Moths by Ouida — page 266: what you’re looking at

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

Fees —_—- =~ 262 | MOLES, so much to avenge, and your class so much to expiate, that theit. offense cannot equal yours. You think I cannot understand these things? You are mistaken. There is suffering and injust- ice enough on your own lands of Svir alone to justify a revolu- tion. I know it; Lseeit; I suffer under it—suffer because I am powerless to remedy it, and Iam supposed to be acquiescent in it. If you allowed me to interest myself in your country, I would try not to feel every hour in it an exile, and the emptiness and nothingness of my life would cease to oppress and to tore ment me——” ) ) ‘¢Silence!” said Zouroff, with petulance.: ‘‘ You may come here for prayer, but I do not come here for sermons. The empti- ness of your life! What do you mean? You are young, and you . are beautiful; and you have in me a husband who asks nothing of you except to look well and to spend money. Cannot you be happy? Think of your new cases from Worth’s, and let political agitators keep the monopoly of their incendiary rubbish. You have been the beauty of Paris and Petersburg for three years. That should satisfy any woman.” ‘‘Tt merely insults me,” she answered him. ‘‘Society comes and stares. So it stares at the actress Noisette; so it stares at that nameless woman whom you call Casse-une-Croute. Is that a thing to be proud of? You may beso; I am not. Men make me compliments, or try to make them, that I esteem no better than insults. Your own friends are foremost; they talk of my portraits, of my busts, of my jewels, of my dresses. Another year it will be some one else that they will talk about, and the will cease to look at me. They find me cold, they find me stupid. I am glad that they do; if they did otherwise, I should have hved to despise myself.” ‘‘ Nom de Dieu!” muttered Zouroff; and he stared at her, wondering if she had said the names of Noisette and Casse une-Croute by hazard, or if she knew? He began to think she knew. He had always thought her blind as a statue, igs norant as a nun; but, as she stood before him, for the firs? time letting loose the disdain and the weariness that consumed | her heart into words, he began slowly to perceive that, though he had wedded a child, she wasa child no longer; he began te perceive that, after three years in the great world, his wife had grown to womanhood with all that knowledge which the great world alone can give. As she had said nothing to him, after the Kermesse, of the ab- sence of Noisette, he had fancied her anger a mere boutade, due, ria ae ; (WJ OR eh Pe ‘ q “h Wis i y\ bd i (* P 4 Py Oe eee Fe ee Pi poe to pride, which he knew was very strong in her. Now e saw that his wife’s silence had arisen not from ignorance, but from submission to what she conceived to be her duty, or per- haps, more likely still, from scorn-—a scorn too profound and too cold to stoop to reproach or to reproof, ‘“Why cannot you be like any other woman?” he muttered. ‘s Why cannot you content yourself with your chiffons, your con- eg your beauty? If you were an ugly woman one could un- retand your taking refuge in religion and politics; but, at your ie bon ———— —_ Wigs WAS CIN y Li ae ~ comicboc ks _— r j Pinel) ‘ ‘ iy 6 ie : ie : , a Ps ; i is t ¥ : & , é yaa f Ay res 4 ) id, r oT £Y ma Lo T. Wir. ee. ©. Awa ot, Le ar’. ie, . vik aan . FP se as ri * “obo Saw et - . »