devoid of method and often
forgot to order his dinner. Therefore, if he saw Mademoiselle Gamard
at Saint-Gatien while saying mass or taking round the plate, he never
failed to give her a kindly and benevolent look,--such a look as Saint
Teresa might have cast to heaven.

Though the comforts which all creatures desire, and for which he had so
often longed, thus fell to his share, the Abbe Birotteau, like the rest
of the world, found it difficult, even for a priest, to live without
something to hanker for. Consequently, for the last eighteen months
he had replaced his two satisfied passions by an ardent longing for a
canonry. The title of Canon had become to him very much what a peerage
is to a plebeian minister. The prospect of an appointment, hopes
of which had just been held out to him at Madame de Listomere's, so
completely turned his head that he did not observe until he reached his
own door that he had left his umbrella behind him. Perhaps, even then,
if the rain were not falling in torrents he might not have missed it, so
absorbed was he in the pleasure of going over and over in his mind what
had been said to him on the subject of his promotion by the company at
Madame de Listomere's,--an old lady with whom he spent every Wednesday
evening.

The vicar rang loudly, as if to let the servant know she was not to
keep him waiting. Then he stood close to the door to avoid, if he could,
getting showered; but the drip from the roof fell precisely on the toes
of his shoes, and the wind blew gusts of rain into his face that were
much like a shower-bath. Having calculated the time necessary for the
woman to leave the kitchen and pull the string of the outer door, he
rang again, this time in a manner that resulted in a very significant
peal of the bell.

"They can't be out," he said to himself, not hearing any movement on the
premises.

Again he rang, producing a sound that echoed sharply through the house
and was taken up and repeated by all the echoes of the cathedral,
so that no one could avoid waking up at the remonstrating racket.
Accordingly, in a few moments, he heard, not without some pleasure in
his wrath, the wooden shoes of the servant-woman clacking along the
paved path which led to the outer door. But even then the discomforts of
the gouty old gentleman were not so quickly over as he hoped. Instead
of pulling the string, Marianne was obliged to turn the lock of the door
with its heavy key, and pull back all