down at the gates of the temple. And the devotional feeling did in fact come more strongly than ever upon him. When he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather apron such as the others wore was put round him, and a spade and three pairs of gloves were put in his hands; then the grand master addressed him. He told him that he must try never to stain the whiteness of that apron, which symbolised strength and purity. Then of the unexplained spade he told him to toil with it at clearing his heart from vice, and with forbearing patience smoothing the way in the heart of his neighbour. Then of the first pair of gloves he said that he could not know yet their significance, but must treasure them; of the second pair
he said that he must put them on at meetings; and finally of the third pair—they were women’s gloves—he said: