Grace

"God is just," he said, sticking his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. "He knew what he was doing when he gave me this halo. Actually, I deserve it more than any man on earth. They don't make people like me anymore. When I think of the baseness of the human flock, and then I consider all the perfections united in me, it makes me want to spit in people's faces as they pass by. God has repaid me, of course, but if the Church had any sense of justice, don't you think I should at least be archbishop?"

Duperrier had chosen the sin of pride, which allowed him, at the same time he was exalting his own merit, to praise God who had honored him. His wife soon figured out that he was sinning deliberately, and immediately joined in the game.
"Oh my dear, how proud I am of you," she said. "Even with his car and his villa at Vésinet, my cousin Leopold can't hold a candle to you."

"That's just what I think. I could have made my fortune as well as anyone, and better than Leopold, if I had taken the trouble. But I chose another path, and my success is of a different order than your cousin's. I scorn his money, like I scorn him, like I scorn the countless imbeciles who will never comprehend the grandeur of my modest existence. For they have eyes and they see not."

Although he spoke these words half-heartedly, torn by regret, within a few days they became an easy exercise, a habit which no longer cost Duperrier effort. And such is the power of words over the mind that he came to take his own words at face value. His pride, which was no longer feigned in the least, made him unbearable to people he met. His wife, however, kept an anxious watch on the halo's brightness. She saw that it wasn't growing weaker, and it seemed to her that her husband's sin was lacking in weight and consistency. Duperrier readily acknowledged this.

"I couldn't agree with you more," he said. "Here I thought I was being prideful, and all along I was only expressing the simplest, most obvious truth. When one attains the pinnacle of perfection as I have done, why, the word pride no longer has any meaning."