Moths by Ouida — page 142: what you’re looking at

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

Aber ins ‘MOTHS. band’s horses run, *‘My place should be apart there with those lost women; what am I better than they?” . All the horror of the sin of the world had fallen suddenly on her ignorance and innocence, as an avalanche may fall ona young chamois; the knowledge of it oppressed her, and made a great disgust stay always with her as her hourly burden. She despised herself, and there is no shame more bitter to en- dure. ‘*You are unreasonable, my child,” said her sister-in-law, who, -inacold way, was attached to her, and did pity her. ‘* Any other woman as young as yourself would be happy. My brother is not yourideal. No, that was not to be expected or hoped for; i ? but he leaves you your own way; he is not a tyrant, he lets you enjoy yourself as you may please to do; he never controls your purse or your caprice. Believe me, my love, that, as the world goes, this is as nearly happiness as can be found in marriage— to have plenty of money and to be let alone. You want happi- ness, I know, but I doubt very much if happiness is really ex- istent anywhere on earth, unless you can get it out of social suc- cess and the discomfiture of rivals, as most fortunate wemen do, I think you are unreasonable. You are not offended? No?” ‘*Perhaps [am unreasonable,” assented Vere. ) She never spoke of herself. Her lips had been shut on the day that she had accepted the hand of Sergius Zouroff, and she kept them closed. | She would have seemed unreasonable to every one, as toe Princess Nelaguine, had she done so. Why could she not be happy? ‘With youth, a lovely face and form, the great world her own, and her riches boundless, why could she not be happy, or, at the least, amused and flattered? Amusement and flattery console most women, but they had failed as yet to console her. By example or by precept every one about her made her feel that they should do so. Upon the danger of the teaching neither her husband nor society ever reflected. Young lives are tossed upon the stream of the world, like rose- leaves on a fast-running river, and the rose-leaves are blamed if the river be too strong and too swift for them, and they perish. It is the fault of the rose-leaves. When she thought that this life must endure all her life, she felt a despair that numbed her, as frost kills a flower. To the very young, life looks so long | To Sergius Zouroff, innocence was nothing more than the virgin bloom of aslave had been to his father—a thing to be destroyed for an owner’s diversion. It amused him to lower her, morally and physically, and he éast all the naked truths of human vices before her shrinking oind, as he made her body tremble at his touch. Ti. was a diver- sion, whilst the effect was novel. Like many another man, he never asked himself how the fidelity anc. the chastity that he still expected to have preserved for him would survive his own work of destruction. He never remembered that as you sow so you we ~ une “comic 900 ES P ‘ o” Sale ; . 4 : SUA ; : ij ; ' 6 j . ; ‘ ‘ : 4 + : ‘ ‘ \ Je Serpe ltnriet: ; % BAVA TN 4 ‘ ital felt sf } aint Say be PREM A NRO ¥ oa) set Viele ait i tt) Ch iW ook . we Gave aa s oe ? | ae | Piduh ly m4 > A i ware % ‘ : pS? ait : P com 7 A al VA A een ee i f y ts