THE BEGINNINGS 21Amburger. In other words, their circle could be described as that of
the commercial and bureaucratic "tiers etat".
After less than a year a daughter, also named Elizabeth, was born
to the couple. But the happiness and promise of a quiet family life
did not last long; Speransky's wife, a frail woman suffering from
tuberculosis, did not survive the strain of childbirth, dying a few
months later. Her death broke Speransky almost completely. The day
after she had died he vanished from home; until the funeral he
returned only for a few brief moments every day to approach the
funeral bed, and then disappear again. Friends claimed to have seen
him in outlying sections of the town, dishevelled, dirty and in such a
state that they earnestly feared for his reason and life. Eventually
Speransky pulled himself together and came to realize that his
responsibility towards his infant daughter demanded his return to
normal life. But the wound was never healed completely.^1
Mrs. Stephens, his mother-in-law, moved into Speransky's home to
take care of the little girl, with the help of devoted friends like Mrs.
Weickardt. But Mrs. Stephens had a rather difficult personality;
Speransky's financial circumstances were not particularly brilliant, and
to increase his earnings, he accepted a heavy load of extra duties and
assignments. As a result, he almost never experienced the repose and
warmth of a happy family life and led a withdrawn, busy, and aloof
existence. He steadfastly refused to marry again, even when, at the
height of his career, he had the opportunity of making a brilliant and
politically advantageous match. He scorned the proffered alliances with
wealth, power, or high society and remained a lonely wolf in the
"jungle" of the Court and government. For his scornful loneliness
he was to pay dearly in 1812.
Deprived of the soothing joys of family life, Speransky threw himself,
body and soul, into his work and became the most tireless and burdened
"work horse" in the imperial administration. From that time, his
biography consists almost exclusively of the events in his official career,
of the plans of administrative reform which engaged all his energies
and attention. The only thing outside his government duties that held
Speransky's attention and filled his few hours of leisure, was the study
of philosophy and religion. We shall have occasion to return to this
often forgotten aspect of his life in greater detail; suffice here to say
that this was no new interest of his, he had had it since his student
days at the Seminary. But the tragic death of his wife, no doubt,
1 Cf. letter to Katazin after the death of his wife, quoted in Longinov, "Graf
Speranskii," Russkii J'estnik, XXIII, Oct. 1859, pp. 353-354.