War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [302]
Prince Andrei listened to his account of the opening of the State Council, which he had awaited with such impatience and to which he had ascribed such importance, and marveled that this event, now that it had taken place, not only did not move him, but seemed less than insignificant. With quiet mockery he listened to Bitsky’s rapturous account. The simplest thought occurred to him: “What do Bitsky and I have to do with what the sovereign was pleased to say in the Council? Can any of it make me happier and better?”
And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed for Prince Andrei all his former interest in the reforms being carried out. That same day Prince Andrei was supposed to dine at Speransky’s “en petit comité,”*348 as the host had said when inviting him. This dinner in the circle of family and friends of the man whom Prince Andrei so admired had formerly interested him very much, the more so as he had not yet seen Speransky in his domestic surroundings; but now he did not want to go.
At the appointed dinner hour, however, Prince Andrei was already entering Speransky’s modest private house19 near the Tavrichesky Garden. In the parqueted dining room of the modest house, distinguished by its extraordinary cleanliness (reminiscent of monastic cleanliness), Prince Andrei, who was slightly late, found that at five o’clock the whole company of that petit comité of Speransky’s intimate acquaintances had already gathered. There were no ladies, except for Speransky’s little daughter (with a long face resembling her father’s) and her governess. The guests were Gervais, Magnitsky, and Stolypin. In the front hall Prince Andrei already heard loud voices and ringing, clipped laughter—laughter similar to what one hears on the stage. Some voice similar to Speransky’s rapped out a distinct “ha, ha, ha.” Prince Andrei had never heard Speransky laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched laughter from a statesman struck him as strange.
Prince Andrei entered the dining room. The whole company was standing between two windows, by a small table with hors d’oeuvres. Speransky, in a gray tailcoat with a star, and evidently in the same white waistcoat and high white necktie he had worn at the famous session of the State Council, stood by the table with a merry face. The guests stood around him. Magnitsky, addressing Mikhail Mikhailovich, was telling an anecdote. Speransky listened, laughing beforehand at what Magnitsky was about to say. Just as Prince Andrei entered the dining room, Magnitsky’s words were again drowned by laughter. Stolypin produced a loud bass, chewing a piece of bread and cheese; Gervais hissed out a quiet chuckle; and Speransky laughed his high and clipped laugh.
Speransky, still laughing, gave Prince Andrei his white, tender hand.
“Very glad to see you, Prince,” he said. “Just a moment…” he turned to Magnitsky, interrupting his story. “We’ve agreed that tonight will be a dinner for pleasure and not a word about business.” He turned back to the speaker and laughed again.
Prince Andrei listened to his laughter and looked at the laughing Speransky with surprise and sad disappointment. This was not Speransky but another man, as it seemed to Prince Andrei. Everything in Speransky that had formerly seemed mysterious and attractive to Prince Andrei suddenly became clear and unattractive to him.
At the table the conversation did not let up for a moment and seemed to consist of a collection of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitsky finished his story, someone else announced his readiness to tell something still funnier. The anecdotes were for the most part concerned, if not with the world of government service, then with persons in the service. It seemed that the insignificance of those persons had been so definitely decided upon in this company that the only possible attitude towards them was a good-naturedly comic one. Speransky told how at the Council that morning a deaf dignitary, when asked his opinion, had replied that he was of the same opinion. Gervais recounted a whole case about an audit, remarkable