War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [252]
“No, no, a thousand times no! I’ll never agree with you,” said Pierre.
XII
In the evening Prince Andrei and Pierre got into a carriage and drove to Bald Hills. Prince Andrei, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence from time to time with speeches which proved that he was in a good state of mind.
Pointing to the fields, he told him about his improvements in management.
Pierre was gloomily silent, answered monosyllabically, and seemed to be immersed in his own thoughts.
Pierre was thinking about Prince Andrei, that he was unhappy, that he was mistaken, that he did not know the true light, that Pierre had come to his aid, to enlighten him and raise him up. But as soon as Pierre thought of how and what he was going to say, he had the feeling that Prince Andrei would discredit his entire teaching with a single word, a single argument, and he was afraid to begin, afraid to expose his favorite, sacred thing to the possibility of ridicule.
“No, why do you think,” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head and looking like a butting bull, “why do you think that way? You shouldn’t think that way.”
“About what?” Prince Andrei asked in surprise.
“About life, about man’s purpose. It can’t be. I thought the same, and do you know what saved me? Masonry. No, don’t smile. Masonry is not a religious, not a ritual sect, as I also thought, Masonry is the best, the only expression of the best, the eternal sides of mankind.” And he began to explain Masonry to Prince Andrei as he understood it.
He said that Masonry is the teaching of Christianity, freed of state17 and religious fetters; the teaching of equality, brotherhood, and love.
“Only our holy brotherhood has real meaning in life; all the rest is a dream,” said Pierre. “Understand, my friend, that outside this union everything is filled with lies and falsehood, and I agree with you that an intelligent and good man has nothing left but to live out his life, like you, trying only not to bother others. But adopt our basic convictions, join our brotherhood, give yourself to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I did, a part of this huge, invisible chain, the beginning of which is hidden in heaven,” said Pierre.
Prince Andrei, looking straight ahead, listened silently to Pierre’s speech. A few times he asked Pierre to repeat words he had not heard because of the noise of the carriage. By a particular gleam that lit up in Prince Andrei’s eyes, and by his silence, Pierre saw that his words were not in vain, that Prince Andrei would not interrupt him or laugh at what he was saying.
They approached a flooded river, which they had to cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being loaded, they boarded the ferry.
Prince Andrei, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked silently down the floodwaters sparkling in the setting sun.
“Well, what do you think about that?” asked Pierre. “Why are you silent?”
“What do I think? I’ve been listening to you. That is all so,” said Prince Andrei. “But you say, ‘Join our brotherhood, and we’ll show you the goal of life and the purpose of man and the laws that govern the world.’ But who are we?—just people. How do you know everything? How is it that I alone do not see what you see? You see the kingdom of the good and the true on earth, and I don’t see it.”
Pierre interrupted him.
“Do you believe in a future life?” he asked.
“A future life?” Prince Andrei repeated, but Pierre gave him no time to reply, and took this repetition for a denial, the more so as he knew Prince Andrei’s former atheistic convictions.
“You say you can’t see the kingdom of the good and the true on earth. I didn’t see it either; and it can’t be seen if you look at our life as the end of everything. On earth, I mean this earth” (Pierre pointed to the fields), “there is no truth—everything is falsehood and evil; but in the universe, in the whole universe, there is the kingdom of the true, and we are now children of the earth, but eternally—children of the whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I make up a part of that huge, harmonious whole?