Grace
Copyright 2002, All rights reserved
The noblest virtues may continue to flourish in a soul already tainted by the practice of sin. Although prideful, gluttonous, and wrathful, Duperrier was still steeped in Christian charity and maintained a high regard for his duties as a man and a husband. When he saw that heaven showed no reaction to his fits of anger, he resolved to be envious. Truth be told, although he hadn't noticed it, envy had already stolen into his heart. Eating well tires the liver, and pride exasperates one's sense of injustice, and both of these dispose even the best of men to envy his fellow man. And anger lent a hateful voice to Duperrier's envy. He began to be jealous of his family, his friends, his boss, the neighborhood merchants, and even sports stars and movie stars whose pictures appeared in the newspapers. Everything offended him. Sometimes he would tremble with petty rage when he thought of how his neighbor had a sterling silver carving set, while his was merely horn-handled. Nonetheless, his halo remained resplendent. Instead of being astonished by this, he concluded that his sins had no reality, and he had no lack of explanations: that his so-called gluttony did not exceed the healthy requirements of his appetite; likewise his anger and his envy revealed a mind thirsting for justice. But his halo remained his strongest argument.
"Somehow I imagined that heaven would be a bit more touchy," his wife would say sometimes. "If your piggery, your boasting, your brutality, and your baseness of heart don't tarnish your halo, I guess I don't have to worry about my place in heaven.
"Shut up!" he retorted wrathfully. "Are you through riding me, woman? I'm fed up to here! To think that a saintly man like me has to make his way down the path of sin, and all for Madame's peace of mind! What the hell are you complaining about? Just shut up, do you hear me?"
The tone of these retorts clearly lacked that sweetness one might reasonably expect from a man who's been crowned with God's glory. Since he'd started sinning, Duperrier tended toward vulgarity. His ascetic face was beginning to fatten up due to his rich diet. It wasn't just his vocabulary that was growing heavy; his thoughts were gaining weight, too. His vision of paradise had changed markedly, for example. Instead of seeing a symphony of souls in diaphanous robes, the dwelling of the just appeared more and more clearly in his imagination as a vast dining room. Mme. Duperrier did not fail to notice the changes in her husband, and even began to entertain some fears for the future. Still, the prospect of seeing him descend into the depths did not yet outweigh the horror of being conspicuous. If the alternative was Duperrier in a halo, she thought, it was better to have a husband who was an atheist, a sensualist, and foul-mouthed like cousin Leopold. At least he wouldn't embarrass her in front of the neighbors.
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