La Faute de l'abbé Mouret Quotes

“There Albine lay, panting, exhausted by love, her hands clutched closer and closer to her heart, breathing her last. She parted her lips, seeking the kiss which should obliterate her, and then the hyacinths and tuberoses exhaled their incense, wrapping her in a final sigh, so profound that it drowned the chorus of roses, and in this culminating gasp of blossom, Albine was dead.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“These people came into the world and left it bound to their soil, proliferating on their own dung-hills with slow deliberation like the uncomplicated soul of trees which scatter their seed about their feet, with little conception of any larger world beyond the dun rocks among which they vegetated.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“He was possessed now with that obsession for the cross in which so many lips have worn themselves away on crucifixes.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“For a few moments, raising his arms desperately, the Reverend Mouret implored Heaven. His shoulder-blades cracked, with such fantastic force did he pray. But soon enough his arms fell to his sides, his hopes abashed. From heaven came one of those silences utterly void of hope known to the devout.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Albine now yielded to him, and Serge possessed her.
And the whole garden was engulfed together with the couple in one last cry of love's passion. The tree-trunks bent as under a powerful wind. The blades of grass emitted sobs of intoxication. The flowers, fainting, lips half-open, breathed out their souls. The sky itself, aflame with the setting of the great star, held its clouds motionless, faint with love, whence superhuman rapture fell. And it was the victory of all the wild creatures, all plants and all things natural, which willed the entry of these two children into the eternity of life.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Raising her arms, she defied Heaven.
'So,' she cried, 'you prefer your God to me? You think he is stronger than I am. You think he will love you better than I would? Ah, what a child you are! Do stop talking such twaddle. What we are going to do is go back to the garden together, and love each other, be happy and free, for that is life.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Ne doutez pas de moi, laissez-moi la force de me vaincre.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“He mused on this village of his, which had sprung up in this place, amid the stones, like the gnarled undergrowth of the valley. All Artaud's inhabitants were inter-related, all bearing the same surname to such an extent that they used double-barrelled names from the cradle up, to distinguish one from another. At some antecedent date an ancestral Artaud had come like an outcast, to establish himself in this waste land. His family had grown with the savage vitality of the vegetation, drawing nourishment from this stone till it had become a tribe, then the tribe turned to a community, till they could not sort out their cousinage, going back for generations. They inter-married with unblushing promiscuity.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“La nuit tombait, le jardin n'était plus qu'un grand cercueil d'ombre.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“As for you, you’re a parson,’ he muttered; ‘you did well; a parson’s a very happy man. The calling absorbs you, eh? And so you’ve taken to the good path. Well! you would never have been satisfied otherwise. Your relatives, starting like you, have done a deal of evil, and still they are unsatisfied. It’s all logically perfect, my lad. A priest completes the family. Besides, it was inevitable. Our blood was bound to run to that. So much the better for you; you have had the most luck.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“Vous ne le voyez pas, lorsqu'il baisse lentement les paupières, comme pour éteindre ses yeux.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Vois, ce sont les autres, c'est tout le monde qui va se mettre entre nous.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Quand mes mains te prennent, elles ne tiennent qu'un rien de ton être... Où es-tu donc tout entière, pour que j'aille t'y chercher ?”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“[...] il n’envisageait que les biens célestes, ne pouvant comprendre qu’on mît en balance une éternité de félicité avec quelques heures d’une joie périssable.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“LA FAUTE DE L’ABBE MOURET’ was, with respect to the date of publication, the fourth volume of M. Zola’s ‘Rougon-Macquart’ series; but in the amended and final scheme of that great literary undertaking, it occupies the ninth place.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression

“As they left the forest, twilight had fallen, and the moon was rising, round and yellow, between the black foliage. It was a delightful walk home through the park, with that discreet luminary peering at them through the gaps in the big trees. Albine said that the moon was surely following them. The night was balmy, warm too with stars. Far away a long murmur rose from the forest trees, and Serge listened, thinking: ‘They are talking of us.’ When they reached the parterre, they passed through an atmosphere of sweetest perfumes; the perfume of flowers at night, which is richer, more caressing than by day, and seems like the very breath of slumber. ‘Good night, Serge.’ ‘Good night, Albine.’ They clasped each other by the hand on the landing of the first floor, without entering the room where they usually wished each other good night. They did not kiss. But Serge, when he was alone, remained seated on the edge of his bed, listening to Albine’s every movement in the room above. He was weary with happiness, a happiness that benumbed his limbs.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“The house beneath slumbered in unbroken stillness. The silence filled his ears with a hum, which grew into a sound of whispering voices. Slowly and irresistibly these voices mastered him and increased the feeling of anxiety which had almost choked him several times that day. What could be the cause of such mental anguish? What could be the strange trouble which had slowly grown within him and had now become so unbearable? He had not fallen into sin.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“I saw your brother Octave at Marseilles last month. He is off to Paris, where he will get a fine berth in a high-class business. The young beggar, a nice life he leads.’ ‘What life?’ innocently inquired the priest. To avoid replying the doctor chirruped to his horse, and then went on: ‘Briefly, everybody is well—your aunt Felicite, your uncle Rougon, and the others. Still, that does not hinder our needing your prayers. You are the saint of the family, my lad; I rely upon you to save the whole lot.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“Orate, fratres,’ resumed the priest aloud as he faced the empty benches, extending and reclasping his hands in a gesture of appeal to all men of good-will. And turning again towards the altar, he continued his prayer in a lower tone, while Vincent began to mutter a long Latin sentence in which he eventually got lost. Now it was that the yellow sunbeams began to dart through the windows; called, as it were, by the priest, the sun itself had come to mass, throwing golden sheets of light upon the left-hand wall, the confessional, the Virgin’s altar, and the big clock.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“The mystery of love, the immolation of the Holy Victim, was about to begin. The server took the Missal and bore it to the left, or Gospel-side, of the altar, taking care not to touch the pages of the book. Each time he passed before the tabernacle he made a genuflexion slantwise, which threw him all askew. Returning to the right-hand side once more, he stood upright with crossed arms during the reading of the Gospel. The priest, after making the sign of the cross upon the Missal, next crossed himself: first upon his forehead—to declare that he would never blush for the divine word; then on his mouth—to show his unchanging readiness to confess his faith; and finally on his heart—to mark that it belonged to God alone. ‘Dominus vobiscum,’ said he, turning round and facing the cold white church.”
― Émile Zola, Abbe Mouret’s Transgression illustrated: Emile Zola

“On m'a soufflé mon dernier coin de soleil : C'est de la farce.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Tu as traversé toutes nos joies, sans les voir, sans les entendre, sans les sentir.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Est-ce que ça me regarde ? Est-ce que je n'avais pas à mettre mes haricots sur le feu ?...”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Et maintenant, que veux-tu que je fasse, si tu emportes toute ma vie ?”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Bon ! cria-t-elle, j'avais déjà oublié que vous étiez là, vous !
Vous pourriez bien tousser avant de parler.
Vous avez une voix qui part brusquement comme celle d'un mort.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Et il est capable de s'écraser le cœur comme on écrase une puce.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“On cause de son mal, on ne se coupe pas le cœur en quatre tout d'un coup, on s'habitue à la séparation, enfin !”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“On ne garde pas ainsi son mal sur la conscience, jusqu'à en étouffer.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“La nuit, je m'éveille, serrant le vide, serrant ton rêve.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret

“Oui, tout son mal venait de ce rire qu'il avait bu.”
― Émile Zola, La Faute de l'abbé Mouret