War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [303]
Obviously, Speransky liked to relax after work and make merry in a friendly circle, and all his guests, understanding his wish, tried to make him merry and be merry themselves. But this merriment seemed heavy and cheerless to Prince Andrei. Speransky’s high-pitched voice struck him as unpleasant, and his constant laughter for some reason offended Prince Andrei’s feelings by its false note. Prince Andrei did not laugh and feared he would be a deadweight on the company. But no one noticed his lack of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed to be very merry.
He wanted several times to enter the conversation, but each time his word was thrown out, like a cork out of water; and he was unable to joke along with them.
There was nothing bad or inappropriate in what they said, everything was witty and might have been funny; but that something which constitutes the salt of merriment was not only missing, but they did not even know it existed.
After dinner Speransky’s daughter and her governess got up. Speransky stroked his daughter with his white hand and kissed her. And this gesture seemed unnatural to Prince Andrei.
The men remained at the table over the port, English style. In the middle of the conversation that started up about Napoleon’s Spanish campaign,20 of which they all held the same approving opinion, Prince Andrei began to contradict them. Speransky smiled and, obviously trying to divert the conversation from the direction it had taken, told an anecdote that had no relation to it. They all fell silent for several moments.
Having sat at the table for a while, Speransky corked the wine bottle and saying: “Good wine costs a pretty penny these days,” handed it to the servant and got up. They all got up and with the same noisy talk went to the drawing room. Speransky was handed two envelopes brought by a courier. He took them and went to his study. As soon as he left, the general merriment died down, and the guests began talking sensibly and quietly with each other.
“Well, now for a declamation!” said Speransky, coming out of his study. “An astonishing talent!” he said to Prince Andrei. Magnitsky at once assumed a pose and began to recite humorous verses he had composed in French about certain persons well-known in Petersburg, and was interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were over, Prince Andrei went up to Speransky to take his leave.
“Leaving so early?” said Speransky.
“I promised to be at a soirée…”
They fell silent. Prince Andrei looked closely into those mirror-like eyes which did not let anything in, and felt how ridiculous it was that he could have expected anything from Speransky and from all his activity connected with him, and that he could have ascribed importance to what Speransky was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter went on ringing in Prince Andrei’s ears long after he had left Speransky.
On returning home, Prince Andrei began to recall his Petersburg life of those last four months as if it was something new. He recalled his solicitations, his petitioning, the story of his project for military regulations, which had been taken into consideration, but which they had tried to silence, solely because another project, a very bad one, had already been developed and presented to the sovereign; he recalled the sessions of the committee of which Berg was a member; he recalled how, at these sessions, everything to do with the form and procedure of the committee’s sessions was discussed carefully and at length, and everything to do with the essence of the matter was carefully and briefly dispensed with. He recalled his work on legislation, the concern with which he had translated the articles of the Roman and French codes