Part 8

Well, I should have to transfer to my style that striking genius, that marvelous knack of the pencil, to depict the upright, tall, lean man dressed in black, with black hair, who stood there without speaking a word. This gentleman had a face like a knife-blade, cold and harsh, with a color like Seine water when it was muddy and strewn with fragments of charcoal from a sunken barge. He looked at the floor, listening and passing judgment. His attitude was terrifying. He stood there like the dreadful broom to which Decamps has given the power of revealing a crime. Now and then, in the course of conversation, the Marquise tried to get some tacit advice; but however eager her questioning, he was as grave and as rigid as the statue of the Commendatore.

The worthy Popinot, sitting on the edge of his chair in front of the fire, his hat between his knees, stared at the gilt chandeliers, the clock, and the curiosities with which the chimney-shelf was covered, the velvet and trimmings of the curtains, and all the costly and elegant nothings that a woman of fashion collects about her. He was roused from his homely meditations by Madame d’Espard, who addressed him in a piping tone:

“Monsieur, I owe you a million thanks----”

“A million thanks,” thought he to himself, “that is too many; it does not mean one.”

“For the trouble you condescend----”

“Condescend!” thought he; “she is laughing at me.”

“To take in coming to see an unhappy client, who is too ill to go out----”

Here the lawyer cut the Marquise short by giving her an inquisitorial look, examining the sanitary condition of the unhappy client.

“As sound as a bell,” said he to himself.

“Madame,” said he, assuming a respectful mien, “you owe me nothing. Although my visit to you is not in strict accordance with the practice of the Court, we ought to spare no pains to discover the truth in cases of this kind. Our judgment is then guided less by the letter of the law than by the promptings of our conscience. Whether I seek the truth here or in my own consulting-room, so long as I find it, all will be well.”

While Popinot was speaking, Rastignac was shaking hands with Bianchon; the Marquise welcomed the doctor with a little bow full of gracious significance.

“Who is that?” asked Bianchon in a whisper of Rastignac, indicating the dark man.

“The Chevalier d’Espard, the Marquis’ brother.”

“Your nephew told me,” said the Marquise to Popinot, “how much you are occupied, and I know too that you are so good as to wish to conceal your kind actions, so as to release those whom you oblige from the burden of gratitude. The work in Court is most fatiguing, it would seem. Why have they not twice as many judges?”

“Ah, madame, that would not be difficult; we should be none the worse if they had. But when that happens, fowls will cut their teeth!”

As he heard this speech, so entirely in character with the lawyer’s appearance, the Chevalier measured him from head to foot, out of one eye, as much as to say, “We shall easily manage him.”

The Marquise looked at Rastignac, who bent over her. “That is the sort of man,” murmured the dandy in her ear, “who is trusted to pass judgments on the life and interests of private individuals.”

Like most men who have grown old in a business, Popinot readily let himself follow the habits he had acquired, more particularly habits of mind. His conversation was all of “the shop.” He was fond of questioning those he talked to, forcing them to unexpected conclusions, making them tell more than they wished to reveal. Pozzo di Borgo, it is said, used to amuse himself by discovering other folks’ secrets, and entangling them in his diplomatic snares, and thus, by invincible habit, showed how his mind was soaked in wiliness. As soon as Popinot had surveyed the ground, so to speak, on which he stood, he saw that it would be necessary to have recourse to the cleverest subtleties, the most elaborately wrapped up and disguised, which were in use in the Courts, to detect the truth.

Bianchon sat cold and stern, as a man who has made up his mind to endure torture without revealing his sufferings; but in his heart he wished that his uncle could only trample on this woman as we trample on a viper--a comparison suggested to him by the Marquise’s long dress, by the curve of her attitude, her long neck, small head, and undulating movements.

“Well, monsieur,” said Madame d’Espard, “however great my dislike to be or seem selfish, I have been suffering too long not to wish that you may settle matters at once. Shall I soon get a favorable decision?”

“Madame, I will do my best to bring matters to a conclusion,” said Popinot, with an air of frank good-nature. “Are you ignorant of the reason which made the separation necessary which now subsists between you and the Marquis d’Espard?”

“Yes, monsieur,” she replied, evidently prepared with a story to tell. “At the beginning of 1816 M. d’Espard, whose temper had completely changed within three months or so, proposed that we should go to live on one of his estates near Briancon, without any regard for my health, which that climate would have destroyed, or for my habits of life; I refused to go. My refusal gave rise to such unjustifiable reproaches on his part, that from that hour I had my suspicions as to the soundness of his mind. On the following day he left me, leaving me his house and the free use of my own income, and he went to live in the Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, taking with him my two children----”

“One moment, madame,” said the lawyer, interrupting her. “What was that income?”

“Twenty-six thousand francs a year,” she replied parenthetically. “I at once consulted old M. Bordin as to what I ought to do,” she went on; “but it seems that there are so many difficulties in the way of depriving a father of the care of his children, that I was forced to resign myself to remaining alone at the age of twenty-two--an age at which many young women do very foolish things. You have read my petition, no doubt, monsieur; you know the principal facts on which I rely to procure a Commission in Lunacy with regard to M. d’Espard?”

“Have you ever applied to him, madame, to obtain the care of your children?”

“Yes, monsieur; but in vain. It is very hard on a mother to be deprived of the affection of her children, particularly when they can give her such happiness as every woman clings to.”

“The elder must be sixteen,” said Popinot.

“Fifteen,” said the Marquise eagerly.