On seeing Popinot, who stood in the doorway craning his neck like a startled animal, with his left hand in his pocket, and the right hand holding a hat with a greasy lining, the Marquise gave Rastignac a look wherein lay a germ of mockery.The good man's rather foolish appearance was so completely in harmony with his grotesque figure and scared looks, that Rastignac, catching sight of Bianchon's dejected expression of humiliation through his uncle, could not help laughing, and turned away.The Marquise bowed a greeting, and made a great effort to rise from her seat, falling back again, not without grace, with an air of apologizing for her incivility by affected weakness.
At this instant the person who was standing between the fireplace and the door bowed slightly, and pushed forward two chairs, which he offered by a gesture to the doctor and the judge; then, when they had seated themselves, he leaned against the wall again, crossing his arms.
A word as to this man.There is living now, in our day, a painter--Decamps--who possesses in the very highest degree the art of commanding your interest in everything he sets before your eyes, whether it be a stone or a man.In this respect his pencil is more skilful than his brush.He will sketch an empty room and leave a broom against the wall.If he chooses, you shall shudder; you shall believe that this broom has just been the instrument of crime, and is dripping with blood; it shall be the broom which the widow Bancal used to clean out the room where Fualdes was murdered.Yes, the painter will touzle that broom like a man in a rage; he will make each hair of it stand on-end as though it were on your own bristling scalp; he will make it the interpreter between the secret poem of his imagination and the poem that shall have its birth in yours.After terrifying you by the aspect of that broom, to-morrow he will draw another, and lying by it a cat, asleep, but mysterious in its sleep, shall tell you that this broom is that on which the wife of a German cobbler rides off to the Sabbath on the Brocken.Or it will be a quite harmless broom, on which he will hang the coat of a clerk in the Treasury.Decamps had in his brush what Paganini had in his bow--a magnetically communicative power.
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.
