While awaiting official confirmation of his committee membership, Prince Andrey looked up some old acquaintances, especially people he knew to be in power and therefore of possible use. Here in Petersburg he kept feeling as he had done before on the eve of a battle, when he was tormented by a restless curiosity and irresistibly attracted to higher spheres where the future was taking shape, a future that would determine the destiny of millions. Taking stock of everything – the angry irritability of the old guard, the caution of those who were in the know and the curiosity of those who were not, the fact that everyone was always in a hurry and anxious, the burgeoning of committees and commissions – not a day passed without him learning of a new one – he began to sense that now, in the year 1809, here in Petersburg, a momentous non-military campaign was beginning to build up, the commander-in-chief being a mysterious character he did not know, but someone he took to be a man of genius – Speransky.
And the whole reform movement, for all its vagueness, together with Speransky himself, the power behind it, captured his interest so keenly that his ideas on army regulations very soon began to take second place in his thinking.
Prince Andrey happened to be in a very favourable position for gaining a successful entrée into the broadest and highest circles of Petersburg society of the day. The reformist group welcomed him warmly and made every effort to attract him, firstly because he was considered clever and very well read, and secondly because he had already gained a reputation as a liberal by the freeing of his serfs. The miserable old guard welcomed him simply as his father’s son, and expected him to sympathize with their condemnation of the reforms. The world of women that constituted
The day after his interview with Count Arakcheyev, Prince Andrey happened to be at an evening reception at Count Kochubey’s. He told him about his meeting with ‘Mr Savage’. (This was how Kochubey referred to Arakcheyev, with the kind of sardonic amusement that Prince Andrey had observed in the war minister’s waiting-room.)
‘My dear fellow, even in this matter you can’t do without Mikhail Mikhaylovich. He gets things done. I’ll speak to him. He said he was coming this evening . . .’
‘But what does Speransky have to do with army regulations?’ asked Prince Andrey.
Kochubey shook his head with a smile, as if marvelling at Bolkonsky’s naivety.
‘He and I were talking about you the other day,’ Kochubey continued, ‘about your free tillers of the soil . . .’
‘Oh, so you’re the one, Prince, who freed the serfs?’ said an old gentleman, a leftover from Catherine’s day, turning towards Bolkonsky with great disdain.
‘It was just a small estate and it wasn’t profitable,’ answered Bolkonsky, anxious not to annoy the old gentleman unnecessarily and therefore trying to minimize what he had done.
‘You’re afraid of being late,’ said the old gentleman, looking at Kochubey.
‘There’s one thing I don’t understand,’ the old gentleman persisted. ‘Who’s going to farm the land if they are set free? It’s easy to pass laws, but management is hard work. Same thing now – I ask you, Count, who will the department heads be when everybody has to take examinations?’
‘Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,’ answered Kochubey, crossing his legs and looking around the room.
‘Look, what about Pryanichnikov, working for me, splendid man, salt of the earth, but he’s sixty. Is he going to start taking examinations?’
‘Yes, that’s a difficult question, considering that education is not very widespread, but . . .’
