War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [228]
“I must tell you that I don’t believe, don’t…believe in God,” Pierre said with regret and effort, feeling the need to speak the whole truth.
The Mason looked at Pierre attentively and smiled, as a rich man, holding millions in his hands, would smile at a poor man who has said to him that he, the poor man, did not have the five roubles that would make his happiness.
“But you don’t know Him, my dear sir,” said the Mason. “You cannot know Him. You don’t know Him, and that is why you are unhappy.”
“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” Pierre agreed, “but what am I to do?”
“You don’t know Him, my dear sir, and that is why you are very unhappy. You don’t know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in you, and even in that blasphemous talk you have just produced,” the Mason said in a stern, trembling voice.
He paused and sighed, obviously trying to calm himself.
“If He did not exist,” he said softly, “we would not be talking about Him, my dear sir. What, whom are we talking about? Whom have you denied?” he said suddenly with rapturous sternness and power in his voice. “Who invented Him, if He does not exist? Why has the supposition appeared in you that there is such an incomprehensible being? Why do you and the whole world suppose the existence of such an unfathomable being, a being almighty, eternal, and infinite in all His qualities?…” He stopped and was silent for a long time.
Pierre could not and did not want to break that silence.
“He exists, but it is hard to understand Him,” the Mason spoke again, not looking at Pierre’s face, but straight ahead, leafing through his book with his old man’s hands, which could not remain still because of his inner turmoil. “If you doubted the existence of some man, I would bring this man to you, I would take him by the hand and show him to you. But how can I, an insignificant mortal, show all His almightiness, all His eternity, all His goodness to one who is blind, or who closes his eyes so as not to see, not to understand his own loathsomeness and depravity?” He paused. “Who are you? What are you? You fancy that you’re wise, because you were able to utter those blasphemous words,” he said with a gloomy and scornful smile, “but you are more foolish and mad than a little child who, playing with part of a skillfully made clock, would dare say that, since he does not understand the purpose of this clock, he does not believe in the master who made it. It is hard to know Him. For centuries, starting with our forefather Adam and down to our days, we have been working towards that knowledge and are infinitely far from reaching our goal; but we see our incomprehension only as our weakness and His grandeur…”
With a swelling heart, with glittering eyes, Pierre gazed into the Mason’s face, listened to him, did not interrupt him, did not ask anything, and believed with his whole soul what this stranger was telling him. Whether he believed those reasonable arguments in the Mason’s speech, or believed, as children do, the intonations, convictions, and heartfelt emotion in the Mason’s speech, the trembling of his voice, which sometimes almost interrupted him, or those glittering old man’s eyes, grown old in that conviction, or the calmness, firmness, and knowledge of purpose which shone in the Mason’s whole being and which struck him especially strongly, compared with his own slackness and hopelessness, in any case he wanted to believe with his whole soul, and did believe, and experienced a joyful feeling of peace, renewal, and return to life.
“He is not apprehended by reason, but by life,” said the Mason.
“I don’t understand,” said Pierre, fearfully sensing doubt arising in him. He feared the vagueness and weakness of his interlocutor’s arguments, he feared not believing him. “I