"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not mistaken," the stranger says in a deliberate, loud voice. Pierre looks silently over his spectacles. The man has heard of him, and of his misfortune, emphasizing the word as if to say, call it what you please, what happened in Moscow was a misfortune. He regrets it very much. Pierre flushes, puts his legs down from the bed, and bends forward with a forced, timid smile. Not from curiosity, but for greater reasons. The old man pauses, gaze still on Pierre, and moves aside on the sofa, inviting him to sit. Pierre is reluctant, yet submits and sits. He is unhappy, young; the other is old and would like to help as far as lies in his power. Pierre, forced smile, is very grateful; where is he traveling from? The stranger's face is not genial, even cold and severe, yet face and words are irresistibly attractive. If for any reason Pierre does not feel inclined to talk, he need only say so, and suddenly the old man smiles in an unexpected, tenderly paternal way. On the contrary, Pierre is very glad. Glancing again at the hands, he looks more closely at the ring with its skull, a Masonic sign. "Allow me to ask, are you a Mason?" Yes, he belongs to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons, and in their name and his own he holds out a brotherly hand. Pierre, wavering between confidence and his habit of ridiculing Masonic beliefs, is afraid they will not understand one another: his way of looking at the world is so opposed. The Mason knows that outlook; it is the majority's, the invariable fruit of pride, indolence, and ignorance. If he had not known it he would not have addressed him. It is a regrettable delusion. Just as Pierre may suppose him deluded. The Mason would never dare to say he knows the truth: no one attains it alone. Only by laying stone on stone, with the cooperation of all, from Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a worthy dwelling of the Great God. He closes his eyes.
Pierre, regretfully, with an effort, tells the whole truth: he does not believe in God. The Mason looks intently and smiles as a rich man might at a poor fellow who said he had not the five rubles that would make him happy. Pierre does not know Him, and that is why he is unhappy. Yes, he is unhappy; but what is he to do? He is here, in the Mason, in his words, in Pierre, even in those blasphemous words just uttered, in a stern, tremulous voice. If He were not, they would not be speaking of Him. Whom has Pierre denied? Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came the conception of such an incomprehensible Being, all-powerful, eternal, infinite? He stops a long time. Pierre cannot and does not wish to break the silence. He exists, but to understand Him is hard. If it were a man whose existence Pierre doubted, the Mason could bring him by the hand; but how can an insignificant mortal show omnipotence to one who shuts his eyes? Pierre dreams he is wise because he could utter those words, and is more foolish than a child who, playing with the parts of a watch, dares to say that as he does not understand its use he does not believe in the master who made it. For ages they labour to attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far; in their lack of understanding they see only their weakness and His greatness. Pierre listens with swelling heart, shining eyes, not interrupting, believing with his whole soul, whether by the reasoning, the tone, the tremor, the aged eyes, or the calm certainty of vocation that contrasts with his own dejection. He longs to believe, does believe, and feels comfort, regeneration, return to life. He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life. Pierre, dismayed as doubts reawaken, does not understand how the mind cannot attain that knowledge. The Mason's fatherly smile: the highest wisdom is like the purest liquid; can one receive it into an impure vessel? Only by inner purification. It is not founded on physics, history, chemistry; it is one science, of the whole creation and man's place in it. Before one can know, one must believe and perfect oneself, and for that there is the light called conscience. Look at thy inner self. Young, rich, clever, well educated: what has he done with these gifts? Is he content? "No, I hate my life," Pierre mutters, wincing. Then change it. How has he spent it? Riotous orgies, receiving everything from society, giving nothing. Wealth: what for his neighbour, his tens of thousands of slaves? He has profited by their toil to lead a profligate life, spent it in idleness, married, and thrust a young woman into deceit and misery. A man offended him and he shot him, and he says he does not know God. There is nothing strange in that. The Mason leans back, almost lifeless. Pierre wishes to say yes, a vile, idle, vicious life, and dares not. Horses have come; the traveler will not rest. Can he be going, leaving Pierre without having told all? Pierre paces: he never thought of it, but he has led a contemptible life, though he did not like it. This man knows the truth. Where is he going? Petersburg, in a childlike voice. He agrees with all that was said, but is not so bad; with his whole soul he wishes to be what he would be had him be; he has never had help; it is he, above all, who is to blame. Help him, teach him. He gulps and turns away. Help comes from God alone, but such measure as the Order can bestow it will render. Hand this to Count Willarski: a few words on a large sheet folded in four. When he reaches the capital, first devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume the former way of life. A good journey, and success. The traveler is Joseph Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre sees from the postmaster's book, one of the best-known Freemasons and Martinists even in Novíkov's time. For a long while after he has gone, Pierre does not go to bed or order horses but paces, pondering his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning anew pictures the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future that seems so easy. He has been vicious only because he somehow forgot how good it is to be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts remains. He firmly believes in the possibility of a brotherhood of men united in supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how Freemasonry presents itself to him.
