- The next day Andrei wakes up, thinks about the nice ball and the pretty Natasha, then gets down to business. He’s all work all the time, really.
- But he’s kind of tired or distracted or something, and work isn’t going well.
- His friend Bitsky comes over and starts telling him about some State Council meeting, when all of a sudden Andrei has a deep thought. A Really Deep Thought. What’s the point of this meeting? What’s the point of all this government stuff? Can it really make me happy?
- And just like that, all his interest in reforms and politics and government is over.
- That night he’s supposed to go Speransky’s house. But the magic is gone, and Andrei is just totally over the whole Speransky mystique. He used to be admiring of this guy, but now he just sees Speransky as unpleasant and weird. Everything he does seems forced and abnormal.
- Walking home, Andrei thinks long and hard about his four months in Petersburg. It seems to him that there was no point to any of it.