; but I heard cries within the house, and
Madeleine presently came running out.

"The general," she said, crying (the term with her was an expression of
dislike), "the general is scolding mamma; go and defend her."

I sprang up the steps of the portico and reached the salon without being
seen by either the count or his wife. Hearing the madman's sharp cries
I first shut all the doors, then I returned and found Henriette as white
as her dress.

"Never marry, Felix," said the count as soon as he saw me; "a woman is
led by the devil; the most virtuous of them would invent evil if it did
not exist; they are all vile."

Then followed arguments without beginning or end. Harking back to
the old troubles, Monsieur de Mortsauf repeated the nonsense of the
peasantry against the new system of farming. He declared that if he had
had the management of Clochegourde he should be twice as rich as he now
was. He shouted these complaints and insults, he swore, he sprang around
the room knocking against the furniture and displacing it; then in the
middle of a sentence he stopped short, complained that his very marrow
was on fire, his brains melting away like his money, his wife had ruined
him! The countess smiled and looked upward.

"Yes, Blanche," he cried, "you are my executioner; you are killing me; I
am in your way; you want to get rid of me; you are monster of hypocrisy.
She is smiling! Do you know why she smiles, Felix?"

I kept silence and looked down.

"That woman," he continued, answering his own question, "denies me all
happiness; she is no more to me than she is to you, and yet she pretends
to be my wife! She bears my name and fulfils none of the duties which
all laws, human and divine, impose upon her; she lies to God and man.
She obliges me to go long distances, hoping to wear me out and make me
leave her to herself; I am displeasing to her, she hates me; she puts
all her art into keeping me away from her; she has made me mad through
the privations she imposes on me--for everything flies to my poor head;
she is killing me by degrees, and she thinks herself a saint and takes
the sacrament every month!"

The countess was weeping bitterly, humiliated by the degradation of
the man, to whom she kept saying for all answer, "Monsieur! monsieur!
monsieur!"

Though the count's words made me blush, more for him than for Henriette,
they stirred my heart violently, for they appealed to the sense of
chastity and delicacy which