The Seductive Power of Brilliant People — War and Peace

During the first weeks in Petersburg Prince Andrew feels the whole trend of thought formed in seclusion quite overshadowed by trifling cares. Returning home in the evening he jots down in his notebook four or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere, absorbs the greater part of his vital energy. He does nothing, does not even think or find time to think, but only talks, and talks successfully, of what he had thought while in the country. He sometimes notices with dissatisfaction that he repeats the same remark on the same day in different circles. He is so busy for whole days together that he has no time to notice that he is thinking of nothing.

As at Kochubéy's, Speránski produces a strong impression on Wednesday, when he receives Andrew tête-à-tête at his own house and talks long and confidentially. To Bolkónski so many people appear contemptible that he longs to find in someone the living ideal of perfection, and he readily believes he has found in Speránski a perfectly rational and virtuous man. Had Speránski sprung from the same class, with the same breeding and traditions, Andrew would soon have discovered weak, human, unheroic sides; as it is, the strange logical turn of mind inspires respect all the more because he does not quite understand it. Speránski, either appreciating the other's capacity or needing to win him, shows off dispassionate calm reasonableness and flatters him with that subtle flattery which goes with self-assurance: the tacit assumption that one's companion is the only man besides oneself capable of understanding the folly of the rest of mankind. During the long conversation he more than once remarks, We regard everything that is above the common level of rooted custom, or, with a smile, But we want the wolves to be fed and the sheep to be safe, or, They cannot understand this, all in a way that seems to say, We, you and I, understand what they are and who we are.

This first long talk only strengthens the feeling of the first meeting. Andrew sees a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by energy and persistence has attained power and uses it for the good of Russia. Among other topics Speránski speaks of the Commission for the revision of the laws, working these twenty years, spending millions, producing nothing but pigeonholes of headings: they stick labels on corresponding paragraphs of different codes. That is all the state has for the millions spent. We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws. That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these times. Andrew says that work needs an education in jurisprudence which he does not possess. Nobody possesses it, Speránski answers: a vicious circle from which we must break a way out. A week later Andrew is a member of the Committee on Army Regulations and, what he had not at all expected, chairman of a section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speránski's request he takes the first part of the Civil Code being drawn up and, with the aid of the Code Napoléon and the Institutes of Justinian, works at formulating the section on Personal Rights.