The next morning, on awaking, Birotteau thought so much of his prospective canonry that heforgot the four circumstances in which he had seen, the night before, such threatening prognosticsof a future full of misery. The vicar was not a man to get up without a fire. He rang to let Marianneknow that he was awake and that she must come to him; then he remained, as his habit was, absorbed in somnolent musings. The servant's custom was to make the fire and gently draw himfrom his half sleep by the murmured sound of her movements, -a sort of music which he loved.Twenty minutes passed and Marianne had not appeared. The vicar, now half a canon, was about toring again, when he let go the bell-pull, hearing a man's step on the staircase. In a minute more theAbbe Troubert, after discreetly knocking at the door, obeyed Birotteau's invitation and entered theroom. This visit, which the two abbe's usually paid each other once a month, was no surprise to thevicar. The canon at once exclaimed when he saw that Marianne had not made the fire of his quasicolleague. He opened the window and called to her harshly, telling her to come at once to the abbe;then, turning round to his ecclesiastical brother, he said, "If Mademoiselle knew that you had no fireshe would scold Marianne."After this speech he inquired about Birotteau's health, and asked in a gentle voice if he had hadany recent news that gave him hopes of his canonry. The vicar explained the steps he had taken, andtold, naively, the names of the persons with whom Madam de Listomere was using her influence, quite unaware that Troubert had never forgiven that lady for not admitting him-the AbbeTroubert, twice proposed by the bishop as vicar-general!-to her house.It would be impossible to find two figures which presented so many contrasts to each other asthose of the two abbes. Troubert, tall and lean, was yellow and bilious, while the vicar was what wecall, familiarly, plump. Birotteau's face, round and ruddy, proclaimed a kindly nature barren of ideas, while that of the Abbe Troubert, long and ploughed by many wrinkles, took on at times anexpression of sarcasm, or else of contempt; but it was necessary to watch him very closely beforethose sentiments could be detected. The canon's habitual condition was perfect calmness, and hiseyelids were usually lowered over his orange-colored eyes, which could, however, give clear andpiercing glances when he liked. Reddish hair added to the gloomy effect of this countenance, whichwas always obscured by the veil which deep meditation drew across its features. Many persons atfirst sight thought him absorbed in high and earnest ambitions; but those who claimed to know himbetter denied that impression, insisting that he was only stupidly dull under Mademoiselle Gamard'sdespotism, or else worn out by too much fasting. He seldom spoke, and never laughed. When it didso happen that he felt agreeably moved, a feeble smile would flicker on his lips and lose itself in thewrinkles of his face.