The Seven Deadly Sins (ballet chanté) sisters set out from the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana to find their fortune in the big cities, intending to send their family enough money to build a little house on the river. After the prologue, in which Anna I introduces the sisters and their plans, each of seven scenes is devoted to one of the seven deadly sins, each encountered in a different American city: While securing the means to build the little house over the course of seven years, Anna II envies those who can engage in the sins she must abjure. The epilogue ends on
Seven deadly sins disordered love for individuals, thus possessing at least the redeeming feature of mutuality, unlike the graver sins, which constitute an increasingly agonised focusing upon the solitary self (a process begun with the more serious sin of gluttony). It is generally thought to be the least serious capital sin as it is an abuse of a faculty that humans share with animals, and sins of the flesh are less grievous than spiritual sins (love excessive, not love turning ever further awry toward hatred of man and God). In Dante's "Purgatorio", the penitents walk deliberately through the purifying flames of the uppermost