The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence

In the year 1828 any tourist who was on his way from Blois to the little town of Pont Brillant to visit--as travellers seldom fail to do--the famous castle of that name, the mag...

It was a charming picture upon which the few rays of sunshine that succeeded in making their way through the dense canopy of green shone, for every movement and attitude of the...

The approach to the castle was through a broad avenue nearly half a mile long, bordered by a double row of gigantic elms probably four centuries old. A broad esplanade, ornament...

On leaving the immense rotunda which formed the principal conservatory, the head gardener conducted the visitors into other hothouses built on either side of the main structure....

Several days had passed since the visit to the Château de Pont Brillant. Frederick had never left his mother's house to visit the homes of persons of an even humbler station tha...

It is impossible to describe what he suffered then, especially as this feeling, concealed, concentrated as it were in the lowest depths of his soul, had no outlet, and was const...

A promenade called the mall, shaded by lofty trees, bounds Pont Brillant on the south. A few houses stand on the left side of the boulevard, which also serves as a fair ground.

When the cortège entered the mall, Frederick's countenance and expression underwent such a strange transformation that David, who had started toward the window on hearing the no...

On hearing the door open and close, David awoke from his reverie and turned toward the doctor, who, thinking of the painful scene which they had just witnessed, exclaimed, refer...

"You were right, Pierre, I shall take away with me a delightful recollection of this charming Madame Bastien. What you have just told me will often be a subject of pleasant thou...

One more drop makes the cup run over, says the proverb. In like manner, the scene that had occurred on the mall at Pont Brillant on St. Hubert's Day had caused the rancour that...

"Oh, yes. You recollect how jealous Président de Lunel was of the chevalier. Well, one day I said to him, 'Sigismond, wouldn't you like to help me play a fine joke upon the chev...

The Vieille Coupe road, which Raoul de Pont Brillant would be obliged to take on his return from the Château de Montel homeward, was a sort of deep hollow way, with high banks c...

While these events were transpiring in the forest of Pont Brillant, Madame Bastien was a prey to the most poignant anxiety. Faithful to the promise she had made Frederick the ev...

Madame Bastien and her guide hurried on, though more than once the young woman was obliged to press both hands upon her breast to still the violent throbbing of her heart.

Madame Bastien could no longer doubt Frederick's intentions, for she had seen him aim at Raoul de Pont Brillant, at the same time exclaiming, "I have you now, M. le marquis;" bu...

"Have the goodness to read this, madame," said the doctor, drawing a letter from his pocket and handing it to Madame Bastien, who, greatly astonished, took it, and read as follows:

"One word, please. I do not know what your decision may be, but before you announce it I ought to give you some information about Henri David, so you may know all about him befo...

During the brief time which preceded Henri David's arrival the condition of physical weakness which followed Frederick's attack of nervous fever prevented him from leaving the h...

"I wish, madame, that you could see in me a physician who is devoting himself to a dangerous but by no means hopeless case. I should like to receive from you a full account of a...

Madame Bastien took a lamp, and, passing through the little dining-room where Marguerite was laying the table for the frugal evening meal, led the way to the garret, which was d...

As soon as his mother's words brought a full realisation of the crime he had tried to commit, Frederick experienced the keenest remorse; but though he was conscientious enough t...

When Marie presented herself so unexpectedly before him, David was seated at his little table in the attitude of meditation. At the sight of the young woman, pale, weeping, her...

"Overcome by the emotions of yesterday evening, I slept one of those profound and heavy sleeps, the awakening from which often leaves you in a state of torpor for a few moments,...

At his right extended the fallow ground, across which meandered the road which, with Frederick, he had just followed to arrive at the crest of the hill, and he discovered then f...

The conversation between David and Frederick was interrupted by the brickmaker, who entered the chamber, looking very much frightened. "Monsieur," said he, hurriedly, to David,...

At these words of Frederick, "Saved, mother, saved," Marie Bastien looked at her son with mingled feelings of joy and surprise; already he seemed another person, almost transfig...

"And the poor farmers in the valley," said Madame Bastien, her eyes filled with tears. "Their houses, so isolated, are perhaps already submerged, and the miserable people in the...

"André, stay there with the cart," said the preceptor, "because the miserable people, to whose rescue we are going, will be altogether too feeble to walk to Madame Bastien's hou...

While Frederick rowed with incredible energy, over-excited at the sight of the canoe of the marquis, on which from time to time he would cast a look of generous emulation, David...

The young woman had assisted at a few of the episodes of this courageous salvage, by the aid of David's field-glass, leaving the scene, and taking another view by turns, as the...

The weather was clear, the winter sun radiant. Marie Bastien, as she went out on the rustic porch, built above the front door of the house, saw about one hundred persons, men, w...

These words of Marguerite, "Monsieur has come!" announcing the arrival of Jacques Bastien at the very moment in which Marie realised that she owed to David not only the moral re...

"Why, bless me, yes," replied Bridou, with an air of assumed good nature, "madame, your wife, has made a present of your fir-trees to the sufferers from the overflow; that is tr...

"It seems that your hysterics are gone," said Bastien to his son, in a tone of sarcasm, "and you no longer need to travel for pleasure. That is a pity, for I wanted to humour yo...

A loud noise of moving chairs and bursts of laughter from the dining-room informed the young woman that her husband and the bailiff were rising from the table. She hastened to h...

Jacques had reached that degree of drunkenness which is not madness, which leaves the mind even quite clear, but which renders the will implacable; he did not at first reply to...

Jacques Bastien, after having brutally put his wife out of the house, returned to his chamber with a tottering step, threw himself on the bed in his clothes, and fell into a pro...

And pale, his features distorted, his heart broken, he threw himself in an armchair, hid his face in his hands, and burst into tears, vainly trying to suppress his sobs.

Marie, whose beauty was so radiant the evening before, was pale and exhausted; a burning fever coloured her cheeks and made her large blue eyes glitter under her heavy, half-clo...

So many violent and contrary emotions had complicated Marie's disease, and rendered it still more dangerous. For two days her condition had been almost desperate, then by degree...

It will be remembered, perhaps, that at the moment of departure for Blémur, Bridou put on Jacques Bastien's greatcoat, made of goatskin. Bastien, half drunk, had, in spite of ol...

Florence de Luceval, six months married, but not quite seventeen, a blonde with a skin of dazzling whiteness, cheeks rivalling the wild rose in hue, and a wealth of golden hair....

Tall, lithe, and slender, without being thin, and a decided brunette in colouring,--she had beautiful eyes, full of fire, and black as her long, luxuriant hair, and rich scarlet...

We will leave the two ladies for a time and give our attention to M. de Luceval. This gentleman, as we have just learned through his message to his wife, did not intend to dine...

"You proposed I should spend the rest of the day here, my dear Florence, and I accept your offer, so as to give a semblance of truth to my falsehood in case there should be any...

"I can easily understand the deep impression that the incidents of the day on which you saw Cousin Michel for the first time must have made upon you. You saw that he was remarka...

Madame de Luceval had been listening to her friend with rapidly increasing interest and curiosity for several minutes; then, apparently unable to control her emotion any longer,...

It is a winter's day; the cold is intense, the sky gray and lowering. A woman is walking down the Rue de Vaugirard, pausing now and then to glance at the numbers on the houses,...

As the prospective tenant began her ascent, close upon the heels of the concierge, another rather peculiar scene was occurring in the adjoining house, the lower floor of which w...

But before the man with the cigar had gone a dozen yards, his first impression reasserted itself so vividly that he turned, almost involuntarily, to take another look at the lad...

"Yes, let us drop it, madame, for I, too, am tortured by many painful recollections from which I am ever striving to escape, for it is cowardly and degrading to permit one's min...

The morning after this interview between these two travellers who had met in Chili, the following scene occurred in the fourth story of house Number 57, on the Rue de Vaugirard.

Michel and Florence, engrossed in each other, though separated by the width of the street, paid no attention to the cab which was moving slowly along in the same direction, it b...

The events of the morning had upset Madame d'Infreville so completely, and she felt so incapable of coherent thought, that she asked M. de Luceval to return that evening at eigh...

"When the falsehood, to which Florence's affection for me had made her a willing accomplice, was discovered in your presence, four years ago, my husband, on leaving your house,...

Monsieur de Luceval was silent for a moment. A fierce struggle between jealousy, his natural curiosity, and his fear that Madame d'Infreville might warn Florence as she had thre...

It was about three months after M. de Luceval and Madame d'Infreville met in Paris, when the events we are about to relate occurred at a modest villa near the town of Hyères, in...

"Ah," she exclaimed, kissing Valentine tenderly, her eyes filling with tears, "I was sure that you would come. I have been expecting you for two days, and you know the proverb,...

"Ah, well then, my dear Valentine, one thing my husband cannot have told you, as he was not aware of the fact, is that I received a letter from Michel two days after your depart...

"Really, Florence, I hardly know whether I am awake or dreaming. Once more, I ask, is it possible that a person as indolent and fond of ease as you have always been could evince...

"A correspondent, writing from Symarkellil, says that the ascent of one of the highest peaks of the Caucasus was made late in May by two intrepid French tourists, M. and Madame...