"Hey, Maxime!" he cried, shaking hands with his visitor, "where the devil do you come from? It is more than a fortnight since I have seen you at the club.""Where do I come from?" replied Monsieur de Trailles."I'll tell you presently; but first let me congratulate you on your election.""Yes," said the colonel, with apparent indifference, "they would put me up; but I assure you, upon my honor, I was very innocent of it all, and if no one had done more than I--""But, my dear fellow, you are a blessed choice for that arrondissement; I only wish that the electors I have had to do with were equally intelligent.""What! have you been standing for election? I didn't suppose, taking into consideration the--rather troubled state of your finances, that you could manage it.""True, and I was not electioneering on my own account.Rastignac was uneasy about the arrondissement of Arcis-sur-Aube, and he asked me to go down there for a few days.""Arcis-sur-Aube? Seems to me I read an article about that this morning in one of those cabbage-leaves.Horrid choice, isn't it?--some plasterer or image-maker they propose to send us?""Precisely; and it is about that very thing I have come to see you before I see the others.I have just arrived, and I don't want to go to Rastignac until after I have talked with you.""How is he getting on, that little minister?" said the colonel, taking no notice of the clever steps by which Maxime was gravitating toward the object of his visit."They seem to be satisfied with him at the palace.Do you know that little Nucingen whom he married?""Yes, I often see Rastignac; he is a very old acquaintance of mine.""She is pretty, that little thing," continued the colonel, "very pretty; and I think, the first year of marriage well buried, one might risk one's self in that direction with some success.""Come, come," said Maxime, "you are a serious man now, a legislator!
As for me, the mere meddling in electoral matters in the interests of other people has sobered me.""Did you say you went to Arcis-sur-Aube to hinder the election of that stone-cutter?""Not at all; I went there to throw myself in the way of the election of a Left-centre candidate.""Pah! the Left, pure and simple, is hardly worse.But take a cigar;these are excellent.The princes smoke them."The colonel rose and rang the bell, saying to the servant when he came, "A light!"The cigars lighted, Monsieur de Trailles endeavored to prevent another interruption by declaring before he was questioned that he had never smoked anything more exquisite.Comfortably ensconced in his arm-chair, the colonel seemed to offer the hope of a less fugacious attention, and Monsieur de Trailles resumed:--"All went well at first.To crush the candidate the ministry wanted to be rid of,--a lawyer, and the worst sort of cad,--I unearthed a stocking-maker, a fearful fool, whom I persuaded to offer himself as candidate.The worthy man was convinced that he belonged to the dynastic opposition.That is the opinion which, for the time being, prevails in that region.The election, thanks to me, was as good as made; and, our man once in Paris, the great Seducer in the Tuileries had only to say five words to him, and this dynastic opposer could have been turned inside out like one of this own stockings, and made to do whatever was wanted of him.""Pretty well played that!" said the colonel."I recognize my Maxime.""You will recognize him still farther when he tells you that he was able, without recourse to perquisites, to make his own little profit out of the affair.In order to graft a little parliamentary ambition upon my vegetable, I addressed myself to his wife,--a rather appetizing provincial, though past her prime.""Yes, yes, I see; very good!" said Franchessini; "husband made deputy --satisfied--shut his mouth.""You are all wrong, my dear fellow; the pair have an only daughter, a spoilt child, nineteen years old, very agreeable face, and something like a million in her pocket.""But, my dear Maxime, I passed your tailor's house last night, and it was not illuminated.""No; that would have been premature.However, here was the situation:
two women frantic to get to Paris; gratitude to the skies for the man who would get them an introduction to the Palais-Bourbon; the little one crazy for the title of countess; the mother transported at the idea, carefully insinuated by me, of holding a political salon,--you must see all that such a situation offers, and you know me too well, Ifancy, to suppose that I should fall below any of its opportunities.""Quite easy in mind as to that," said the colonel, getting up to open a window and let out the smoke of their two cigars.
