The dinner was lovely.  Jacques, like all children when you take notice of them, jumped into my arms when he saw the flowers I had arranged for him as a garland.  His mother pretended to be jealous; ah, Natalie, you should have seen the charming grace with which the dear child offered them to her.  In the afternoon we played a game of backgammon, I alone against Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf, and the count was charming.  They accompanied me along the road to Frapesle in the twilight of a tranquil evening, one of those harmonious evenings when our feelings gain in depth what they lose in vivacity.  It was a day of days in this poor woman’s life; a spot of brightness which often comforted her thoughts in painful hours.

Soon, however, the riding lessons became a subject of contention.  The countess justly feared the count’s harsh reprimands to his son.  Jacques grew thin, dark circles surrounded his sweet blue eyes; rather than trouble his mother, he suffered in silence.  I advised him to tell his father he was tired when the count’s temper was violent; but that expedient proved unavailing, and it became necessary to substitute the old huntsman as a teacher in place of the father, who could with difficulty be induced to resign his pupil.  Angry reproaches and contentions began once more; the count found a text for his continual complaints in the base ingratitude of women; he flung the carriage, horses, and liveries in his wife’s face twenty times a day.  At last a circumstance occurred on which a man with his nature and his disease naturally fastened eagerly.  The cost of the buildings at the Cassine and the Rhetoriere proved to be half as much again as the estimate.  This news was unfortunately given in the first instance to Monsieur de Mortsauf instead of to his wife.  It was the ground of a quarrel, which began mildly but grew more and more embittered until it seemed as though the count’s madness, lulled for a short time, was demanding its arrearages from the poor wife.

That day I had started from Frapesle at half-past ten to search for flowers with Madeleine.  The child had brought the two vases to the portico, and I was wandering about the gardens and adjoining meadows gathering the autumn flowers, so beautiful, but too rare.  Returning from my final quest, I could not find my little lieutenant with her white cape and broad pink sash; 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.”