ting
sun and so dry that our feet slipped upon it. I held Madeleine by the
hand to keep her up. Madame de Mortsauf was leading Jacques. The count,
who was in front, suddenly turned round and striking the earth with his
cane said to me in a dreadful tone: "Such is my life!--but before I knew
you," he added with a look of penitence at his wife. The reparation
was tardy, for the countess had turned pale; what woman would not have
staggered as she did under the blow?

"But what delightful scenes are wafted here, and what a view of the
sunset!" I cried. "For my part I should like to own this barren moor; I
fancy there may be treasures if we dig for them. But its greatest wealth
is that of being near you. Who would not pay a great cost for such a
view?--all harmony to the eye, with that winding river where the soul
may bathe among the ash-trees and the alders. See the difference
of taste! To you this spot of earth is a barren waste; to me, it is
paradise."

She thanked me with a look.

"Bucolics!" exclaimed the count, with a bitter look. "This is no life
for a man who bears your name." Then he suddenly changed his tone--"The
bells!" he cried, "don't you hear the bells of Azay? I hear them
ringing."

Madame de Mortsauf gave me a frightened look. Madeleine clung to my
hand.

"Suppose we play a game of backgammon?" I said. "Let us go back; the
rattle of the dice will drown the sound of the bells."

We returned to Clochegourde, conversing by fits and starts. Once in the
salon an indefinable uncertainty and dread took possession of us. The
count flung himself into an armchair, absorbed in reverie, which his
wife, who knew the symptoms of his malady and could foresee an outbreak,
was careful not to interrupt. I also kept silence. As she gave me no
hint to leave, perhaps she thought backgammon might divert the count's
mind and quiet those fatal nervous susceptibilities, the excitements of
which were killing him. Nothing was ever harder than to make him play
that game, which, however, he had a great desire to play. Like a pretty
woman, he always required to be coaxed, entreated, forced, so that he
might not seem the obliged person. If by chance, being interested in the
conversation, I forgot to propose it, he grew sulky, bitter, insulting,
and spoiled the talk by contradicting everything. If, warned by his
ill-humor, I suggested a game, he would dally and demur. "In the first
place, it is too late," he would say; "besides, I