"But I," said Maxime, running after him,--"suppose I want to consult you in the matter?""I leave to-night for my district, to get things into order before the opening of the new session.""But about bringing up the question which you say may devolve on you?""I or another.I will hasten back as soon as I can; but you understand, I must put my department in order for a six months'
absence."
"A good journey to you, then, Monsieur le procureur-general," replied Maxime, sarcastically.
Left to himself, Monsieur de Trailles had a period of discouragement, resulting from the discovery that these two political Bertrands meant that his paw should pull the chestnuts from the fire.Rastignac's behavior particularly galled him.His mind went back to their first interview at Madame Restaud's, twenty years earlier, when he himself held the sceptre of fashion, and Rastignac, a poor student, neither knew how to come into a room nor how to leave it.[See "Pere Goriot.]
And now Rastignac was peer of France and minister, while he, Maxime, become his agent, was obliged with folded arms to hear himself told that his plot was weak and he must carry it out alone, if at all.
But this discouragement did not last.
"Yes!" he cried to himself, "I will carry it out; my instinct tells me there is something in it.What nonsense!--a Dorlange, a nobody, to attempt to checkmate Maxime de Trailles and make a stepping-stone of my defeat! To my solicitor's," he said to the coachman, opening the door of the carriage himself.
Desroches was at home; and Monsieur de Trailles was immediately admitted into his study.
Desroches was a lawyer who had had, like Raffaelle, several manners.
First, possessor of a practice without clients, he had made fish of every case that came into his net; and he felt himself, in consequence, little respected by the court.But he was a hard worker, well versed in all the ins and outs of chicanery, a keen observer, and an intelligent reader of the movements of the human heart.
Consequently he had made for himself, in course of time, a very good practice; he had married a rich woman, and the moment that he thought himself able to do without crooked ways he had seriously renounced them.In 1839 Desroches had become an honest and skilful solicitor:
that is to say, he assumed the interests of his clients with warmth and ability; he never counselled an openly dishonorable proceeding, still less would he have lent a hand to it.As to that fine flower of delicacy to be met with in Derville and some others like him, besides the sad fact that it is difficult to keep its fragrance from evaporating in this business world of which Monsieur de Talleyrand says, "Business means getting the property of others," it is certain that it can never be added to any second state of existence.The loss of that bloom of the soul, like that of other virginities, is irreparable.Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself.He no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very ready to undertake.
Desroches was moreover a man of parts and witty; loving the pleasures of the table, and like all men perpetually the slaves of imperious toil, he felt the need of vigorous amusement, taken on the wing and highly spiced.While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses, courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them.Their witty argot, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures, their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their greatness and their weakness,--he understood it all marvellously well; and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever they asked for it.But in order to conceal from his dignified and more valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the clientele he really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was husband and father, especially on Sundays.He appeared in the Bois de Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed the size of her dot), with three children on the front seat, who were luckless enough to resemble their mother.
This family picture, these virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches, dining in cafes with all the male and female viveurs of renown, that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim, remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.
It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel, as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in life.Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting, to the long explanation of the case submitted to him.As Maxime hid nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber,--his hatred making him take the possibility for positive evidence.
In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his opinion that this pretended "case" was a mere intrigue.The number of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.
