Colonel Chabert | Page 4

repair the misfortunes caused by
the terrible and sad disasters of the revolutionary times, by restoring to
his numerous and faithful adherents/--('numerous' is flattering, and
ought to please the Bench)--/all their unsold estates, whether within our
realm, or in conquered or acquired territory, or in the endowments of
public institutions, for we are, and proclaim ourselves competent to
declare, that this is the spirit and meaning of the famous, truly loyal
order given in/--Stop," said Godeschal to the three copying clerks, "that
rascally sentence brings me to the end of my page.--Well," he went on,
wetting the back fold of the sheet with his tongue, so as to be able to
fold back the page of thick stamped paper, "well, if you want to play
him a trick, tell him that the master can only see his clients between
two and three in the morning; we shall see if he comes, the old ruffian!"
And Godeschal took up the sentence he was dictating--"/given in/--Are
you ready?"

"Yes," cried the three writers.
It all went all together, the appeal, the gossip, and the conspiracy.
"/Given in/--Here, Daddy Boucard, what is the date of the order? We
must dot our /i/'s and cross our /t/'s, by Jingo! it helps to fill the pages."
"By Jingo!" repeated one of the copying clerks before Boucard, the
head clerk, could reply.
"What! have you written /by Jingo/?" cried Godeschal, looking at one
of the novices, with an expression at once stern and humorous.
"Why, yes," said Desroches, the fourth clerk, leaning across his
neighbor's copy, "he has written, '/We must dot our i's/' and spelt it /by
Gingo/!"
All the clerks shouted with laughter.
"Why! Monsieur Hure, you take 'By Jingo' for a law term, and you say
you come from Mortagne!" exclaimed Simonnin.
"Scratch it cleanly out," said the head clerk. "If the judge, whose
business it is to tax the bill, were to see such things, he would say you
were laughing at the whole boiling. You would hear of it from the chief!
Come, no more of this nonsense, Monsieur Hure! A Norman ought not
to write out an appeal without thought. It is the 'Shoulder arms!' of the
law."
"/Given in--in/?" asked Godeschal.--"Tell me when, Boucard."
"June 1814," replied the head clerk, without looking up from his work.
A knock at the office door interrupted the circumlocutions of the prolix
document. Five clerks with rows of hungry teeth, bright, mocking eyes,
and curly heads, lifted their noses towards the door, after crying all
together in a singing tone, "Come in!"
Boucard kept his face buried in a pile of papers--/broutilles/ (odds and
ends) in French law jargon--and went on drawing out the bill of costs
on which he was busy.
The office was a large room furnished with the traditional stool which
is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. The stove-pipe crossed
the room diagonally to the chimney of a bricked-up fireplace; on the
marble chimney-piece were several chunks of bread, triangles of Brie
cheese, pork cutlets, glasses, bottles, and the head clerk's cup of
chocolate. The smell of these dainties blended so completely with that
of the immoderately overheated stove and the odor peculiar to offices
and old papers, that the trail of a fox would not have been perceptible.

The floor was covered with mud and snow, brought in by the clerks.
Near the window stood the desk with a revolving lid, where the head
clerk worked, and against the back of it was the second clerk's table.
The second clerk was at this moment in Court. It was between eight
and nine in the morning.
The only decoration of the office consisted in huge yellow posters,
announcing seizures of real estate, sales, settlements under trust, final
or interim judgments,--all the glory of a lawyer's office. Behind the
head clerk was an enormous room, of which each division was
crammed with bundles of papers with an infinite number of tickets
hanging from them at the ends of red tape, which give a peculiar
physiognomy to law papers. The lower rows were filled with cardboard
boxes, yellow with use, on which might be read the names of the more
important clients whose cases were juicily stewing at this present time.
The dirty window-panes admitted but little daylight. Indeed, there are
very few offices in Paris where it is possible to write without lamplight
before ten in the morning in the month of February, for they are all left
to very natural neglect; every one comes and no one stays; no one has
any personal interest in a scene of mere routine --neither the attorney,
nor the counsel, nor the clerks, trouble themselves about the appearance
of a place which, to the youths, is a schoolroom; to the clients, a