War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [227]
The servant brought back his empty, overturned glass and a bitten lump of sugar,2 and asked whether anything was needed.
“Nothing. Give me the book,” said the traveler. The servant gave him a book, which looked like a spiritual one to Pierre, and the traveler immersed himself in reading. Pierre was looking at him. Suddenly the traveler set the book aside, having put in a bookmark and closed it, and, closing his eyes and leaning back, sat again in his former position. Pierre was looking at him and had no time to turn away before the old man opened his eyes and fixed his firm and stern gaze directly on Pierre’s face.
Pierre felt embarrassed and wanted to avoid that gaze, but the old man’s glittering eyes drew him irresistibly to them.
II
“I have the pleasure of speaking with Count Bezukhov, if I’m not mistaken,” the traveler said unhurriedly and loudly. Pierre looked silently and questioningly at his interlocutor through his spectacles.
“I’ve heard about you,” the traveler went on, “and about the misfortune that has befallen you, my dear sir.” (He underlined, as it were, the word misfortune, as if to say: “Yes, misfortune, whatever you may call it, I know that what happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.”) “I am very sorry for it, my dear sir.”
Pierre blushed and, hastily lowering his legs from the bed, leaned towards the old man, smiling unnaturally and timidly.
“I have mentioned it, my dear sir, not out of curiosity, but for more important reasons.” He paused, not letting Pierre out of his gaze, and shifted on the sofa, inviting Pierre by this gesture to sit next to him. Pierre found it unpleasant to get into conversation with this old man, but, involuntarily submitting to him, he went over and sat down next to him.
“You are unhappy, my dear sir,” he went on. “You are young, I am old. I should like to help you as much as I can.”
“Ah, yes,” said Pierre, with an unnatural smile. “I’m very grateful…Where are you coming from?” The traveler’s face was not gentle, but even cold and stern, yet in spite of that, his new acquaintance’s words and face had an irresistibly attractive effect on Pierre.
“But if for some reason you find conversation with me unpleasant,” said the old man, “say so, my dear sir.” And he suddenly smiled an unexpectedly gentle, fatherly smile.
“Ah, no, not at all, on the contrary, I’m very glad to make your acquaintance,” said Pierre, and, glancing once again at his new acquaintance’s hands, he took a closer look at his ring. He saw a death’s head on it, a Masonic sign.
“Allow me to ask,” he said, “are you a Mason?”
“Yes, I belong to the brotherhood of Freemasons,”3 said the traveler, peering more and more deeply into Pierre’s eyes. “And I give you a brotherly handshake on my own behalf and on theirs.”
“I’m afraid,” said Pierre, smiling and hesitating between the trust which the Mason personally inspired in him and his habit of mocking Masonic beliefs, “I’m afraid I’m very far from understanding—how shall I put it—I’m afraid my way of thinking about the universe is so much the opposite of yours that we won’t understand each other.”
“Your way of thinking is known to me,” said the Mason, “and this way of thinking of yours, which you are talking about and which seems to you the result of your own mental work, is the way of thinking of the majority of people, the monotonous fruit of pride, laziness, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I did not know it, I would not be talking with you. Your way of thinking is a lamentable error.”
“Just as I may suppose you to have fallen into error,” Pierre said with a weak smile.
“I shall never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason, amazing Pierre more and more with his definite and