________________________________________________
_ Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to
Petersburg after visiting his estates had involuntarily found
himself in a leading position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He
arranged dining and funeral lodge meetings, enrolled new members,
and busied himself uniting various lodges and acquiring authentic
charters. He gave money for the erection of temples and supplemented
as far as he could the collection of alms, in regard to which the
majority of members were stingy and irregular. He supported almost
singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in Petersburg.
His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations
and dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he
considered it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations
of the bachelor circles in which he moved.
Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre
at the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to
rest upon it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under
him. At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under
him the closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had
joined the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who
confidently steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his
foot down it sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness the ground,
he put his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in
it, and involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.
Joseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg- he had of late stood
aside from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost
entirely in Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew
in ordinary life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely
as Brothers in Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasilevich D.,
whom he knew in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under
the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at
which they aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and
reckoning up twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in
promises from a dozen members, of whom half were as well able to pay
as himself, Pierre remembered the Masonic vow in which each Brother
promised to devote all his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on
which he tried not to dwell arose in his soul.
He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first
he put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the
lodges or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the
mystical science of the order: with questions of the threefold
designation of God, the three primordial elements- sulphur, mercury,
and salt- or the meaning of the square and all the various figures
of the temple of Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to
which the elder ones chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought,
Joseph Alexeevich himself, but he did not share their interests. His
heart was not in the mystical aspect of Freemasonry.
In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like
him, seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a
straight and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.
In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority)
who saw nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and
ceremonies, and prized the strict performance of these forms without
troubling about their purport or significance. Such were Willarski and
even the Grand Master of the principal lodge.
Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,
particularly those who had lately joined. These according to
Pierre's observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor
desire for anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate
with the wealthy young Brothers who were influential through their
connections or rank, and of whom there were very many in the lodge.
Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing.
Freemasonry, at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him
based merely on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry
itself, but suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path
and deviated from its original principles. And so toward the end of
the year he went abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the
order.
In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our
Freemasons knew from correspondence with those abroad that Bezukhov
had obtained the confidence of many highly placed persons, had been
initiated into many mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade,
and was bringing back with him much that might conduce to the
advantage of the Masonic cause in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons
all came to see him, tried to ingratiate themselves with him, and it
seemed to them all that he was preparing something for them and
concealing it.
A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened,
at which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers
what he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their
order. The meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre
rose and began his address.
"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written
speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries
in the seclusion of our lodge- we must act- act! We are drowsing,
but we must act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.
"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of
virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse
principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the
education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the
wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity,
and folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by
unity of purpose and possessed of authority and power.
"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over
vice and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this
world, receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great
endeavors we are gravely hampered by the political institutions of
today. What is to be done in these circumstances? To favor
revolutions, overthrow everything, repel force by force?... No! We are
very far from that. Every violent reform deserves censure, for it
quite fails to remedy evil while men remain what they are, and also
because wisdom needs no violence.
"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of
preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of
conviction- aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and
patronizing talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and
attaching them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the
power unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder
and to control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we
must found a form of government holding universal sway, which should
be diffused over the whole world without destroying the bonds of
citizenship, and beside which all other governments can continue in
their customary course and do everything except what impedes the great
aim of our order, which is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice.
This aim was that of Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise and
good and for their own benefit to follow the example and instruction
of the best and wisest men.
"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching
alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her
with special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods.
It is now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in
virtue a charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate
the passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it
is therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his
passions within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means
to that end.
"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state,
each of them again training two others and all being closely united,
everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret
accomplished much for the welfare of mankind."
This speech not only made a strong impression, but created
excitement in the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it
dangerous designs of Illuminism,* met it with a coldness that
surprised Pierre. The Grand Master began answering him, and Pierre
began developing his views with more and more warmth. It was long
since there had been so stormy a meeting. Parties were formed, some
accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others supporting him. At that
meeting he was struck for the first time by the endless variety of
men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever presenting itself
identically to two persons. Even those members who seemed to be on his
side understood him in their own way with limitations and
alterations he could not agree to, as what he always wanted most was
to convey his thought to others just as he himself understood it.
*The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for monarchical
institutions.
At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will
reproved Bezukhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue
alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.
Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would
be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for
the usual formalities he left the lodge and went home. _
Read next: Book Six 1808-10: Chapter 8
Read previous: Book Six 1808-10: Chapter 6
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