As long as the old maid exercised her vengeance in an underhand way,
and the vicar was able to shut his eyes to it and refuse to believe in
her malevolent intentions, the moral effect upon him was slight. But
since the affair of the candlestick and the altered clock, Birotteau
would doubt no longer that he was under an eye of hatred turned fully
upon him. From that moment he fell into despair, seeing everywhere the
skinny, clawlike fingers of Mademoiselle Gamard ready to hook into his
heart. The old maid, happy in a sentiment as fruitful of emotions as
that of vengeance, enjoyed circling and swooping above the vicar as a
bird of prey hovers and swoops above a field-mouse before pouncing
down upon it and devouring it. She had long since laid a plan which
the poor dumbfounded priest was quite incapable of imagining, and
which she now proceeded to unfold with that genius for little things
often shown by solitary persons, whose souls, incapable of feeling the
grandeur of true piety, fling themselves into the details of outward
devotion.

The petty nature of his troubles prevented Birotteau, always effusive
and liking to be pitied and consoled, from enjoying the soothing
pleasure of taking his friends into his confidence,--a last but cruel
aggravation of his misery. The little amount of tact which he derived
from his timidity made him fear to seem ridiculous in concerning
himself with such pettiness. And yet those petty things made up the
sum of his existence,--that cherished existence, full of busyness
about nothings, and of nothingness in its business; a colorless barren
life in which strong feelings were misfortunes, and the absence of
emotion happiness. The poor priest's paradise was changed, in a
moment, into hell. His sufferings became intolerable. The terror he
felt at the prospect of a discussion with Mademoiselle Gamard
increased day by day; the secret distress which blighted his life