“Later is the end of the world,” replied Maxime. “But I shall certainly win my cause if I take Madame for a judge.”
With a charming gesture, the count invited the pretty countess to come nearer to him. After listening a few moments and looking at her mother, she said to Rastignac:—
“If you want to go to the embassy with Monsieur de Trailles, mamma will take me home.”
A few moments later the Baronne de Nucingen and the Comtesse de Rastignac went away together. Maxime and Rastignac followed a little later, and when they were both seated in the count’s carriage, the latter said:—
“What do you want of me, Maxime? Why do you take me by the throat in this way? What did you say to my wife?”
“I told her I had something to say to you. You are a lucky fellow, you are! You have ended by marrying the only heiress of the Nucingen millions—after twenty years at hard labor.”
“Maxime!”
“But I! here am I, exposed to the doubts of everybody. A miserable coward like du Tillet dares to ask if I have the courage to kill myself! It is high time for me to settle down. Does the ministry want to get rid of me, or does it not? You ought to know. At any rate, you must find out,” continued Maxime, making a gesture with his hand to silence Rastignac. “Here is my plan: listen to it. You ought to serve me, for I have served you, and can serve you again. The life I live now is intolerable; I want an escape from it. Help me to a marriage which shall bring me half a million. Once married, appoint me minister to some wretched little republic in America. I’ll stay there long enough to make my promotion to the same post in Germany legitimate. If I am worth anything, they will soon take me out of it; if I am not worth anything, they can dismiss me. Perhaps I may have a child. If so, I shall be stern with him; his mother will be rich; I’ll make him a minister, perhaps an ambassador.”
“Here is my answer,” said Rastignac. “An incessant battle is going on—greater than common people who are not in it have any idea of—between power in its swaddling-clothes and power in its childhood. Power in swaddling-clothes is the Chamber of Deputies which, not being restrained by an hereditary chamber—”
“Ha! ha!” said Maxime, “you are now a peer of France.”