pictures. All the women lose their heads over him. He always spends
something like a hundred thousand francs a year, and no creature can
discover that he has an acre of land or a single dividend warrant. The
typical knight errant of our salons, our boudoirs, our boulevards, an
amphibian half-way between a man and a woman--Maxime de Trailles is a
singular being, fit for anything, and good for nothing, quite as
capable of perpetrating a benefit as of planning a crime; sometimes
base, sometimes noble, more often bespattered with mire than
besprinkled with blood, knowing more of anxiety than of remorse, more
concerned with his digestion than with any mental process, shamming
passion, feeling nothing. Maxime de Trailles is a brilliant link
between the hulks and the best society; he belongs to the eminently
intelligent class from which a Mirabeau, or a Pitt, or a Richelieu
springs at times, though it is more wont to produce Counts of Horn,
Fouquier-Tinvilles, and Coignards."

"Well," pursued Derville, when he had heard the Vicomtesse's brother
to the end, "I had heard a good deal about this individual from poor
old Goriot, a client of mine; and I had already been at some pains to
avoid the dangerous honor of his acquaintance, for I came across him
sometimes in society. Still, my chum was so pressing about this
breakfast-party of his that I could not well get out of it, unless I
wished to earn a name for squeamishness. Madame, you could hardly
imagine what a bachelor's breakfast-party is like. It means superb
display and a studied refinement seldom seen; the luxury of a miser
when vanity leads him to be sumptuous for a day.

"You are surprised as you enter the room at the neatness of the table,
dazzling by reason of its silver and crystal and linen damask. Life is
here in full bloom; the young fellows are graceful to behold; they