Moths by Ouida — page 337: what you’re looking at

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

_ MOTHS. O00 improve the moral condition of the peasantry, and at last he had consented; it was an insanity, he added, but an innocent one; she was a saint. ‘‘Alas! alas! what has happened?” thought his sister, ‘‘ what has happened? Oh, why was [ not at Felicite!” ! But she was the only one who feared or wondered; the Prin- cess Vera had always been so strange, and she was a saint. To Jeanne de Sonnaz alone Zouroff said, with his gloomy eyes full of somber ferocity, ‘‘ Je vous venge.” To her sister-in-law, and to the few to whom she ever wrote, Vere said always in her brief letters, “‘ Iam tired of the world, as roe know; Lam glad of this retreat. It is desolate and very dull, but it is peace.” Madame Nelaguine, her eyes sparkling with rage, and all her little person erect in indignant dignity, reproached her brother in a’ torrent of rebuke and censure. ‘‘I imagine very well what happened,” she said to him. ‘‘ You would have Jeanne de Sonnaz under the same roof with Vere.” “‘Respect my friend’s name,” said Zouroff, with savage au- thority, ‘‘or you and I never meet again. Vereis a saint, you say. Well, she has her wish; she goes into retreat. Would it please you better if she were living with Correze?” % eres he is nothing to her!” said Madame Nelaguine, otly. Zouroff shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘Some think otherwise,” he answered. ‘‘You are abrute, and youare a coward—a malignant coward said his sister. ‘‘ You outrage your wife in every way, and you must even dare to soil her innocence with suspicion.” ‘Tf it be suspicion only, time will show,” said Zouroff. ‘*Go and live at Szarisla yourself, if you pity my wife so much.” But Madame Nelaguine, who loved the world and could not live without its excitements and its intrigues, could not face that captivity in the Polish plain, though all the heart she had in her yearned towards her brother’s wife. __ ‘¢ Will you imprison her all her life?” she cried. Zourofi answered, with impatience and fatigue, ‘‘She will re- main there until she receives my friend with respect.” ‘¢ You are a brute,” said his sister, once more. hid ‘‘T protect Jeanne, and I avenge her,” said Zouroff, obstinately. | He fancied that his honor was involved in this defense of his mistress. ‘¢ Jeanne!” echoed his sister, with unutterable scorn. ‘* You ' might as well defend and avenge your quadroon!” But she knew very well that she might as well seek to shake the Ural Mountains at their base as to change the obstinacy of her brother. Jeanne de Sonnaz had gained the empire over him of a re- awakened passion—the einpire of a strong woman over an in- dolent man, of a mistress once deserted, and so doubly tenacious of her hold. There was no beauty in her and no youth; but she had the secret of dominion over men. She cowed this tyrant, she gubdued this man, in whom the self-willof long self-indulgence a ™“ comicbooks (eo)