On this first day the count said to his wife when he reached home,
"Monsieur Felix is a charming young man."

That evening I wrote to my mother and asked her to send my clothes and
linen, saying that I should remain at Frapesle. Ignorant of the great
revolution which was just taking place, and not perceiving the
influence it was to have upon my fate, I expected to return to Paris
to resume my legal studies. The Law School did not open till the first
week in November; meantime I had two months and a half before me.

The first part of my stay, while I studied to understand the count,
was a period of painful impressions to me. I found him a man of
extreme irascibility without adequate cause; hasty in action in
hazardous cases to a degree that alarmed me. Sometimes he showed
glimpses of the brave gentleman of Conde's army, parabolic flashes of
will such as may, in times of emergency, tear through politics like
bomb-shells, and may also, by virtue of honesty and courage, make a
man condemned to live buried on his property an Elbee, a Bonchamp, or
a Charette. In presence of certain ideas his nostril contracted, his
forehead cleared, and his eyes shot lightnings, which were soon
quenched. Sometimes I feared he might detect the language of my eyes
and kill me. I was young then and merely tender. Will, that force that
alters men so strangely, had scarcely dawned within me. My passionate
desires shook me with an emotion that was like the throes of fear.
Death I feared not, but I would not die until I knew the happiness of
mutual love--But how tell of what I felt! I was a prey to perplexity;
I hoped for some fortunate chance; I watched; I made the children love
me; I tried to identify myself with the family.

Little by little the count restrained himself less in my presence. I