War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [281]
This first long conversation with Speransky only strengthened in Prince Andrei the feeling he had had on first seeing him. He saw in him a reasonable, rigorous-minded man of immense intelligence, who through his energy and perseverance had come to power and used it solely for the good of Russia. Speransky, in Prince Andrei’s eyes, was precisely that man—explaining all phenomena of life reasonably, accepting as real only that which is reasonable, and capable of applying the standard of reasonableness to everything—whom he himself wanted so much to be. Everything seemed so simple, so clear in Speransky’s explanations that Prince Andrei involuntarily agreed with him in everything. If he protested and argued, it was only because he purposely wanted to be independent and not to yield entirely to Speransky’s opinions. Everything was right, everything was very well, but one thing disconcerted Prince Andrei: it was Speransky’s cold, mirror-like gaze, which let no one penetrate to his soul, and his tender white hand, at which Prince Andrei stared involuntarily, as one stares at the hands of people who have power. The mirror-like gaze and that tender white hand for some reason irritated Prince Andrei. He was also unpleasantly struck by a too-great contempt for people that he noticed in Speransky, and the diversity of methods of proof he resorted to in confirming his opinions. He employed every possible intellectual tool, except for analogy, and seemed to pass too boldly from one to another. Now he would stand on the practical activist’s ground and denounce dreamers, now on the satirist’s ground and chuckle ironically at his adversaries; now he would become strictly logical, now he would suddenly rise into the spheres of metaphysics. (This last instrument of proof he made use of especially often.) He would transfer the question to metaphysical heights, go on to definitions of space, time, thought, and, deriving his refutations from there, descend again to the ground of the argument.
In general, the main feature that struck Prince Andrei in Speransky’s mind was his unquestionable, unshakeable faith in the power and legitimacy of reason. It was clear that the notion, so usual for Prince Andrei, that it was after all impossible to express everything one thinks, would never have entered Speransky’s head, and it never occurred to him to wonder: “Isn’t everything I think and believe sheer nonsense?” And that special cast of Speransky’s mind attracted Prince Andrei most of all.
During the first period of his acquaintance with Speransky, Prince Andrei had a passionate feeling of admiration for him, resembling what he used to feel for Bonaparte. The circumstance that Speransky was a priest’s son whom stupid people could vulgarly despise, as many did, for being a little cleric and a “preacher’s brat,” made Prince Andrei treat his feeling for Speransky with special care and unconsciously strengthen it within himself.
On that first evening which Bolkonsky spent with him, talking about the legislative commission, Speransky told Prince Andrei ironically that this commission had existed for a hundred and fifty years, had cost millions, and had done nothing, except that Rosenkampf had glued little labels to all the articles of comparative legislation.
“And for that alone the state has paid millions!” he said. “We want to give new judicial powers to the senate, but we have no laws. Which is why it’s a sin, Prince, for people such as you not to serve now.”
Prince Andrei said that for that he needed a legal education, which he did not have.
“But no one has, so what do you want? It’s a circulus viciosus which we must make an effort to break out of.”
A week later Prince Andrei was a member of the commission on military regulations and, something he had never expected, head of a section of the legislative commission. At Speransky’s request, he took the first part of the civil code, then in