Homeward bound, Prince Andrey passes the old oak whose gaunt limbs are cloaked now by new leaves. His thoughts change at once and he plans to be active in life again."Life is not over at thirty-one," Andrey decides and recalls his talk with Pierre, his thoughts of love and glory; in his memory, Liza's dead face no longer expresses reproach.
Bolkonsky arrives in Petersburg in August, 1809, intending to join the service again. Having sent to the tsar his suggestions for certain army reforms, Andrey visits the minister of war by way of follow-up. He becomes a member of the Committee on Army Regulations.
This period of Alexander's reign is a time of liberal reform led by the young secretary of state, Mihail Mihalovitch Speransky. Andrey, being well-received in society, meets this luminary at a soirée and feels flattered when Speransky takes him aside for a talk. They discuss necessary changes in civil service, and Prince Andrey believes the young secretary is his ideal of a rational and virtuous man. At a subsequent party in Speransky's home, Bolkonsky admires his practical sense and agrees with everything the great man says. Only vaguely does he discern Speransky's serious faults: his coldness, his contempt for others, his belief in the sovereign power of reason. Through Speransky, Andrey becomes chairman of a committee to revise the legal code.
Actively involved in freemasonry at this time, Pierre begins to feel serious doubts. He discovers that many members are hypocrites, interested not in attaining inner virtue but in bringing distinction to themselves. He finds they are niggardly in contributing to the organization. Pierre decides that Russian freemasonry rests on formal observances and, at the end of 1808, travels abroad to devote himself to the higher mysteries of the order. In the summer he returns and speaks before a large gathering of the lodge. He suggests that masons organize and train members to form a"universal government" — not to interfere with national governments or civil obligations — to carry out the best principles of Christianity. Violence and revolution have no part in this, since wisdom has no need of these measures. The agitated members discuss Pierre's resolutions, but the final word of the Grand Master is a strong rejection. Bezuhov leaves the group.
