Moths by Ouida — page 272: what you’re looking at

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

) 268 MOTHS. Jeanne had gone ona round of visits to friends in Croatia, Coure land, and Styria. Troops of guests in succession had arrived, stayed at, and departed.from the great Zouroff palace on the Baltic; and, when the first snows were falling, Sergius Zouroff traveled back to his villaon the Riviera with no more prepara- tion or hesitation than he would have needed to drive from the Barriere de l’Etoile to the. Rue Helder. ‘‘ What waste it is all!” thought his wife, as she looked at the grand front of Svir, its magnificent forests and its exquisite gardens. For ten months out of the year Svir, like Felicite, was like a hundred thousand castles and palaces in Europe; it served only for the maintenance and pleasure of a disorderly and idle troop of hirelings, unjust stewards, and fattening thieves of all sorts. ~~ ‘¢ What would you do with it if you had your way?” asked Madame Nelaguine. She answered, ‘‘I would live init; or I would turn it intoa Russian 8t.-Cyr.” ‘‘ Always sublime, my love!” said Madame Nelaguine, witha touch of asperity and ridicule. The towers of Svir faded from Vere’s sight in the blue mists of evening; afew days and nights followed, and then the crock- etted pinnacles and metal roofs of the Riviera villa greeted her sight against the blue sky and the blue water of the Gulf of Vil- Jafranca. ‘This is accounted the perfection of life,” she thought—‘‘ to have half a dozen admirably appointed hotels all your own, and, among them all, no home!” The married life of Vere had now begun to pass into that stage common enough in our day, when the husband and the wife are utter strangers one to another, their only exchange of words be- ing when the presence of others compels it, and their only ape — pearance together being when society necessitates it. A sort of fear had fallen on Sergius Zouroff of her, and she was thankful to be leftin peace. Thousands of men and women live thus in the world; never touch each other’s hand, never seek each other’s glance, never willingly spend five seconds alone, yet | make no scandal and have no rupture, and go out into society to- gether, and carry on the mocking semblance of union till death parts them. | | Again and again Vere on her knees in her solitude tried to ex- amine the past and see what blame might rest on her for her failure to influence her husband and withhold him from vice, but she could see nothing that she might have done. Even had she been a woman who: had loved him he could have done noth- ing. His feeling for her had been but amere animal impulse; his habits were ingrained in every fiber of his temper. If she had shown him any tenderness, he would have repulsed it with some cynical word; fidelity to his ear was a mere phrase, mean- ing nothing; honor in his creed was comprised in one thing only, — never to shrink beforeaman. Even if she had been a woman who had cared for him, she would have no power to alter his ways of life, Innocent women seldom have any influence, \ comicbooks.com