This was Speransky, the secretary of state, the Tsar’s confidential adviser, who had accompanied him to Erfurt, and there had more than once seen and talked with Napoleon. Speransky’s eyes did not shift from one face to another, as one’s eyes unconsciously do on first coming into a large company, and he was in no hurry to speak. He spoke slowly, with conviction that he would be listened to, and looked only at the person to whom he was speaking. Prince Andrey watched every word and gesture of Speransky’s with peculiar intentness. As is often the case with men, particularly with those who criticise their fellows severely, Prince Andrey on meeting a new person, especially one like Speransky, whom he knew by reputation, had always a hope of finding in him a full perfection of human qualities.
Speransky said to Kotchubey that he was sorry that he had not been able to come earlier, because he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Tsar had kept him. And this affectation of modesty did not escape Prince Andrey. When Kotchubey mentioned Prince Andrey’s name to him, Speransky slowly transferred his eyes to Bolkonsky, with the same smile on his face, and gazed for a moment at him in silence.
“I am very glad to make your acquaintance; I have heard of you, as every one has,” said he.
Kotchubey said a few words about the reception Araktcheev had given Bolkonsky. Speransky’s smile broadened.
“The chairman of the Committee of Army Regulations is a friend of mine—M. Magnitsky,” he said, articulating fully every word and every syllable, “and, if you wish it, I can make you acquainted with him.” （He paused at the full stop.） “I expect that you would meet with sympathy in him and a desire to assist in anything reasonable.”
A circle formed at once round Speransky, and the same old gentleman, who had talked of his clerk, Pryanitchnikov, addressed a question to Speransky.
Taking no part in the conversation, Prince Andrey watched every gesture of Speransky—this man, only a little time before an insignificant divinity student, who now held in his hands—those plump white hands—the fate of Russia, as Bolkonsky thought. Prince Andrey was struck by the extraordinarily contemptuous composure with which Speransky answered the old gentleman. He seemed to drop him his condescending words from an immeasurable height above him. When the old gentleman began talking too loud, Speransky smiled and said that he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of what the Tsar saw fit to command.
After talking for a little while in the general circle, Speransky got up, and going to Prince Andrey, drew him away to the other end of the room. It was evident that he thought it well to interest himself in Bolkonsky.
“I have not had time for a word with you, prince, in the engrossing conversation into which I was dragged by that excellent old gentleman,” he said, with a smile of bland contempt, by which he seemed to take for granted that Prince Andrey and himself were at one in recognising the insignificance of the people with whom he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrey. “I have known you for a long while： first from your action with the serfs, the first instance of the kind among us, an example which one would desire to find many following; and, secondly, from your being one of those kammerherrs who have not considered themselves wronged by the new decree in regard to promotion by court favour, that has provoked so much criticism and censure.”
“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 simply an act of natural justice.”
“I imagine there is some basis though even for that condemnation,” said Prince Andrey, trying to resist the influence of Speransky, of which he began to be aware. He disliked agreeing with him in everything; he tried to oppose him. Prince Andrey, who usually spoke so well and so readily, felt a difficulty even in expressing himself as he talked with Speransky. He was too much occupied in observing the personality of the celebrated man.
“In the interests of personal ambition perhaps,” Speransky slowly put in 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, l’honneur, cannot be supported by privileges prejudicial to the working of the government; that honour, l’honneur, 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, ******, 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.”