struggling with the tempests on the surface, till I sink and go to ask
you for a corner in your grotto, old fellow!"

"Till Saturday," replied Bianchon.
"Agreed," said Rastignac. "And you promise me Popinot?"

"I will do all my conscience will allow. Perhaps this appeal for a
commission covers some little dramorama, to use a word of our good bad

times."
"Poor Bianchon! he will never be anything but a good fellow," said

Rastignac to himself as the cab drove off.
"Rastignac has given me the most difficult negotiation in the world,"

said Bianchon to himself, remembering, as he rose next morning, the
delicate commission intrusted to him. "However, I have never asked the

smallest service from my uncle in Court, and have paid more than a
thousand visits gratis for him. And, after all, we are not apt to

mince matters between ourselves. He will say Yes or No, and there an
end."

After this little soliloquy the famous physician bent his steps, at
seven in the morning, towards the Rue du Fouarre, where dwelt Monsieur

Jean-Jules Popinot, judge of the Lower Court of the Department of the
Seine. The Rue du Fouarre--an old word meaning straw--was in the

thirteenth century the most important street in Paris. There stood the
Schools of the University, where the voices of Abelard and of Gerson

were heard in the world of learning. It is now one of the dirtiest
streets of the Twelfth Arrondissement, the poorest quarter of Paris,

that in which two-thirds of the population lack firing in winter,
which leaves most brats at the gate of the Foundling Hospital, which

sends most beggars to the poorhouse, most rag-pickers to the street
corners, most decrepit old folks to bask against the walls on which

the sun shines, most delinquents to the police courts.
Half-way down this street, which is always damp, and where the gutter

carries to the Seine the blackened waters from some dye-works, there
is an old house, restored no doubt under Francis I., and built of

bricks held together by a few courses of masonry. That it is
substantial seems proved by the shape of its front wall, not

uncommonly seen in some parts of Paris. It bellies, so to speak, in a
manner caused by the protuberance of its first floor, crushed under

the weight of the second and third, but upheld by the strong wall of
the ground floor. At first sight it would seem as though the piers

between the windows, though strengthened by the stone mullions, must
give way, but the observerpresently perceives that, as in the tower

at Bologna, the old bricks and old time-eaten stones of this house
persistently preserve their centre of gravity.

At every season of the year the solid piers of the ground floor have
the yellow tone and the imperceptible sweating surface that moisture

gives to stone. The passer-by feels chilled as he walks close to this
wall, where worn corner-stones ineffectually shelter him from the

wheels of vehicles. As is always the case in houses built before
carriages were in use, the vault of the doorway forms a very low

archway not unlike the barbican of a prison. To the right of this
entrance there are three windows, protected outside by iron gratings

of so close a pattern, that the curious cannot possibly see the use
made of the dark, damp rooms within, and the panes too are dirty and

dusty; to the left are two similar windows, one of which is sometimes
open, exposing to view the porter, his wife, and his children;

swarming, working, cooking, eating, and screaming, in a floored and
wainscoted room where everything is dropping to pieces, and into which

you descend two steps--a depth which seems to suggest the gradual
elevation of the soil of Paris.

If on a rainy day some foot-passenger takes refuge under the long
vault, with projecting lime-washed beams, which leads from the door to

the staircase, he will hardly fail to pause and look at the picture
presented by the interior of this house. To the left is a square

garden-plot, allowing of not more than four long steps in each
direction, a garden of black soil, with trellises bereft of vines, and

where, in default of vegetation under the shade of two trees, papers
collect, old rags, potsherds, bits of mortar fallen from the roof; a

barren ground, where time has shed on the walls, and on the trunks and
branches of the trees, a powdery deposit like cold soot. The two parts

of the house, set at a right angle, derive light from this garden-
court shut in by two adjoining houses built on wooden piers, decrepit

and ready to fall, where on each floor some grotesque evidence is to
be seen of the craft pursued by some lodger within. Here long poles

are hung with immense skeins of dyed worsted put out to dry; there, on
ropes, dance clean-washed shirts; higher up, on a shelf, volumes

display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, husbands whistle,
children shout; the carpenter saws his planks, a copper-turner makes

the metal screech; all kinds of industries combine to produce a noise
which the number of instruments renders distracting.

The general system of decoration in this passage, which is neither
courtyard, garden, nor vaulted way, though a little of all, consists

of wooden pillars resting on square stone blocks, and forming arches.
Two archways open on to the little garden; two others, facing the

front gateway, lead to a woodenstaircase, with an iron balustrade
that was once a miracle of smith's work, so whimsical are the shapes

given to the metal; the worn steps creak under every tread. The
entrance to each flat has an architrave dark with dirt, grease, and

dust, and outer doors, covered with Utrecht velvet set with brass
nails, once gilt, in a diamond pattern. These relics of splendor show

that in the time of Louis XIV. the house was the residence of some
councillor to the Parlement, some rich priests, or some treasurer of

the ecclesiasticalrevenue. But these vestiges of former luxury bring
a smile to the lips by the artless contrast of past and present.

M. Jean-Jules Popinot lived on the first floor of this house, where
the gloom, natural to all first floors in Paris houses, was increased

by the narrowness of the street. This old tenement was known to all
the twelfth arrondissement, on which Providence had bestowed this

lawyer, as it gives a beneficent plant to cure or alleviate every
malady. Here is a sketch of a man whom the brilliant Marquise d'Espard

hoped to fascinate.
M. Popinot, as is seemly for a magistrate, was always dressed in black

--a style which contributed to make him ridiculous in the eyes of
those who were in the habit of judging everything from a superficial

examination. Men who are jealous of maintaining the dignity required
by this color ought to devote themselves to constant and minute care

of their person; but our dear M. Popinot was incapable of forcing
himself to the puritanical cleanliness which black demands. His

trousers, always threadbare, looked like camlet--the stuff of which
attorneys' gowns are made; and his habitual stoop set them, in time,

in such innumerable creases, that in places they were traced with
lines, whitish, rusty, or shiny, betraying either sordidavarice, or

the most unheeding poverty. His coarse worsted stockings were twisted
anyhow in his ill-shaped shoes. His linen had the tawny tinge acquired

by long sojourn in a wardrobe, showing that the late lamented Madame
Popinot had had a mania for much linen; in the Flemish fashion,

perhaps, she had given herself the trouble of a great wash no more
than twice a year. The old man's coat and waistcoat were in harmony

with his trousers, shoes, stockings, and linen. He always had the luck
of his carelessness; for, the first day he put on a new coat, he

unfailingly matched it with the rest of his costume by staining it
with incredible promptitude. The good man waited till his housekeeper

told him that his hat was too shabby before buying a new one. His
necktie was always crumpled and starchless, and he never set his dog-

eared shirt collar straight after his judge's bands had disordered it.
He took no care of his gray hair, and shaved but twice a week. He

never wore gloves, and generally kept his hands stuffed into his empty
trousers' pockets; the soiled pocket-holes, almost always torn, added

a final touch to the slovenliness of his person.
Any one who knows the Palais de Justice at Paris, where every variety

of black attire may be studied, can easily imagine the appearance of
M. Popinot. The habit of sitting for days at a time modifies the

structure of the body, just as the fatigue of hearing interminable
pleadings tells on the expression of a magistrate's face. Shut up as

he is in courts ridiculously small, devoid of architecturaldignity,
and where the air is quickly vitiated, a Paris judge inevitably

acquires a countenance puckered and seamed by reflection, and
depressed by weariness; his complexion turns pallid, acquiring an

earthy or greenish hue according to his individual temperament" target="_blank" title="n.气质；性格">temperament. In
short, within a given time the most blooming young man is turned into

an "inasmuch" machine--an instrument which applies the Code to
individual cases with the indifference of clockwork.

Hence, nature, having bestowed on M. Popinot a not too pleasing
exterior, his life as a lawyer had not improved it. His frame was