‘Yes,’ said Prince Andrey, ‘my father did not care for me to take advantage of that privilege; I began the service from the lower grades.’
‘Your father, a man of the older generation, is undoubtedly above the level of our contemporaries, who condemn this measure, though it is Amply an act of natural justice.’
‘I imagine there is some basis though even for that condemnation,’ ;aid Prince Andrey, trying to resist the influence of Speransky, of which le began to be aware. He disliked agreeing with him in everything; he .ried to oppose him. Prince Andrey, who usually spoke so well and so •eadily, felt a difficulty even in expressing himself as he talked with Speransky. He was too much occupied in observing the personality of he celebrated man.
‘In the interests of personal ambition perhaps,’ Speransky slowly put n his word.
‘And to some extent in the interests of the state,’ said Prince Andrey.
‘How do you mean? . . .’ said Speransky slowly, dropping his eyes.
‘I am an admirer of Montesquieu,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘And his theory that the principle of monarchies is honour seems to me incontestable. Certain rights and privileges of the nobility appear to me to be means of maintaining that sentiment.’
The smile vanished from Speransky’s white face, and his countenance gained greatly by its absence. Probably Prince Andrey’s idea seemed to him an interesting one.
‘If you look at the question from that point of view,’ he began, pronouncing French with obvious difficulty, and speaking even more deliberately than he had done when speaking Russian, but still with perfect composure. He said that honour, Vhonneur, cannot be supported by privileges prejudicial to the working of the government service; that honour, Vhonneur, is either a negative concept of avoidance of reprehensible actions or a certain source of emulation in obtaining the commendation and rewards in which it finds expression.
His arguments were condensed, simple, and clear. ‘The institution that best maintains that honour, the source of emulation, is an institution akin to the Legion of Honour of the great Emperor Napoleon, which does not detract from but conduces to the successful working of the government service, and not a class or court privilege.’
‘I do not dispute that, but there is no denying that the court privileges did attain the same object,’ said Prince Andrey. ‘Every courtier thought himself bound to do credit to his position.’
‘But you did not care to profit by it, prince,’ said Speransky, showing with a smile that he wished to conclude with civility an argument embarrassing for his companion. ‘If you will do me the honour to call on Wednesday, then I shall have seen Magnitsky, and shall have something to tell you that may interest you, and besides I shall have the pleasure of more conversation with you.’ Closing his eyes, he bowed, and trying to escape unnoticed, he went out of the drawing-room without saying good-bye, a la jrangaise.
VI
During the first part of his stay in Petersburg, Prince Andrey found all the habits of thought he had formed in his solitary life completely obscured by the trifling cares which engrossed him in Petersburg.
In the evening on returning home he noted down in his memorandum- book four or five unavoidable visits or appointments for fixed hours. The mechanism of life, the arrangement of his day, so as to be in time everywhere, absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, thought of nothing even, and had no time to think, but only talked, and talked successfully, of what he had had time to think about in the past in the country.
He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that it happened to him to repeat the same remarks on the same day to different audiences. But he
WARANDPEACE 4 or
was so busy for whole days together that he had no time to reflect that he was thinking of nothing. Just as at their first meeting at Kotchubey’s, Speransky had a long and confidential talk with Prince Andrey on Wednesday at his own home, where he received Bolkonsky alone and made a great impression on him.
