cleanliness of the banisters, walls, and carpets, and counted the

footmen in livery who, as the bell rang, appeared on the landing. His
eyes, which only yesterday in his parlor had sounded the dignity of

misery under the muddy clothing of the poor, now studied with the same
penetrating vision the furniture and splendor of the rooms he passed

through, to pierce the misery of grandeur.
"M. Popinot--M. Bianchon."

The two names were pronounced at the door of the boudoir where the
Marquise was sitting, a pretty room recently refurnished, and looking

out on the garden behind the house. At the moment Madame d'Espard was
seated in one of the old rococo armchairs of which Madame had set the

fashion. Rastignac was at her left hand on a low chair, in which he
looked settled like an Italian lady's "cousin." A third person was

standing by the corner of the chimney-piece. As the shrewd doctor had
suspected, the Marquise was a woman of a parched and wiry

constitution. But for her regimen her complexion must have taken the
ruddy tone that is produced by constant heat; but she added to the

effect of her acquired pallor by the strong colors of the stuffs she
hung her rooms with, or in which she dressed. Reddish-brown, marone,

bistre with a golden light in it, suited her to perfection. Her
boudoir, copied from that of a famous lady then at the height of

fashion in London, was in tan-colored velvet; but she had added
various details of ornament which moderated the pompous splendor of

this royal hue. Her hair was dressed like a girl's in bands ending in
curls, which emphasized the rather long oval of her face; but an oval

face is as majestic as a round one is ignoble. The mirrors, cut with
facets to lengthen or flatten the face at will, amply proved the rule

as applied to the physiognomy.
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 greasylining, 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 strikinggenius, 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 unhappyclient, 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 unhappyclient.

"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 strictaccordance 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?"