s
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
for self-gratification, but in the form of mental enjoyment such as
would gratify his burning desire for domination. A man such as this was
never intended to succeed in a provincial town. He vegetated there
for fifteen years, his eyes turned towards Paris, watching his
opportunities. On his return home he had entered his name on the rolls,
in order to be independent of his parents. After that he pleaded from
time to time, earning a bare livelihood, without appearing to rise above
average mediocrity. At Plassans his voice was considered thick, his
movements heavy. He generally wandered from the question at issue,
rambled, as the wiseacres expressed it. On one occasion particularly,
when he was pleading in a case for damages, he so forgot himself as to
stray into a political disquisition, to such a point that the presiding
judge interfered, whereupon he immediately sat down with a strange
smile. His client was condemned to pay a considerable sum of money,
a circumstance which did not, however, seem to cause Eugene the least
regret for his irrelevant digression. He appeared to regard his speeches
as mere exercises which would be of use to him later on. It was this
that puzzled and disheartened Felicite. She would have liked to see her
son dictating the law to the Civil Court of Plassans. At last she came
to entertain a very unfavourable opinion of her first-born. To her
mind this lazy fellow would never be the one to shed any lustre on the
family. Pierre, on the contrary, felt absolute confidence in him,
not that he had more