he first words amiably and then--again without looking
at Prince Andrew--relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt.
"You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to
carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier
writing than doing."

"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your excellency
how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented," said
Prince Andrew politely.

"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the
committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking a
paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince Andrew.

Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,
misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because
resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles
of War needlessly deviating."

"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired Prince
Andrew.

"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your
honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary."

Prince Andrew smiled.

"I don't want one."

"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the honor...
Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing to Prince
Andrew.

CHAPTER V

While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee
Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he
knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now
experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when
troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling
circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was
being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the
uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation
of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose
existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in
Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in
chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who
was supposed to be a man of genius--Speranski. And this movement of
reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski
its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question
of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his
co