her own home; the servants had witnessed scenes of
exasperation without exciting cause, in which the premature old man
passed the bounds of reason. They were, however, so devoted to the
countess that nothing so far had transpired outside; but she dreaded
daily some public outburst of a frenzy no longer controlled by respect
for opinion.

Later I learned the dreadful details of the count's treatment of his
wife. Instead of supporting her when the children were ill, he assailed
her with dark predictions and made her responsible for all future
illnesses, because she refused to let the children take the crazy doses
which he prescribed. When she went to walk with them the count would
predict a storm in the face of a clear sky; if by chance the prediction
proved true, the satisfaction he felt made him quite indifferent to
any harm to the children. If one of them was ailing, the count gave
his whole mind to fastening the cause of the illness upon the system
of nursing adopted by his wife, whom he carped at for every trifling
detail, always ending with the cruel words, "If your children fall ill
again you have only yourself to thank for it."

He behaved in the same way in the management of the household, seeing
the worst side of everything, and making himself, as his old coachman
said, "the devil's own advocate." The countess arranged that Jacques
and Madeleine should take their meals alone at different hours from the
family, so as to save them from the count's outbursts and draw all the
storms upon herself. In this way the children now saw but little of
their father. By one of the hallucinations peculiar to selfish persons,
the count had not the slightest idea of the misery he caused. In the
confidential communication he made to me on my arrival he particularly
dwelt on his goodness to his family. He wielded the flail, beat,
bruised, and broke everything about him as a monkey might have done.
Then, having half-destroyed his prey, he denied having touched it. I now
understood the lines on Henriette's forehead,--fine lines, traced as it
were with the edge of a razor, which I had noticed the moment I saw her.
There is a pudicity in noble minds which withholds them from speaking
of their personal sufferings; proudly they hide the extent of their
woes from hearts that love them, feeling a merciful joy in doing so.
Therefore in spite of my urgency, I did not immediately obtain the truth
from Henriette. She feared to grieve me; she