She thanked me with a look.

"Bucolics!" exclaimed the count, with a bitter look. "This is no life
for a man who bears your name." Then he suddenly changed his tone
--"The bells!" he cried, "don't you hear the bells of Azay? I hear
them ringing."

Madame de Mortsauf gave me a frightened look. Madeleine clung to my
hand.

"Suppose we play a game of backgammon?" I said. "Let us go back; the
rattle of the dice will drown the sound of the bells."

We returned to Clochegourde, conversing by fits and starts. Once in
the salon an indefinable uncertainty and dread took possession of us.
The count flung himself into an armchair, absorbed in reverie, which
his wife, who knew the symptoms of his malady and could foresee an
outbreak, was careful not to interrupt. I also kept silence. As she
gave me no hint to leave, perhaps she thought backgammon might divert
the count's mind and quiet those fatal nervous susceptibilities, the
excitements of which were killing him. Nothing was ever harder than to
make him play that game, which, however, he had a great desire to
play. Like a pretty woman, he always required to be coaxed, entreated,
forced, so that he might not seem the obliged person. If by chance,
being interested in the conversation, I forgot to propose it, he grew
sulky, bitter, insulting, and spoiled the talk by contradicting
everything. If, warned by his ill-humor, I suggested a game, he would
dally and demur. "In the first place, it is too late," he would say;
"besides, I don't care for it." Then followed a series of affectations
like those of women, which often leave you in ignorance of their real