wishes.

On this occasion I pretended a wild gaiety to induce him to play. He
complained of giddiness which hindered him from calculating; his
brain, he said, was squeezed into a vice; he heard noises, he was
choking; and thereupon he sighed heavily. At last, however, he
consented to the game. Madame de Mortsauf left us to put the children
to bed and lead the household in family prayers. All went well during
her absence; I allowed Monsieur de Mortsauf to win, and his delight
seemed to put him beside himself. This sudden change from a gloom that
led him to make the darkest predictions to the wild joy of a drunken
man, expressed in a crazy laugh and without any adequate motive,
distressed and alarmed me. I had never seen him in quite so marked a
paroxysm. Our intimacy had borne fruits in the fact that he no longer
restrained himself before me. Day by day he had endeavored to bring me
under his tyranny, and obtain fresh food, as it were, for his evil
temper; for it really seems as though moral diseases were creatures
with appetites and instincts, seeking to enlarge the boundaries of
their empire as a landowner seeks to increase his domain.

Presently the countess came down, and sat close to the backgammon
table, apparently for better light on her embroidery, though the
anxiety which led her to place her frame was ill-concealed. A piece of
fatal ill-luck which I could not prevent changed the count's face;
from gaiety it fell to gloom, from purple it became yellow, and his
eyes rolled. Then followed worse ill-luck, which I could neither avert
nor repair. Monsieur de Mortsauf made a fatal throw which decided the
game. Instantly he sprang up, flung the table at me and the lamp on
the floor, struck the chimney-piece with his fist and jumped, for I
cannot say he walked, about the room. The torrent of insults,