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PARTISAN REVIEW
becoming aware of it, envy had already insinuated itself into
his
heart.
Rich fare, with its strain on the liver, and pride, which intensifies the
sense of injustice, are inclined to make the best of men envious of
his
neighbor. Duperrier's anger added to his envy a note of hate. He
began to be jealous of his relatives, his friends, his boss, the trades–
people in the neighborhood, and even of the sports idols and motion–
picture stars whose photographs appeared in the newspapers. He took
everything as a personal offense, and the thought that
his
next-door
neighbor owned a silver-handled carving set while his was only made
of bone made him shake with unseemly rage.
Meanwhile his halo continued to shine resplendently. Instead
of showing surprise at this, Duperrier concluded that his sins
were not genuine sins, and he found no lack of reasons for this. His
alleged gluttony did not exceed the demands of a healthy appetite,
he argued; his anger and envy testified to a mind that thirsted for
justice. But the most foolproof of all his arguments continued to be
the halo.
"Mter all, I should have thought that God would be more
of a stickler," his wife would sometimes say.
"If
your piggishness,
your loud boastings, your boorishness and your wicked thoughts leave
your halo as bright as ever, I see no reason why I should have to
worry about my chances of getting into Heaven."
"So
you're shooting off your mouth again! " came the quick
reply. It was the sin of anger now that was uppermost. "Why don't
you stop pestering me? I've had about all I can take. A saintly man
like me takes to sin as the only way he knows of bringing back his
wife's peace of mind, and she looks upon it as a joke! Well, I've had
about all of your mouth I can take, do you hear?"
This retort obviously lacked the mildness of tone one would
rightfully expect from a man wearing the aureole of God's glory.
Duperrier's behavior had a tendency to vulgarity since he had
begun sinning. His face had taken on flesh and lost its ascetic look.
His vocabulary, even his thoughts, inclined to heaviness. For example,
his vision of Paradise had undergone a notable transformation. The
sojourn of the just no longer appeared in
his
imagination as a sym–
phony of souls in cellophane robes, but instead took the form of a
spacious dining room. Madame Duperrier was not unaware of the
changes which had come over the entire person of her husband, and
