Colonel Chabert | Page 5

passage; to the chief, a laboratory. The greasy furniture is handed down
to successive owners with such scrupulous care, that in some offices
may still be seen boxes of /remainders/, machines for twisting
parchment gut, and bags left by the prosecuting parties of the Chatelet
(abbreviated to /Chlet/)--a Court which, under the old order of things,
represented the present Court of First Instance (or County Court).
So in this dark office, thick with dust, there was, as in all its fellows,
something repulsive to the clients--something which made it one of the
most hideous monstrosities of Paris. Nay, were it not for the mouldy
sacristies where prayers are weighed out and paid for like groceries,
and for the old-clothes shops, where flutter the rags that blight all the
illusions of life by showing us the last end of all our festivities--an
attorney's office would be, of all social marts, the most loathsome. But
we might say the same of the gambling-hell, of the Law Court, of the
lottery office, of the brothel.
But why? In these places, perhaps, the drama being played in a man's

soul makes him indifferent to accessories, which would also account
for the single-mindedness of great thinkers and men of great ambitions.
"Where is my penknife?"
"I am eating my breakfast."
"You go and be hanged! here is a blot on the copy."
"Silence, gentlemen!"
These various exclamations were uttered simultaneously at the moment
when the old client shut the door with the sort of humility which
disfigures the movements of a man down on his luck. The stranger tried
to smile, but the muscles of his face relaxed as he vainly looked for
some symptoms of amenity on the inexorably indifferent faces of the
six clerks. Accustomed, no doubt, to gauge men, he very politely
addressed the gutter-jumper, hoping to get a civil answer from this boy
of all work.
"Monsieur, is your master at home?"
The pert messenger made no reply, but patted his ear with the fingers of
his left hand, as much as to say, "I am deaf."
"What do you want, sir?" asked Godeschal, swallowing as he spoke a
mouthful of bread big enough to charge a four-pounder, flourishing his
knife and crossing his legs, throwing up one foot in the air to the level
of his eyes.
"This is the fifth time I have called," replied the victim. "I wish to
speak to M. Derville."
"On business?"
"Yes, but I can explain it to no one but--"
"M. Derville is in bed; if you wish to consult him on some difficulty, he
does no serious work till midnight. But if you will lay the case before
us, we could help you just as well as he can to----"
The stranger was unmoved; he looked timidly about him, like a dog
who has got into a strange kitchen and expects a kick. By grace of their
profession, lawyers' clerks have no fear of thieves; they did not suspect
the owner of the box-coat, and left him to study the place, where he
looked in vain for a chair to sit on, for he was evidently tired. Attorneys,
on principle, do not have many chairs in their offices. The inferior
client, being kept waiting on his feet, goes away grumbling, but then he
does not waste time, which, as an old lawyer once said, is not allowed
for when the bill is taxed.

"Monsieur," said the old man, "as I have already told you, I cannot
explain my business to any one but M. Derville. I will wait till he is
up."
Boucard had finished his bill. He smelt the fragrance of his chocolate,
rose from his cane armchair, went to the chimney-piece, looked the old
man from head to foot, stared at his coat, and made an indescribable
grimace. He probably reflected that whichever way his client might be
wrung, it would be impossible to squeeze out a centime, so he put in a
few brief words to rid the office of a bad customer.
"It is the truth, monsieur. The chief only works at night. If your
business is important, I recommend you to return at one in the
morning." The stranger looked at the head clerk with a bewildered
expression, and remained motionless for a moment. The clerks,
accustomed to every change of countenance, and the odd
whimsicalities to which indecision or absence of mind gives rise in
"parties," went on eating, making as much noise with their jaws as
horses over a manger, and paying no further heed to the old man.
"I will come again to-night," said the stranger at length, with the
tenacious desire, peculiar to the unfortunate, to catch humanity at fault.
The only irony allowed to poverty is to drive Justice and Benevolence
to unjust denials.