The Joy of Life by Émile Zola

It was _ennui_ that lay below all Lazare's gloomy sadness, a heavy continuous _ennui_ which rose from everything, like murky waters from some poisoned spring. He was bored both with work and with idleness, and with himself even more than with others. However, he took himself to task for his idleness and felt ashamed of it. It was disgraceful for a man of his age to waste the best years of his life in such a hole as Bonneville. Until now he had had some excuse for doing so, but at present there was no longer anything to keep him at home, and he despised himself for staying there, leading a useless existence, living upon his family, who were scarcely able to keep themselves. He told himself that he ought to be making a fortune for them, and that he was failing shamefully in not doing so, as he had formerly sworn he would.

Great schemes for the future, grand enterprises, the idea of a vast fortune acquired by some brilliant stroke of genius, still occurred to him; but when he rose up from his reveries he lacked the energy to turn his thoughts into action.