On reaching home Prince Andrey began looking at his life in Peters-burg during the last four months, as
though it were something new. He thought of the efforts he had made, and the people he had tried to
see, and the history of his project of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration, and had
been shelved because another scheme, a very poor one, had already been worked out and presented
to the Tsar. He thought of the sittings of the committee, of which Berg was a member. He thought of
the conscientious and prolonged deliberations that took place at those sittings on every point relating
to the formalities of the sittings themselves, and the studious brevity with which anything relating to the
reality of their duties was touched on in passing. He thought of his work on the legislative reforms, of
his careful translation of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and he felt ashamed of himself.
Then he vividly imagined Bogutcharovo, his pursuits in the country, his expedition to Ryazan; he thought
of his peasants, of Dron the village elder; and applying the section on Personal Rights, which he had
divided into paragraphs, to them, he marvelled how he could have so long busied himself on work so
idle.