"Yes, he is still in town."
"And his wife?"
"Oh, she is a worthless woman. She is now carrying on with Zenovi. She has quite gone on the loose."
"Well, that is all right," thought Eugene. "How wonderfully indifferent to it I am! How I have changed."
XIX
All that Eugene had wished had been realized. He had obtained the property, the factory was working successfully, the beet-crops were excellent, and his expected income would be a large one; his wife had borne a child satisfactorily, his mother-in-law had left, and he had been unanimously elected to the Zemstvo.
Eugene was returning home from town after the election. He had been congratulated and had had to return thanks. He had had dinner and had drunk some five glasses of champagne. Quite new plans of life now presented themselves to him. He was driving home and thinking about these. It was the Indian summer: an excellent road and a hot sun. As he approached his home Eugene was thinking of how, as a result of this election, he would occupy among the people the position of which he had always dreamed; that is to say, one in which he would be able to serve them not only by production, which gave employment, but also by direct influence. He imagined how in another three years his own and the other peasants would think of him. "For instance this one," he thought, driving just then through the village and glancing at a peasant who with a peasant-woman was crossing the street in front of him carrying a full water-tub. They stopped to let his carriage pass. The peasant was old Pechnikov, and the woman was Stepanida. Eugene looked at her, recognized her, and was glad to feel that he remained quite tranquil. She was still as good-looking as ever, but this did not touch him at all. He drove home.
"Well, may we congratulate you?" said his uncle.
"Yes, I was elected."
"Capital! We must drink to it!"