de Chessel's library, and I studied it. My host was kind enough to
give me a few lessons; less harshly taught by the count I made good
progress and applied the rules and calculations I knew by heart.
Within a few days I was able to beat Monsieur de Mortsauf; but no
sooner had I done so and won his money for the first time than his
temper became intolerable; his eyes glittered like those of tigers,
his face shrivelled, his brows knit as I never saw brows knit before
or since. His complainings were those of a fretful child. Sometimes he
flung down the dice, quivered with rage, bit the dice-box, and said
insulting things to me. Such violence, however, came to an end. When I
had acquired enough mastery of the game I played it to suit me; I so
managed that we were nearly equal up to the last moment; I allowed him
to win the first half and made matters even during the last half. The
end of the world would have surprised him less than the rapid
superiority of his pupil; but he never admitted it. The unvarying
result of our games was a topic of discourse on which he fastened.

"My poor head," he would say, "is fatigued; you manage to win the last
of the game because by that time I lose my skill."

The countess, who knew backgammon, understood my manoeuvres from the
first, and gave me those mute thanks which swell the heart of a young
man; she granted me the same look she gave to her children. From that
ever-blessed evening she always looked at me when she spoke. I cannot
explain to you the condition I was in when I left her. My soul had
annihilated my body; it weighed nothing; I did not walk, I flew. That
look I carried within me; it bathed me with light just as her last
words, "Adieu, monsieur," still sounded in my soul with the harmonies
of "O filii, o filioe" in the paschal choir. I was born into a new
life, I was something to her! I slept on purple and fine linen. Flames