The servants brought in tea.
"Have you any further explanations to give me, madame?" said Popinot, seeing these preparations.
"Monsieur," she replied haughtily, "do your business your own way;question M.d'Espard, and you will pity me, I am sure." She raised her head, looking Popinot in the face with pride, mingled with impertinence; the worthy man bowed himself out respectfully.
"A nice man is your uncle," said Rastignac to Bianchon."Is he really so dense? Does not he know what the Marquise d'Espard is, what her influence means, her unavowed power over people? The Keeper of the Seals will be with her to-morrow----""My dear fellow, how can I help it?" said Bianchon."Did not I warn you? He is not a man you can get over.""No," said Rastignac; "he is a man you must run over."The doctor was obliged to make his bow to the Marquise and her mute Chevalier to catch up Popinot, who, not being the man to endure an embarrassing position, was pacing through the rooms.
"That woman owes a hundred thousand crowns," said the judge, as he stepped into his nephew's cab.
"And what do you think of the case?"
"I," said the judge."I never have an opinion till I have gone into everything.To-morrow early I will send to Madame Jeanrenaud to call on me in my private office at four o'clock, to make her explain the facts which concern her, for she is compromised.""I should very much like to know what the end will be.""Why, bless me, do not you see that the Marquise is the tool of that tall lean man who never uttered a word? There is a strain of Cain in him, but of the Cain who goes to the Law Courts for his bludgeon, and there, unluckily for him, we keep more than one Damocles' sword.""Oh, Rastignac! what brought you into that boat, I wonder?" exclaimed Bianchon.
"Ah, we are used to seeing these little family conspiracies," said Popinot."Not a year passes without a number of verdicts of 'insufficient evidence' against applications of this kind.In our state of society such an attempt brings no dishonor, while we send a poor devil to the galleys who breaks a pane of glass dividing him from a bowl full of gold.Our Code is not faultless.""But these are the facts?"
"My boy, do you not know all the judicial romances with which clients impose on their attorneys? If the attorneys condemned themselves to state nothing but the truth, they would not earn enough to keep their office open."Next day, at four in the afternoon, a very stout dame, looking a good deal like a cask dressed up in a gown and belt, mounted Judge Popinot's stairs, perspiring and panting.She had, with great difficulty, got out of a green landau, which suited her to a miracle;you could not think of the woman without the landau, or the landau without the woman.
"It is I, my dear sir," said she, appearing in the doorway of the judge's room."Madame Jeanrenaud, whom you summoned exactly as if Iwere a thief, neither more nor less."
The common words were spoken in a common voice, broken by the wheezing of asthma, and ending in a cough.
"When I go through a damp place, I can't tell you what I suffer, sir.
I shall never make old bones, saving your presence.However, here Iam."
The lawyer was quite amazed at the appearance of this supposed Marechale d'Ancre.Madame Jeanrenaud's face was pitted with an infinite number of little holes, was very red, with a pug nose and a low forehead, and was as round as a ball; for everything about the good woman was round.She had the bright eyes of a country woman, an honest gaze, a cheerful tone, and chestnut hair held in place by a bonnet cap under a green bonnet decked with a shabby bunch of auriculas.Her stupendous bust was a thing to laugh at, for it made one fear some grotesque explosion every time she coughed.Her enormous legs were of the shape which make the Paris street boy describe such a woman as being built on piles.The widow wore a green gown trimmed with chinchilla, which looked on her as a splash of dirty oil would look on a bride's veil.In short, everything about her harmonized with her last words: "Here I am.""Madame," said Popinot, "you are suspected of having used some seductive arts to induce M.d'Espard to hand over to you very considerable sums of money.""Of what! of what!" cried she."Of seductive arts? But, my dear sir, you are a man to be respected, and, moreover, as a lawyer you ought to have some good sense.Look at me! Tell me if I am likely to seduce any one.I cannot tie my own shoes, nor even stoop.For these twenty years past, the Lord be praised, I have not dared to put on a pair of stays under pain of sudden death.I was as thin as an asparagus stalk when Iwas seventeen, and pretty too--I may say so now.So I married Jeanrenaud, a good fellow, and headman on the salt-barges.I had my boy, who is a fine young man; he is my pride, and it is not holding myself cheap to say he is my best piece of work.My little Jeanrenaud was a soldier who did Napoleon credit, and who served in the Imperial Guard.But, alas! at the death of my old man, who was drowned, times changed for the worse.I had the smallpox.I was kept two years in my room without stirring, and I came out of it the size you see me, hideous for ever, and as wretched as could be.These are my seductive arts.""But what, then, can the reasons be that have induced M.d'Espard to give you sums----""Hugious sums, monsieur, say the word; I do not mind.But as to his reasons, I am not at liberty to explain them.""You are wrong.At this moment, his family, very naturally alarmed, are about to bring an action----""Heavens above us!" said the good woman, starting up."Is it possible that he should be worried on my account? That king of men, a man that has not his match! Rather than he should have the smallest trouble, or hair less on his head I could almost say, we would return every sou, monsieur.Write that down on your papers.Heaven above us! I will go at once and tell Jeanrenaud what is going on! A pretty thing indeed!"And the little old woman went out, rolled herself downstairs, and disappeared.
