reality superior to their parents. The race of the Rougons was destined
to become refined through its female side. Adelaide had made Pierre
a man of moderate enterprise, disposed to low ambitions; Felicite
had inspired her sons with a higher intelligence, with a capacity for
greater vices and greater virtues.

At the period now referred to the eldest, Eugene, was nearly forty years
old. He was a man of middle height, slightly bald, and already disposed
to obesity. He had his father's face, a long face with broad features;
beneath his skin one could divine the fat to which were due the flabby
roundness of his features, and his yellowish, waxy complexion. Though
his massive square head still recalled the peasant, his physiognomy was
transfigured, lit up from within as it were, when his drooping eyelids
were raised and his eyes awoke to life. In the son's case, the father's
ponderousness had turned to gravity. This big fellow, Eugene, usually
preserved a heavy somnolent demeanour. At the same time, certain of his
heavy, languid movements suggested those of a giant stretching his limbs
pending the time for action. By one of those alleged freaks of nature,
of which, however, science is now commencing to discover the laws, if
physical resemblance to Pierre was perfect in Eugene, Felicite on
her side seemed to have furnished him with his brains. He offered an
instance of certain moral and intellectual qualities of maternal origin
being embedded in the coarse flesh he had derived from his father. He
cherished lofty ambitions, possessed domineering instincts, and showed
singular contempt for trifling expedients and petty fortunes.

He was a proof that Plassans was perhaps not mistaken in suspecting that
Felicite had some blue blood in her veins. The passion for indulgence,
which became formidably developed in the Rougons, and was, in fact, the
family characteristic, attained in his case its highest pitch; he longed