Moths by Ouida — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

EUV ie ta, MOTHS. if they perish prematurely, never blames itself. The strests absorh the girls of the poor, society absorbs the daughters of the rich; and not seldom one form of prostitution, like the other, keeps its captives ‘‘bound in the dungeon of their own corruption.” — CHAPTER XI. IT was snowing in Viera. Snow lay heavy on all the plaing and roads around, and the Danube was freezing fast. “‘1t will be barely colder in Moscow,” said Correze, with a shiver, as he threw his furs about him and left the opera-house amidst the frantic cheers and adoring outcries of the crowd with- out, after his last appearance in Romeo e Guilietta. In the bitter, glittering frosty night a rain of hothouse flowers fell about him; he hated to see them fall; but his worshipers did not know that, and would not have heeded it if they had. Roses and violets, hyacinth and white lilac, fell about his feet, lined his path, and carpeted his carriage as if it were April in the south, instead of November in Austria, ! Kis hand bad just been pressed by an emperor’s, a ring of bril- hiants beyond price had just been slid on his finger by an empress; the haughtiest aristocracy of the world had caressed him and flattered him and courted him; he was at the supreme hight of fame, and influence, and fashion. and genius: yet, as he felt the roses and the lilies fall about him, he said restlessly to himself: ‘¢ When 1 am old and nobody heeds me, |} shall look back to this night, and such nights as this, as to a lost Heaven; why, in Heaven’s name, cannot I enjoy it now?” But enjoyment is not to be gained by reflecting that to enjoy és our duty, and neither the diamonds nor the roses did he care for, nor did he care for the cheers of the multitude that stood out under the chill brilliant skies for the chance of seeing him pass down the streets. Itis a rare and splendid royalty, too, that of a great singer; but he did not care for its crowns. The roses made him think of .a little hedge-rose gathered by a sweet- brier bush on a cliff by a gray, quiet sea. With such odd caprices does fate often smite genius. He drove to the supper-table of a very great lady, beautiful as the morning; and he was the idol of the festivity which was in his honor; and the sweet eyes of its mistress told him that no audacity on his part would be deemed presumption; yet it all left him careless and almost cold. She had learned Juliet’s part by heart, but he had forgotten Romeo’s—had left it behind him in the opera-house with his old Venetian velvets and lace. From that great lady’s, whom he left alone with a chill heart, empty and aching, he went with his comrades to the ball of the Elysium down in the subterranean vaults of the city, whera again and again in many winters he had found contagion in the elastic mirth and the buoyant spirit of the clean-limbed, bright- — eyed children of the populace, dancing and whirling and leaping far down under the streets to the Styrian music. But it did not amuse him this night; nor did the dancers tempt him; the whir} comicboo a( (0)