Book 2 Chapter 15 An Average Statesman

Count Ivan Michaelovitch had been a minister, and was a man of
strong convictions. The convictions of Count Ivan Michaelovitch
consisted in the belief that, just as it was natural for a bird
to feed on worms, to be clothed in feathers and down, and to fly
in the air, so it was natural for him to feed on the choicest and
most expensive food, prepared by highly-paid cooks, to wear the
most comfortable and most expensive clothing, to drive with the
best and fastest horses, and that, therefore, all these things
should be ready found for him. Besides this, Count Ivan
Michaelovitch considered that the more money he could get out of
the treasury by all sorts of means, the more orders he had,
including different diamond insignia of something or other, and
the oftener he spoke to highly-placed individuals of both sexes,
so much the better it was.

All the rest Count Ivan Michaelovitch considered insignificant
and uninteresting beside these dogmas. All the rest might be as
it was, or just the reverse. Count Ivan Michaelovitch lived and
acted according to these lights for 40 years, and at the end of
40 years reached the position of a Minister of State. The chief
qualities that enabled Count Ivan Michaelovitch to reach this
position were his capacity of understanding the meaning of
documents and laws and of drawing up, though clumsily,
intelligible State papers, and of spelling them correctly;
secondly, his very stately appearance, which enabled him, when
necessary, to seem not only extremely proud, but unapproachable
and majestic, while at other times he could be abjectly and
almost passionately servile; thirdly, the absence of any general
principles or rules, either of personal or administrative
morality, which made it possible for him either to agree or
disagree with anybody according to what was wanted at the time.
When acting thus his only endeavour was to sustain the appearance
of good breeding and not to seem too plainly inconsistent. As for
his actions being moral or not, in themselves, or whether they
were going to result in the highest welfare or greatest evil for
the whole of the Russian Empire, or even the entire world, that
was quite indifferent to him. When he became minister, not only
those dependent on him (and there were great many of them) and
people connected with him, but many strangers and even he himself
were convinced that he was a very clever statesman. But after
some time had elapsed and he had done nothing and had nothing to
show, and when in accordance with the law of the struggle for
existence others, like himself, who had learnt to write and
understand documents, stately and unprincipled officials, had
displaced him, he turned out to be not only far from clever but
very limited and badly educated. Though self-assured, his views
hardly reaching the level of those in the leading articles of the
Conservative papers, it became apparent that there was nothing in
him to distinguish him from those other badly-educated and
self-assured officials who had pushed him out, and he himself saw
it. But this did not shake his conviction that he had to receive
a great deal of money out of the Treasury every year, and new
decorations for his dress clothes. This conviction was so firm
that no one had the pluck to refuse these things to him, and he
received yearly, partly in form of a pension, partly as a salary
for being a member in a Government institution and chairman of
all sorts of committees and councils, several tens of thousands
of roubles, besides the right--highly prized by him--of sewing
all sorts of new cords to his shoulders and trousers, and ribbons
to wear under and enamel stars to fix on to his dress coat. In
consequence of this Count Ivan Michaelovitch had very high
connections.