of nature. Hence his
countenance, swarthy and strongly marked with the Italian origin
indicated by his name, had an expression of singular rigidity, to which
his features, now become angular, his piercing glance, and his nose like
the beak of a bird of prey, did not afford the requisite corrective.

"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