Chapter 1
We're back with Pierre, when he's left his wife and is heading for St Petersburg. He has to wait at Torzhok, which gives him even more time to mope. He's specifically occupied with the question of what is good or bad? His servant tries to distract him with a novel, but it doesn't help - he just wonders whether the characters are acting in moral or immoral ways. Finally, another traveller joins him in the waiting room, which Pierre does find a little distracting. He spends the rest of the chapter building up his courage to talk to him.
Chapter 2
The stranger greets him as Count Bezukhov, and says he knows of his misfortune, before Pierre has gotten up the courage to talk. He says he would like to help Pierre. He's also a Freemason, has revealed by his ring, which I don't know a lot about. To the google!
...okay. They're mens clubs, grown from literal stonemasons clubs, with different lodges all over the world. They were banned under Catherine the Great because she suspected them of turning her son Paul against her and/or fraternising with the King of Prussia. Paul let them back in, but pushed them out again within three years of the start of his reign. He was assassinated two years after that, and Nikolai's beloved Alexander became Tsar. He let them back in, and it's unclear whether he was himself a member. So that's where we are now. In ten years, lots of little lodges in Russia will join forces, but that's in the future.
Anyway, the stranger is offering the Freemason's help to Pierre. Pierre is not a fan of the Freemasons, even though he likes the stranger, and finds it hard to accept his help. The Mason politely accuses him of being brainwashed. Pierre adds that he doesn't believe in God, when the Mason starts talking about how it is the purpose of humanity to lay stone over stone to reach God, ever since Adam, which is a rather nice metaphor - it particularly works in science, where we all take baby-steps forward, each study standing on the shoulders of others - but I don't have a literal belief in god either. I'm an atheist Catholic. I might be the only one. It's complicated. I think religion has many good elements (and many bad ones) but neither require a literal belief in God in order to get the benefits. Anyway. The Mason pities Pierre for not yet knowing God, which is not what Pierre said. His argument is basically, how can they discuss God if God does not exist? Well, my dear Mason, there is existence as a concept, and existence as literal truth. Discussion of the latter requires the former, but the former doesn't prove the existence of the latter by itself. Take the category of 'girly things'. It clearly exists; I could describe an object, and you could tell me whether it would fit in that category or not, even though there is no external existence of the concept, i.e., there doesn't exist an objective category of objects which all girls or women like and which no boys or men like. And yet, we can use this category, either to discuss it, to portray a type of femininity, for drag, and so on. Other concepts without objective existence include 'money'. A bit of paper in your pocket only has value because the rest of the world agrees to act as if it does.
Right, ranting over, for now. Pierre doesn't rant - he just stays silent. Honestly, I think he's in a prime position to be picked up by a cult and I suspect the Freemason does too. It's like that episode of Boy Meets World where we nearly lost Shaun.
The Mason uses the blind watchmaker argument, not against evolution by natural selection - which hasn't been stated yet, since Darwin won't be born for another four years, and Alfred Russell Wallace for another 19 (the degree I just finished is in Genetics) - but against the disbelief in a creator. I did not realise that argument predated Darwin or Wallace.
Pierre does accept the Mason's words because, as I predicted, he needs someone to care for him and tell him what to do and that everything will be okay, and how to act morally, and the Mason gets the tone of conviction and earnestness right. He also has a 'gentle, fatherly' smile, which poor bastard-son Pierre welcomes. The Mason argues that everything wrong in Pierre's life is because he inherited wealth but did nothing to help his "army of slaves", and, to be fair, I think he probably would feel better if he were out doing something practical to make people happy, rather than spending money on people he doesn't actually like.
The horses are now ready, and the Mason's ready to leave. Pierre is caught though, and begs the Mason to teach him. The Mason says that Freemasons cannot teach, they can only help lead someone to God, and gives Pierre the name and address of a contact in St Petersburg, Count Willarski. Pierre later learns that the Mason he's been talking to is Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, who is apparently a big deal in the Freemason world. He's also apparently based on a real person. As far as I can tell, Count Willarski is not.
The Mason has successfully eased Pierre's internal conflict, and he has vowed to be a better, more moral, person. With the help of the Freemasons. I see no way for this to go wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment