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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.
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