The countess guessed the past from the present, and read the future.
Though nothing is so difficult as to make a man happy when he knows
himself to blame, she set herself to that task, which is worthy of an
angel. She became stoical. Descending into an abyss, whence she still
could see the sky, she devoted herself to the care of one man as the
sister of charity devotes herself to many. To reconcile him with
himself, she forgave him that for which he had no forgiveness. The
count grew miserly; she accepted the privations he imposed. Like all
who have known the world only to acquire its suspiciousness, he feared
betrayal; she lived in solitude and yielded without a murmur to his
mistrust. With a woman's tact she made him will to do that which was
right, till he fancied the ideas were his own, and thus enjoyed in his
own person the honors of a superiority that was never his. After due
experience of married life, she came to the resolution of never
leaving Clochegourde; for she saw the hysterical tendencies of the
count's nature, and feared the outbreaks which might be talked of in
that gossipping and jealous neighborhood to the injury of her
children. Thus, thanks to her, no one suspected Monsieur de Mortsauf's
real incapacity, for she wrapped his ruins in a mantle of ivy. The
fickle, not merely discontented but embittered nature of the man found
rest and ease in his wife; his secret anguish was lessened by the balm
she shed upon it.

This brief history is in part a summary of that forced from Monsieur
de Chessel by his inward vexation. His knowledge of the world enabled
him to penetrate several of the mysteries of Clochegourde. But the
prescience of love could not be misled by the sublime attitude with
which Madame de Mortsauf deceived the world. When alone in my little
bedroom, a sense of the full truth made me spring from my bed; I could