nt." And yet--Birotteau having an excellent
heart, contracted ideas, and a limited mind--he did not go so far as
to think of means by which to make his friend bequeath to him the
library and the furniture.

The Abbe Chapeloud, an amiable, indulgent egoist, fathomed his
friend's desires--not a difficult thing to do--and forgave them; which
may seem less easy to a priest; but it must be remembered that the
vicar, whose friendship was faithful, did not fail to take a daily
walk with his friend along their usual path in the Mail de Tours,
never once depriving him of an instant of the time devoted for over
twenty years to that exercise. Birotteau, who regarded his secret
wishes as crimes, would have been capable, out of contrition, of the
utmost devotion to his friend. The latter paid his debt of gratitude
for a friendship so ingenuously sincere by saying, a few days before
his death, as the vicar sat by him reading the "Quotidienne" aloud:
"This time you will certainly get the apartment. I feel it is all over
with me now."

Accordingly, it was found that the Abbe Chapeloud had left his library
and all his furniture to his friend Birotteau. The possession of these
things, so keenly desired, and the prospect of being taken to board by
Mademoiselle Gamard, certainly did allay the grief which Birotteau
felt at the death of his friend the canon. He might not have been
willing to resuscitate him; but he mourned him. For several days he
was like Gargantus, who, when his wife died in giving birth to
Pantagruel, did not know whether to rejoice at the birth of a son or
grieve at having buried his good Babette, and therefore cheated
himself by rejoicing at the death of his wife, and deploring the
advent of Pantagruel.

The Abbe Birotteau spent the first days of his mourning in verifying
the books in _his_ library, in making use of _his_ furniture, in
examining the whole of his inheritance, saying in a tone which,
unfortunately, was not noted at the time, "Poor Chapeloud!" His joy
and his grief so completely absorbed him that he felt no pain when he
found that the office of canon, in which the late Chapeloud had hoped
his friend Birotteau might succeed him, was given to another.
Mademoiselle Gamard having cheerfully agreed to take the vicar to
board, the latter was thenceforth a participator in all those
felicities of material comfort of which the deceased canon had been
wont to boast.

Incalculable they were! According to the Ab