Page 1104 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

The attachment he felt to Anna precluded in his heart
every need of intimate relations with others. And now
among all his acquaintances he had not one friend. He had
plenty of so-called connections, but no friendships. Alexey

Alexandrovitch had plenty of people whom he could
invite to dinner, to whose sympathy he could appeal in
any public affair he was concerned about, whose interest
he could reckon upon for anyone he wished to help, with
whom he could candidly discuss other people’s business
and affairs of state. But his relations with these people
were confined to one clearly defined channel, and had a
certain routine from which it was impossible to depart.
There was one man, a comrade of his at the university,
with whom he had made friends later, and with whom he
could have spoken of a personal sorrow; but this friend
had a post in the Department of Education in a remote
part of Russia. Of the people in Petersburg the most
intimate and most possible were his chief secretary and his
doctor.
Mihail Vassilievitch Sludin, the chief secretary, was a
straightforward, intelligent, good-hearted, and
conscientious man, and Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware
of his personal goodwill. But their five years of official

1103 of 1759