the little girl was
growing up puny and delicate, while the little boy, who strongly
resembled his mother, had developed superbly, and was perfectly healthy.
His strongest hope, besides these, was in Jean's children, the eldest of
whom was a magnificent boy, full of the youthful vigor of the races that
go back to the soil to regenerate themselves. Pascal occasionally went
to Valqueyras, and he returned happy from that fertile spot, where the
father, quiet and rational, was always at his plow, the mother cheerful
and simple, with her vigorous frame, capable of bearing a world. Who
knew what sound branch was to spring from that side? Perhaps the wise
and puissant of the future were to germinate there. The worst of it, for
the beauty of his tree, was that all these little boys and girls were
still so young that he could not classify them. And his voice grew
tender as he spoke of this hope of the future, these fair-haired
children, in the unavowed regret for his celibacy.

Still contemplating the tree spread out before him, he cried:

"And yet it is complete, it is decisive. Look! I repeat to you that all
hereditary cases are to be found there. To establish my theory, I
had only to base it on the collection of these facts. And indeed, the
marvelous thing is that there you can put your finger on the cause
why creatures born of the same stock can appear radically different,
although they are only logical modifications of common ancestors. The
trunk explains the branches, and these explain the leaves. In your
father Saccard and your Uncle Eugene Rougon, so different in their
temperaments and their lives, it is the same impulse which made the
inordinate appetites of the one and the towering ambition of the other.
Angelique, that pure lily, is born from the disreputable Sidonie, in the
rapture which makes mystics or lovers, according to the environment. The
three children of the Mourets are born of the same breath which makes of
the clever Octave the dry goods merchant, a millionaire; of the devout
Serge, a poor country priest; of the imbecile Desiree, a beautiful and
happy girl. But the example is still more striking in the children of
Gervaise; the neurosis passes down, and Nana sells herself; Etienne is
a rebel; Jacques, a murderer; Claude, a genius; while Pauline, their
cousin german, near by, is victorious virtue--virtue which struggles
and immolates itself. It is heredity, life itself which makes imbeciles,
madmen, crimin