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 Briançon, 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-Geneviève, 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.
Here Bianchon and Rastignac looked at each other. Madame d’Espard bit her lips.
“What can the age of my children matter to you?”
“Well, madame,” said the lawyer, without seeming to attach any importance to his words, “a lad of fifteen and his brother, of thirteen, I suppose, have legs and their wits about them; they might come to see you on the sly. If they do not, it is because they obey their father, and to obey him in that matter they must love him very dearly.”
“I do not understand,” said the Marquise.
“You do not know, perhaps,” replied Popinot, “that in your petition your attorney represents your children as being very unhappy with their father?”
Madame d’Espard replied with charming innocence:
“I do not know what my attorney may have put into my mouth.”
“Forgive my inferences,” said Popinot, “but Justice weighs everything. What I ask you, madame, is suggested by my wish thoroughly to understand the matter. By your account M. d’Espard deserted you on the most frivolous pretext. Instead of going to Briançon, where he wished to take you, he remained in Paris. This point is not clear. Did he know this Madame Jeanrenaud before his marriage?”
“No, monsieur,” replied
