‘I imagine there is some basis, though, even for this kind of condemnation, ’ said Prince Andrey, trying to resist Speransky’s influence, which he was beginning to notice. He was reluctant to agree with him in all respects; he wanted to put up a fight. Prince Andrey, whose speech was usually so easy and fluent, had some difficulty in expressing himself as he talked to Speransky. He was preoccupied with observing the personality of such a famous man.
‘A basis of personal ambition perhaps.’ Speransky spoke softly as he put in his word.
‘And to some extent for the state,’ said Prince Andrey.
‘How do you mean?’ said Speransky softly, looking down.
‘I am an admirer of Montesquieu,’2 said Prince Andrey. ‘And his idea of honour as the principle of monarchy seems to me unchallengeable. I can see certain rights and privileges of the nobility as the means of maintaining that sentiment.’
The smile vanished from Speransky’s white face, much to the advantage of his features. Prince Andrey’s idea had probably struck him as particularly interesting.
‘If you look at the question from that angle,’ he began, speaking French with no little difficulty and enunciating even more elaborately than he had done in Russian, but still maintaining perfect composure. He said that honour (
His arguments were concise, straightforward and clear. ‘The institution that best underpins that honour, the source of proper competition, is an institution akin to the great Emperor Napoleon’s Legion of Honour, which does not impede but actually promotes good government service, rather than class or court privilege.’
‘I don’t dispute that, but there’s no denying that court privilege did the same thing,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Every courtier considers himself bound to justify his position by worthy conduct.’
‘But you decided not to take advantage of it, Prince,’ said Speransky, his smile indicating that the argument was becoming embarrassing for his companion and he wanted to end it in the nicest way possible. ‘If you will do me the honour of calling in next Wednesday, I shall have seen Magnitsky by then and I should have something to tell you that may be of interest, though it will also be a pleasure to continue our conversation.’ At this he closed his eyes, bowed and left the drawing-room in the French manner, without saying goodbye, trying to slip away unnoticed.
CHAPTER 6
In the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrey sensed that the way of thinking he had worked out in his solitary life had been completely eclipsed by the petty concerns that now beset him in Petersburg.
When he got home in the evening he would jot down in his note-book four or five essential calls to be made or appointments at fixed times. The mechanical management of his life, arranging his day so as to get everywhere on time, absorbed most of his vital energy. He did nothing and thought nothing – he had no time to think. All he did was talk, and this he did successfully when dealing with ideas he had had time to think about before in the country.
He was sometimes annoyed to find himself saying the same thing on the same day to different audiences. But he kept himself so busy for days on end that he had no time to reflect that he wasn’t actually doing anything. Speransky followed up their first meeting at Kochubey’s with another long, confiding talk with Prince Andrey on Wednesday at his own home, where he received Bolkonsky alone and made a great impression on him.
Prince Andrey regarded the great bulk of humanity as contemptible and worthless creatures, and he was eager to find someone who embodied the ideal of perfection that he was striving for himself, so he was only too ready to believe that in Speransky he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous man. Had Speransky come from the same background as Prince Andrey, with the same upbringing and moral code, Bolkonsky would soon have spotted his weak, human, unheroic sides, but he was so taken with this new, logical way of thinking that his understanding of the man remained incomplete. Besides this, Speransky, either because he was impressed by Prince Andrey’s abilities or because he thought it prudent to recruit him as a supporter, toyed with him, flaunting his own dispassionate application of reason, and flattering him in honeyed tones bordering on the kind of arrogance that exists in a tacit assumption between two men that they are the only people capable of appreciating how stupid
