made a sop for that lion without claws or mane. I found an excuse for
my visits which seemed plausible to every one. Monsieur de Mortsauf
proposed to teach me backgammon, and I accepted; as I did so the
countess was betrayed into a look of compassion, which seemed to say,
"You are flinging yourself into the jaws of the lion." If I did not
understand this at the time, three days had not passed before I knew
what I had undertaken. My patience, which nothing exhausts, the fruit
of my miserable childhood, ripened under this last trial. The count
was delighted when he could jeer at me for not putting in practice the
principles or the rules he had explained; if I reflected before I
played he complained of my slowness; if I played fast he was angry
because I hurried him; if I forgot to mark my points he declared,
making his profit out of the mistake, that I was always too rapid. It
was like the tyranny of a schoolmaster, the despotism of the rod, of
which I can really give you no idea unless I compare myself to
Epictetus under the yoke of a malicious child. When we played for
money his winnings gave him the meanest and most abject delight.

A word from his wife was enough to console me, and it frequently
recalled him to a sense of politeness and good-breeding. But before
long I fell into the furnace of an unexpected misery. My money was
disappearing under these losses. Though the count was always present
during my visits until I left the house, which was sometimes very
late, I cherished the hope of finding some moment when I might say a
word that would reach my idol's heart; but to obtain that moment, for
which I watched and waited with a hunter's painful patience, I was
forced to continue these weary games, during which my feelings were
lacerated and my money lost. Still, there were moments when we were
silent, she and I, looking at the sunlight on the meadows, the clouds
in a gray sky, the misty hills, or the quivering of the moon on the