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The day after his interview with Count Arakchev, Prince Andrew spent the evening at Count Kochuby’s. He told the count of his interview with Sla Andrevich (Kochuby spoke of Arakchev by that nickname with the same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War’s anteroom).

“Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Michael Mikhylovich Spernski. He manages everything. I’ll speak to him. He has promised to come this evening.”

“What has Spernski to do with the army regulations?” asked Prince Andrew.

Kochuby shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolknski’s simplicity.

“We were talking to him about you a few days ago,” Kochuby continued, “and about your freed plowmen.”

“Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?” said an old man of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolknski.

“It was a small estate that brought in no profit,” replied Prince Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man uselessly.

“Afraid of being late...” said the old man, looking at Kochuby.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he continued. “Who will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to rule.... Just the same as now—I ask you, Count—who will be heads of the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?”

“Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,” replied Kochuby, crossing his legs and glancing round.

“Well, I have Prynichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for examination?”

“Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but...”

Count Kochuby did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm, and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Spernski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Spernski’s whole figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands—hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Spernski, Secretary of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.

Spernski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.

Prince Andrew followed Spernski’s every word and movement with particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new—especially anyone whom, like Spernski, he knew by reputation—expected to discover in him the perfection of human qualities.

Spernski told Kochuby he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty. When Kochuby introduced Prince Andrew, Spernski slowly turned his eyes to Bolknski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence.

“I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as everyone has,” he said after a pause.

Kochuby said a few words about the reception Arakchev had given Bolknski. Spernski smiled more markedly.

“The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend Monsieur Magntski,” he said, fully articulating every word and syllable, “and if you like I can put you in touch with him.” He paused at the full stop. “I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-operate in promoting all that is reasonable.”

A circle soon formed round Spernski, and the old man who had talked about his subordinate Prynichnikov addressed a question to him.

Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement of Spernski’s: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity student, who now, Bolknski thought, held in his hands—those plump white hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Spernski answered the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Spernski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign.

Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Spernski rose and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in Bolknski.

“I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me,” he said with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. “I have known of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much gossip and tittle-tattle.”

“No,” said Prince Andrew, “my father did not wish me to take advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade.”

“Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely re-establishes natural justice.”

“I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,” returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Spernski’s influence, of which he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with Spernski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man’s personality.