Page 797 - war-and-peace

Chapter VI

During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince
Andrew felt the whole trend of thought he had formed dur-
ing his life of seclusion quite overshadowed by the trifling
cares that engrossed him in that city.
On returning home in the evening he would jot 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, absorbed the greater
part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not even think
or find time to think, but only talked, and talked success-
fully, of what he had thought while in the country.
He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he re-
peated the same remark on the same day in different circles.
But he was so busy for whole days together that he had no
time to notice that he was thinking of nothing.
As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey’s,
Speranski produced a strong impression on Prince Andrew
on the Wednesday, when he received him tete-a-tate at his
own house and talked to him long and confidentially.
To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and
insignificant creatures, and he so longed to find in someone
the living ideal of that perfection toward which he strove,
that he readily believed that in Speranski he had found this
ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous man. Had Sper-

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